We just welcomed back our third team from Japan, which completes this year’s edition of JapanRebuild’s Summer Project 2011.  I had the privilege of working with the staff of Cru (that’s the new name for the U.S. arm of Campus Crusade for Christ) training, briefing, and debriefing each of our three teams this past summer.  Some of the observations:

• Though our teams were largely comprised of students, we also had individuals who are “post-collegiates” (hey, it beats being called “older”) who also participated on all three teams.  Of what I could tell, it looked as if age appeared to be a non-issue, just like it was at the CRASH Japan office — people of different ages, of different denominations, from different parts of the world working together and working together well.  That was very cool to observe.

• After five months, it’s amazing how much devastation there still is to clean up.  In some respect, calling our project JapanRebuild isn’t completely accurate, as many areas in Tohoku are still devastated and “rebuild” is still not happening.  One of our students posted a video on YouTube, detailing the destruction that’s still there.  Julian’s video can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBJemBZguo8. 

• The teams survived living in close quarters, doing physical labor — cleaning mud, debris, and trash, digging up possibly contaminated soil and produce, helping put a restaurant back together for business, traveling for hours to get to the affected areas, sharing meals, etc. etc.  Every time you send out a team, you worry about how they’ll get along.  Fortunately, it doesn’t seem like there were any real problems.  I think they made an effort to get along and work together well, and that they did admirably.

• What is it about the onsen?  During the debriefing times, every team had some story related to their visits to the onsen (hot springs).  The stories from today’s group was especially funny — the 3-year-old boy in the women’s bathing facility, finding out how many people can fit into the cold pool at one time, the onsen that was so small that the male and female bathhouses were too close for comfort, and other tales.  Still, it was agreed that nothing beats the hot springs after a long day of work.

• The teams remarked on the appreciation they received from the people they met in Japan.  This is a proud country that has made itself into a world leaders after recovering from so many traumas and tragedies.  This time, the people of Tohoku and the rest of Japan have experienced a disaster that I hope no man or woman will ever have to witness again.  I sense a willingness to accept help from us coming from outside Japan, the opportunity continues.

I hit the ground running (to use the overused cliche) when I returned in June, my feeble excuse for not updating the blog in awhile.  I thought that as we finish the summer project, it’d be a good time to get back to sharing some thoughts and observations.  For me, the school year begins in about two (2) weeks, and it promises to be busy and productive, but it’s hard not to think about going back to Japan much sooner than later.  What we’re going to do with JapanRebuild, what I’m planning on doing…more on that in a future posting.