FLUG!

Some of you may be wondering what's going on in the world of James. Starting in August, he spent five weeks in Alaska doing a couple of big training exercises. Because they have so much open, unrestricted airspace up there, it's one of the only places the AF can go to practice dog fighting with lots of jets up in the air all at once. They also practice dropping live munitions which I know the guys get excited about.

James is at the point in his career where it's expected that he will move on from being a lowly wingman and train to be a flight lead. The difference is one of responsibility. Seems self-explanitory, but instead of just following someone else's lead, the flight leader plans and leads the mission. He or she is also tasked with briefing and debriefing the other pilots in the sortie. That alone takes a great amount of skill - to concisely and accurately communicate a huge amount of information in only an hour or two.

Getting a Flight Lead UpGrade (FLUG) slot is very competitive because we have so few Instructor Pilots to teach and evaluate those in the upgrade. We tried not to get our hopes up too much, but were very encouraged when several people came up to James in Alaska and said they'd heard the commanders talking about starting him on the FLUG as soon as he returned to Misawa.

So you can imagine our shock and disappointment when it was announced right before they flew home that he was passed over for this upgrade. It was not only a disappointment, but pushing that back could have messed with the rest of his career. We know that the guys will be deploying again sometime this spring, but don't know exactly when or where. So if they waited to start him till after the New Year and then they deployed in March to a place where he could not continue his upgrade - it would mean he'd be stuck as a wingman for another 6-8 months, then he would sort of have to start over again when they got back. The danger would be to leave Misawa without progressing nearly as far as he wanted to, and have that affect our next assignment. It also messed up our pre-deployment vacation plans and lots of other things.

That was a pretty dark couple of days. Aside from being disappointed, I think it shook his confidence a bit. Thankfully we have some incredible friends who were very encouraging and made sure we didn't get too down on ourselves. After all, this is very common in the F-16 community, and James is much younger and less experienced than most of the guys in the squadron so they are a higher priority because they're really running out of time.

This was a great time of growth for us. My first impulse would have been to fight for my husband and do everything in my power to convince people why he was so much more qualified and deserving than the other guys who were put through. But I knew that was absolutely NOT the right thing to do. So before I called a friend to vent, I did what I always tell my students to do: I took it to God. I had no idea how to help James so I did a topical Bible search on passages concerning trusting in God's timing and staying the course even when we feel angry or betrayed, and it was so helpful. We decided to try our best to show Christ through our response to this situation and not to let it affect any relationships in the squadron. After all, it's no one's fault. I think God used this to help James figure out how to stay joyful at all times and shine for Christ in the midst of a period of low morale in the squadron.

Immediately, we saw how God blessed us when we trusted Him instead of forcing our own way. So many people came to James and offered their support and helped him start preparing for whenever he did start the FLUG. We also had a few open weekends to explore more of Japan before his schedule got super busy with exercises and an upgrade.

Now, I know that James is extra thankful for those few weeks of preparation. Bast week the squadron leadership surprised us by announcing they were going to start James' FLUG immediately. One of the pilots who were chosen in September fell ill and will not be flying for another few weeks, so they have enough time and resources to get him started.

The last week has been crazy. James is so happy and has spent every waking hour studying and practicing his briefing techniques. (I often catch him moving his hands like two planes in formation as he's mentally going through a briefing, or drawing on our sliding glass doors as he's practicing drawing out his plans. haha.)

Pleased to report that he passed his first ride today! The commander even said his performance was "above average" - which is the highest praise you will ever receive in the pilot community. I am so proud of him! It's been a hard adjustment for me - getting used to him going in and working for 14 hours on a Saturday - but hopefully it will all be worth it in the end!

To Save a Life

Over the past seven weeks our youth group has been working through a revolutionary series inspired by the movie To Save a Life. It's a powerful indie movie about the real-life challenges of teens and their choices.

The main character, Jake, is the most popular guy in school. He seems to have it all: it's senior year, he's the captain of the basketball team, dating the prettiest girl on the cheerleading squad, and earned a scholarship to play ball at the college of his dreams. But his world suddenly comes crashing down when his childhood friend opens fire in the school hallway before taking his own life. Suddenly, Jake starts asking those tough questions about what life is all about and what he can do to make a difference.

The teens at his high school deal with a wide range of issues that are much more common than we would like to think, from drinking and drug use to teen pregnancy, divorce, depression, cutting, and suicide. The filmmakers did a great job of following Jake's path to salvation. It's not pretty - and his problems don't miraculously go away when he accepts Christ as his savior and gets baptized. What he goes through is very real. And He has some tough questions for the so-called Christians at his school who act one way during the week and another on Sunday morning: "What's the point of all this if it's not going to let it change you?"

At some point, every student has to decide what their life is going to be about. Unfortunately, statistics show that if they don't find Christ by the time they graduate from high school, they never will. So this series is designed to meet the students where they're at - in the middle of the drama and pain that too often defines the high school experience - and show them that they are not alone, God loves them for who they are and has an incredible plan for their lives. It also equips them to go out and make a difference today. As we constantly reminded them - we are never more like Christ than when we are reaching out to the hurting and lonely. We have the honor and the responsibility to be His hands and feet in our community. It might just save a life.

Movie trailer:

I was really excited kicking off the school year with this series. It was pretty heavy - there were many tears shed in that room on Monday nights. But ultimately it was SO rewarding. By encouraging the students to open up and be vulnerable with one another, and supporting one another in love, we took several steps toward that goal of becoming a safe, loving and contagious community of believers like that of the early church. We also saw our numbers swell from averaging 23 students per night to over 30! (I'd say our pool of "regulars" is now more like 40 but sports and homework tend to prevent some of them from coming every week). These students are excited about inviting their friends to church and are starting to put their faith into action on a daily basis, which is SO cool. I am so proud of them.

Now that we have established the fact that the teenage years are hard and that Christ is the answer, we're going to start a new series that I am writing myself to help them own their faith and ensure that it's rock solid so they're ready for anything. It'll be a good course in the basics of Christianity for our new students - and it will challenge those people who have grown up in the church and are still standing under the umbrella of their parent's religion to think about what they truly believe and why. It should be equally powerful but in a different way. Can't wait!

Bazaar Finds 2011

It's that time of year again - when the ladies start getting that shopping itch and the guys start dreading the credit card bill. Yes, the Far East Bazaar was a couple weeks ago and I am very happy with this year's purchases. Below are pictures of the ones I can show (others are gifts and therefore will remain a secret for now. ;^)

Our beautiful new bench from Indonesia.

Serving platter made in Japan

REAL pearl necklace James bought me as an early birthday present.

There was this awesome old Japanese man who set up a booth and would write anything you wanted in Kanji and then frame it for you. Going diagonally from top left to bottom right is our name "WENTZEL", then in the top right hand corner is the symbol for love and in the bottom left is the artist's signature. It was cool because after they wrote out your name, they told you what the symbols mean. Most people's "name meaning" was very accurate. Ours was a little weird - but that's ok. So are we. The symbols above mean: Universe, Communication, Big City, Blessing, and Flowing.

We didn't buy any large pieces of furniture or anything this year - mainly because we don't have room for it right now. But maybe next year, at my last bazaar, we'll find one more big Asian statement piece to take with us.

Sendai Baseball Trip

On James' birthday weekend we went on a road trip with several other couples from the chapel to take in the sights of Sendai and see a professional Japanese baseball game! This is something we had both really been wanting to do so I was excited we were able to go. The drive only took about three and a half hours, and our leaders put together a fun marriage trivia game for the trip down that helped the time fly by.

Our first stop was at the Sendai Castle grounds and park. The castle is no longer standing. But judging by the beautiful architecture in one of its guardhouses, it must have been stunning. The tall stone walls and some ancient religious structures are still standing though. Or, at least, they were. There was a lot of damage down there from the earthquake.

You can see the eagle cracked and toppled off the

top of this statue during the earthquake.

It was crazy looking east from this elevated point and seeing buildings

stretching in all directions until a line on the horizon where all civilization

appears to stop and there's nothing but black land stretching out to the ocean.

I kind of wish we would have driven out there to take a look at what that area

looks like now. But maybe it's better not really knowing...

Thankfully there were these silly people dressed as Samurai

to help keep the mood nice and light. =^)

After we were finished walking around, we headed out to the baseball stadium. Since we don't know any Japanese baseball teams, we rooted for the home team - the Tigers. The weather was gorgeous, the stadium was packed, and the home team won so it really couldn't have been a better experience.

The best part of the Japanese baseball experience was watching the way the fans get into it. They ALL were decked out from head to foot in their team's gear. They had big drums beating out a rhythm to which everyone in the crowd sang and chanted cheers for every player up to bat for their team. Designated flag bearers waved giant flags after each successful hit or home run. And everyone carried these little plastic bats that they beat together in rhythm with the drums while they cheered their team on in unison. Then when it was the opposing team's turn to bat, everyone sat back down and watched quietly. Obviously they cheered or gasped when an opponent got out... but the orderly respect was so Japanese!

Above is a video I took of one of the Japanese chants.

Another great thing about the Japanese baseball experience was all of the free entertainment! Between each inning the mascot or cheerleaders came out and either performed some stunts or lead the entire crowd in a song or cheer. They gave us pieces of paper to hold up at certain times so the stadium's seating would be one unified color. It was so fun!

We had a great time just hanging out with our friends and getting out of Misawa for a while.

At the end of the game - the home team won! So as a final stunt, EVERYONE (except us uninformed Americans) pulled out these long pink and white balloons, which they inflated then waved around while singing a final song. Then everyone in unison let them go and the balloons zoomed up into the air in celebration! It was so much fun. I took a video of the song below.