PACIFIC GATE UNIT

is blessed to become a part

of the recovery efforts in Northern Japan.

Last March, 12 hours before the earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan, our Pacific Gate Unit left Japan for Guam and the eastward swing of their mission that brings them back to North America.  They had to finish the mission with hearts that were aching for the people they serve for the bulk of their 9 month mission. 

In consultation with International Director Bobbi Johnson-Tanner, Kurt and Cathy Purucker proposed taking 2-3 weeks of their mission to go up to northern Japan simply as part of the relief effort.  To that end, they contacted a broad number of their supporters throughout their area and invited them to participate through financial support to enable them to become a part of the relief effort.  Those supporters came forward with abundant blessing and we are all deeply grateful.

During the middle of October, our Pacific Gate Unit had the wonderful opportunity to take that first week of ministry to the struggling people in the Sendai area.  What follows are portions of reporting letters written by Kurt Purucker (center) on behalf of he and his wife Cathy (right) and fellow unit member, Kate Bosch.

Greetings from somewhere near Sendai, Japan. We're staying at a lovely camp compound near the town of Rifu, a little to the north. There's a number of other relief workers here, a little over 30 of us right now. Meals, devotions and work are all community events, not unlike CPCC.

We've now spent our first day as volunteers doing tsunami relief work. As we drove to the work site, our driver shared his story.  He is from this area, though had moved away down to Tokyo. His family lives here, and they have property. His mother is a teacher at a school located less than a half mile from the ocean, which was hit badly by the wave. He spoke of the students having to go up to the fifth floor, because the floors below were flooded, and how his mother was the last to be airlifted from the school by helicopter. Along the way, he pointed out the foundations of houses that were no longer there, a whole community gone. There were still cars strewn across the landscape (though in an orderly fashion, now that relief efforts have been happening). And also he identified where there had been a row of trees, a wind break, where now there are mostly stumps. The wave went over an embankment, as well as going over the tops of the trees.

Our work today was to help clean out a field.  The owner is an acquaintance of one of the relief workers, so was approached about being helped. He agreed, but had decided he wanted to restore his land before restoring his house, so the labors have been of that variety. There have been several teams out to help him, and each time they conclude their days work, they pray with him. He isn't a Christian, but is growing interested. We spent most of six hours breaking up clumps of soil that had been turned, trying to remove the bits of plastic, metal and glass that have accumulated there. This field had been cleaned already, but because of the lack of wind break, the recent typhoons that have gone through have brought debris back. Most of the soil we worked through was the 3 inch sediment that the tsunami left behind.

When we were done with our day’s work, he brought us cold soft drinks to refresh us. As we were enjoying, two of his friends arrived. Because we didn't want to impose in their conversation, we started off without praying with him. However, his friends, being aware of the team’s tradition of "giving final greetings" as they put it, asked about the prayer. So, the nine of us prayed together, six workers and three survivors. That they are open to praying is a joy itself, but that they encouraged it was wonderful.

This evening we shared a couple of plays after dinner, and the other relief workers were encouraged and blessed by our offering. The rains have come tonight, so tomorrow we’ll be helping around the campground damaged by the earthquake, and helping out with a benefit concert. We will stay and work out of this location through most of next week, seven days total this time, and later next month we'll be back up here with a different group of relief workers.

Today as we were cleaning the field, I had a thought that we were just taking care of the most surface debris, there was likely much more cleaning to be done underneath. I liken this to our personal efforts to better ourselves, working on being more patient or less sharp with our tongues, all the while God is doing a deeper work in us, building our compassion and love for others.

Flowers still bloom; we saw a fig tree heavy with ripe figs today, and there is life all around, people, animals, insects, birds…  Much of the land will remain polluted for several years, yet surprisingly, the farm we worked on today has been tested and found safe.

What follows is a segment of Kurt Purucker’s reporting letter immediately following their week in Sendai.

Greetings in Christ. I hope you all are well. Strange to think we're at the halfway point of the Exodus mission. Our sense of time is really messed up right now because of these little compartments of our mission. It's often like that, going from island to island, but for whatever reason it seems more profound right now.

Part, too, is the essence of our mission being so "different" during the times of doing relief work, I think.  Anyway, you know already basically what our week has been like. We managed to perform every single day while also doing relief work, six times this week. It's hard to consider some of what we did "work", though. I'm finding the value I place on certain actions and/or attitudes being challenged and affected. To serve coffee with purpose being just as valuable as physical labor?

Giving a hand massage just as valuable as doing a play?  That's a challenging thought. In its deepest sense, it should be a challenge to us in our craft. Our goal is that sense of being that Chuck’s plays give us opportunity to share with others, yet we disseminate it down to "did we get the lines right". If this is true, too, we have such a blessed opportunity in this ministry, the opportunity to "BE" in a tangible, radical, life-changing sense, that so many people never consider. That kind of ups the ante concerning our preparation, doesn't it?

During our time in the Sendai area, we were housed at a Christian campground. Cathy and I were privileged to have a room to ourselves; Kate shared one with three other ladies. Breakfast and dinner were sufficient, basic Japanese fare - rice, miso soup, a little protein and vegetable each time. Lunches were pre-packaged bread products, things like ham and scrambled eggs on toast, or sausage rolls. CRASH, the relief organization we were partnering with, now staffs the camp, and they were most hospitable. The little oddities of meals prepared at a building five minutes drive away, or showers taken at a different building down the drive were quaint, and easy to put up with.

Each day, when we returned from work, the various teams were asked to give a briefing on the day’s event. One thing became clear pretty quickly: God had something in store for everyone this week. The reflections on their days were often further ministering to the other workers present, too.

In the midst of being away from normal methods, we still managed to book a few dates. One is with a home school group for next week, and another two for Guam coming up. We also have added an additional day on to a previously booked saturation time. We've gotten a mass mailing out to Guam, but there's not been much response back yet. I was sharing with someone yesterday about our reporting process, specifically the challenge of telling the story of the mission as pertains to this week, without giving it glamour, melodrama or hyperbole.

The truth is, we live a fantastic life, in both traditional and current definitions of the word. There may be detriment to consider this life commonplace, when it stands in such bold contrast to other people's lives. We are blessed. Our lives are so rich and full. We walk so closely to the presence of God, even in our ignorance, because we are fools for Christ! I think working in relief efforts has given us a new vision of these things, particularly when we sought to be part of something bigger, someone else's organized efforts, yet were still identified as special amongst the workers. Why? Why us? We must embrace the uniqueness, the paradoxical lives we live, lest we consider it's somehow of our own doing. How favored we are in this life.

Sorry, I've gone on longer than planned. There's so much work to be done, and so little time to do it, it seems, yet our lives are so wonderfully full. I know it's not easy to consider yourselves part of this when you stare at a computer screen most of the day, and work out of an office and those kinds of normal things, but you are. Each staff person in CP can say "that's me" out there in the field, because you've lived it, too, and facilitate support each day to the units who currently live it. Bless you.

In Christ,

Kurt