Hard to believe that it has been 2 years since Japan was struck with a massive Tsunami. I spent 5 weeks over there with the help effort and made many life long friends. In spite of the absolutely terrible conditions and things we saw, it was also some of the most fulfilling of my life. I remember spending most of the 1st week I was there just unloading trucks. My arms were covered in bruises from the non-stop box lifting. Destruction was everywhere. Several towns were completely missing. I also met some wonderful people. When we met this man on the far right, he was contemplating suicide because he lost everything. We spent a lot of time helping him get back on his feet. He has a great story about trying to save his boats from destruction, only to be nearly killed by the Tsunami as it washed through town, and he escaped by climbing up a chain link fence and clinging there for an hour. Spent most of my GPS tagging with Tomio.The team at the end of the 5 weeks. Wow…great memories of freezing, working and eating together.

I kept a pretty faithful journal on the blog, if you would like to read it how it unfolded, the easiest way to navigate to those posts is to go to the very bottom of the blog, under the Archives, Look in “March 2011” on the links & the story begins around the 10th when I talk about the Tsunami warnings we were getting on Maui. I decided to go the following day believing I would be meeting up with the Salvation Army, but things turned out very differently.