Tomorrow we are free from quarantine, and we give thanks for God’s grace during these last two weeks! We give thanks that our jet lag recovery was surprisingly quick. I woke up on Day 4 and knew I had gotten over the biggest hill of it. The kids truly didn’t seem affected by it at all. We give thanks that we are in a house! In His wisdom, He used our delay to take the apartment we thought was ideal from our hands, and replaced it with an actually perfect house. I can’t imagine quarantining our (reasonably normal) family of five in an apartment, no matter how ideal. The blessings…
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Life Doesn’t Always Fit Nicely Into A Box
Over the last week, we packed our life into 26 boxes. (Okay, that’s not entirely true. We still have about 8,000 Legos, plus our clothes.) Eight days ago we got our supplies from the shipping company. Seven days ago we found out that the only time they had available to pick up our shipment before we leave is today at 8:15 a.m. Okay! I work great with a deadline, I can do that! I canceled school for the week (homeschooling perks), shipped the kids to my mother-in-law’s for eight hours every day, and called upon my inborn strength and hardiness, passed down from my ancestors who came over on the…
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February 2020 Trip To La Grange
With our family’s departure coming within the next month (Lord willing) our family recently took a trip to La Grange, TX, to visit our sponsoring church here in the states. Since we have been planning to leave soon, we knew this would likely be our last opportunity to visit them before beginning our mission to Japan. Our biggest desire was to spend some time in prayer with them and to receive encouragement for the work before leaving. That goal was certainly achieved! We arrived on Thursday night and then spent some time with Scott Elliott and his wife Laura that evening. We grabbed some local Mexican food together, and then…
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Moving Forward
With the new year well upon us and things moving forward for our return to the work in Japan, we wanted to take a moment to update everyone on what we are currently doing, and what the process looks like as we look towards our upcoming transition. First, earlier this month, sister Sanpei and brother Aikawa did us a huge favor by putting together our paperwork and submitting it to the immigration office in Tokyo so that we can receive our work visas. This first step actually only gets us what is called a Certificate of Eligibity (there’s a fun Japanese word: 在留資格認定証明書 [zairyushikakuninteishomeisho] – say that three times fast.…
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Visit To La Grange
This weekend our family took our first trip to our sponsoring church in La Grange, Texas. We are always so grateful for the way the Lord works to provide for us, and the connection with the La Grange church is just another example in a long list of such graces. Earlier this year, as Sara and I were looking into whether a return to Japan would be possible, we first needed to see if we could secure a sponsoring congregation. Legally this is necessary to get the work visas we will need, but it’s also important for us on a spiritual level as well as for financial organization in the…
