Land of the rising.... and rising.... and falling.... and rising

Well it's been just over a month since the original 9.0 earthquake on March 11th. The whole country continues to shake with quakes as big as 7.6 in some areas.
I was reflecting this morning (as a 6.1 in Chiba woke me) how strange my life has become in just a few short weeks.
It has become such a commonplace thing to have my entire house shaking and rattling that I now deal with it with resigned annoyance (not to say I am never a little scared by it - the uncertainty of whether or not each quake is going to get stronger or not is always nerve-wracking). I feel a bit like a character from one of my favorite childhood books, The Twenty-One Balloons, who must get his "mountain legs" on Krakatoa to deal with the shaking and moving of the island. Hopefully my own experience will have a better outcome than his.

I have handed over my job at CRASH Japan to a few other volunteers. I may still help here and there but now that school has started again it was too much for me to try to do both CRASH and full time teaching (and part time English teaching). Now that we aren't driving into the command center every day I feel very out of touch with what's happening there, but I do know that the work continues every day. My housemate is going up north again as part of a CRASH Japan team this week - please pray for her and the team.

As the end of my time here in Japan is within sight, I have begun to think a lot more about how much has happened in the last two and a half years - the people who have been part of my life, the relationships I've made, the changes I've seen in people and situations.
Today I was teaching Keito, one of my Tuesday English students, and remembering that when I started with him two years ago he was only three and a half and knew only a few words in English. Not only that but he cried for most of the first few lessons. Now he knows many words, can ask and answer questions in English, and is beginning to read (also, he really likes me and never cries). It's nice to see how far he's come and to know that I've been a part of it.

I had my portrait drawn by a child today... apparently I am blue and have hair that sticks up off the top of my head.
He's three, but strangely perceptive.