May 23, 2021
Sheffield, England – As peals of laughter echo from the busy workshops above, Nozomi Project founder Sue Takamoto pauses, smiling as she hands me one of the latest pieces in their new jewelry line.
“They’re always laughing about something,” she explains, referring to her small, all-female team of artisans. “They have so much fun together.” In their modest headquarters in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, Takamoto and the Nozomi team turn fragments of tsunami-broken pottery into beautiful jewelry. Creating work for those left without in the wake of the disaster, the Nozomi Project is a place filled with memories, but has its eyes set firmly on the future.
Image: Illustration by Mallory Rentsch / Source Images: Courtesy of Asian Access / WikiMedia Commons
Japanese Christians in Tohoku and other areas affected by the 2011 triple disaster in Fukushima.
On February 13, almost 10 years to the date after the infamous March 11 triple disaster that struck northeast Japan, a 7.3-magnitude earthquake shook the same region.
Like a strobe light, memories and emotions that had been dimming for a decade returned. However, the aftershock was not just a reminder of the devastation and 20,000 deaths from 2011’s 9.0-magnitude earthquake in the Tohoku region and resulting 45-foot tsunami and nuclear disaster in Fukushima. It also prompted the Japanese church to call to mind all that God has done since.