Every day in Japan is a life-changing experience.

We worked on a home in Ishinomaki for a woman named Tokiko. Our first bit of encouragement came from a funny occurrence at her house. The carpentry crew was experiencing an earthquake, and as it rumbled for a while I mentioned that maybe we should get out.

That second a large jolt shook the house. I jumped out of the doorway onto the patio and then proceeded to run away. Tokiko started laughing hysterically at me, so that was the beginning that broke the ice. We were suddenly friends, because laughter is a universal language that doesn't require an interpreter.

A couple days later, the crew was praying and asked God for pure hearts and pure motives. About 45 minuets later I noticed a pattern of stain on our team leader’s shirt. I shouted, “Look, Daniel there's a heart on your shirt” and I ran for my camera.

Later that day, we conversed with Tokiko through a translator and asked if she would join us in prayer. We showed her the photo of the heart of sweat and she got goose bumps. It seemed to open up the lines of communication even more, and so we asked her to share her story of the earthquake and tsunami.

We gathered the crew, and she allowed us the privilege to see a window into her life. She told us all the details of her horrifying story, of how she and her daughter and little puppy rode out the tsunami in the upstairs of her home.




She was so kind and gracious to us as we worked on her home. When we finished the project she was so happy that she was hugging the necks of the crew. She was excited to have her house back again, and to begin the process of getting back to normal.

As we moved on to another house, we got word that Paster Suzuki was spending time with Tokiko and that she had made a decision to accept Christ into her heart.

There were many teams that worked on her house and planted seeds along the way. Some of the seeds came from gallons of sweat that we all dripped on the floor. Some of the seeds came from calloused hands and bloody fingers that come from rebuilding a house back into a home.




Tokiko touched our lives in a way we will not forget. She gave us something that money cannot buy—the joy of seeing a new member enter into the family of God.

We need more workers to come so we can get many more houses put back together. God can use calloused hands and yielded hearts to help rebuild lives.

The people here are so gracious and grateful. I can't imagine anything more gratifying and rewarding than being here and working alongside the Japanese people.