Japanese Volunteer Ministers Helping Farmers Harvest Their Rice

A Volunteer Ministers loads his cart with cut rice plants that have been bound into small bales at the Shinteigai Farm in Northeastern Japan.

Those who survived the earthquake and tsunami in Northeast Japan last March face many challenges.  One family of farmers needed help with their rice harvest.

A team of Volunteer Ministers pitched in to cut the rice and hang it on “rice walls” to dry.

Once dry, the plants will be threshed, which separates the grains of rice from their stalks.

After a day of hard work, the job was done, and the year’s rice harvest, which might otherwise have gone to waste, was salvaged.