FLIGHT OF FRIENDSHIP – JAPAN

It has been five months since the Flight Of Friendship journey to Japan. Although tremendous progress has been made, there remains much to do. Reports indicate that families are still displaced, commerce in the impacted areas continues to suffer, and there is a shortage of nutritional food. With winter approaching, the challenges continue.

This March will be the one-year anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami that took such a devastating toll on Japan. We are organizing a Flight Of Friendship return trip to the Tohoku region to assist with their recovery efforts. Although plans are still being arranged, we will likely fly from the states into Sendai; spend four nights while doing volunteer activities during the day; then travel via bullet train to Tokyo for a few more nights before returning back to the U.S. We look forward to again visiting Japan and showing the Japanese people from this region they have not been forgotten.

Our intent is to adopt a town or community and work exclusively with them on their specific needs. We can't fix every problem in the region, but a more focused approach will allow us to maximize what we can do. We already have contacts in Japan that are working towards setting up a program. The long term goal is to support this designated community into the future.

Please spread the word that another trip is coming and all are welcome. We encourage you to register your interest now in order to quickly attain the information once trip details are finalized.

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Ted Welch

Report from the disaster zone By Ted Welch Delegate Member Flight of Friendship to Japan The day after a briefing in Tokyo on May 30th by the U.S. Ambassador to Japan, John Roos, in Tokyo, we took a bus north to Sendai, 189 miles away. The capital of Miyagi Prefecture, Sendai is about 10 miles inland from the Pacific Ocean and some sixty miles from the 9.0 epicenter of the earthquake. The first devastation we saw was in Kesennuma, a fishing center for tuna and swordfish three ...

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Tanya Harrison

Three of us from Pendleton broke off from the Flight Of Friendship group in Sendai, and went to our sister city, Minami-Soma, for 2 days. The coastal region was also hit hard by the tsunami, and most of the city is within 30 km from the nuclear disaster, with a good chunk of the city within the 20 km exclusion zone. Fortunately, Minami-Soma didn't receive nearly as much radiation as other nearby areas, so I was not uncomfortable about visiting. The physical destruction along the coast in...

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Kevin

The Blue Tarp of Ishinomaki The Blue Tarp of Ishinomaki loved the cherry tree the tarp was made to cover boats and cars but the ocean ate all the boats and cars so the Blue Tarp of Ishinomaki had only the cherry tree To insure the tree could not part from him the Blue Tarp of Ishinomaki entangled the roots as the tree fought and added rocks and dirt the tree relinquished and the Blue Tarp of Ishinomaki was happy But the hunger pangs of the ocean awoke a band of monkeys living in...

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