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Takohachi, a Portland group of taiko drummers, performs Saturday in the Uwajimaya parking lot to celebrate Japanese culture
and raise awareness of disaster relief efforts for Japan.
Festival raises cash for Japan
A Tigard church that sent a team following the disasters is still finding ways to help
By DOMINIQUE FONG THE OREGONIAN
BEAVERTON-Behind the taiko drummers and a troop of girls in big-bowed kimonos, in the corner
booth of the Uwajimaya parking lot, Kenji Yokoy sat in the shade Saturday.
Yokoy, a 33-year-old pastor at Japanese International Baptist Church in Tigard,
watched visitors revel under the summer sun.
He knew that the same sun blazed over students in Japan who sweated in classrooms without air
conditioning or electricity because of the earthquake that struck in March. His church had donated
supplies that would help prevent kids from getting heat stroke.
Yokoy and leaders of eight other local Japanese community groups celebrated their culture Saturday
at the second annual Natsu Matsuri, or summer festival, and raised money to benefit disaster relief efforts in Japan.
A crowd of about 150 wandered into the parking lot, with some doing their grocery shoping and others
enjoying the music and drum performances. Booths sold topus, and curious toddlers tried traditional
Japanese children’s games such as “yo-yo fishing.”
Nearby, church volunteers managed a silent auction and sold cool ties, handmade strips of cloth that
expand in water and, when wrapped around the neck, stay cold and can keep the body from overheating.
After the tsunami and earthquake struck, Yokoy gathered a group of volunteers from his church.
“What are we doing if we’re not going to Japan?” Yokoy remembers thinking.
Within a month, the church raised about $30,000 to pay for supplies and send a team to Japan.
By April, Yokoy and his team arrived in Sendai, a city north of Tokyo, loaded with hygiene
supplies, baby clothes, diapers, instant food, flashlights, batteries and empty gasoline cans.
“It’s overwhelming. You find your mind trying to grasp the situation and you
can’t,” Yokoy said. He saw mangled cars, and the broken asphalt looked like puzzle piece, he said.
The church group visited three other Japanese cities, praying and listening to survivors for two more weeks.
All but one of the group , Jonathan Belz, returned to Tigard, said Yokoy. Belz decided to stay in Japan
to continue the work the church started.
So far, the church has sent 11,000 cool ties for kids in Fukushima, the city where workers raced to repair
equipment failures from a nuclear power plant meltdown. The idea came from Toshio Horii, 61, of Beaverton,
who grew up in Japan and knew how hot and humid summers could become.
His next project, Horii said is finding a way to offer handheld radiation monitors to survivors. The church
team plans to return to Japan in September.
“For as long as they need us, “Yokoy said.
COPYRIGHT (C) 2007 TAKOHACHI, INC PORTLAND, OREGON. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.