on mission 2, we drove by kobuchihama to drop off supplies to a place where supplies weren’t reaching. it was there when i met a fisherman. a kind and gentle man that for some reason, had a strong presence. he didn’t smile, but you can feel some kind of ora and strength in this man. his name was Kimura-san. after the earthquake and tsunami hit on march 11th, he went out to look for his wife and son who were driving back from ishinomaki city. unfortunately, his son was found dead in the car, and his wife is till missing till today. luckily his 2 daughters and younger son survived.
mission 3, i met him again. he was taking his 2 daughters to school when we just happened to be unloading supplies. i looked at the daughters and seen the pain. i couldn’t even confront the little girls that lost their mom and older brother. it was so sad to see their faces, and also so sad to see Kimura-san with his arms around the 2 girls. this image of father with 2 daughters all with sad faces still haunts me till today.
after mission 3, we found out that a school in oshika hanto needed kendo equipment. matsu ordered a box of equipment with donations from “We Are One” so we went to hand deliver it on mission 4. come to find out, Kimura-san was the kendo sensei. we meet again.
this is the day where my life changed. to see Kimura-san display his master teaching skills to the kids, and too see him in the dojo moving like some super hero in a movie took my breath away. i was in awe watching this true samurai in action. of all the samurai movies i watched, i haven’t seen anything like i witnessed this day. strength, power, culture, and respect all in the same dojo.
people ask me why i do these missions? people ask me why i keep on going back? i’ll tell you why. i go back for 3 reasons.
the first is to keep on taking things that people need.
the second reason is to make sure the donations are going into the right hands. yeah, it would be easy to donate it to another organization but the main purpose of our missions were to donate hand to hand. i promised too many people that i will hand deliver things and that’s what we’re doing.
and the third reason is this. to keep on going back and seeing people smile. seeing Kimura-san smile on mission 4 changed me life forever. when i look at this photo, tears build up. not of sorrowness, but of happiness. i didn’t lose loved ones in the tsunami, but i felt like i did. i know i’m not half as traumatized as the people of tohoku, but i still am. i need to see things moving forward with my own eyes, i need to see people smile with my own eyes. i guess you can say it’s a healing process for me, and our team. we all feel the same and when we see the smile, we just want to do more and more. and more and more we will do! see you on mission 5 this november.
WE ARE ONE
