First Week in Japan!

Well, when I left off, our plane had just landed in Misawa. After we deplaned, collected our luggage, and went through customs, we stepped out into the small terminal and were greeted by several members of our new squadron. There was much shaking of hands and introductions. Of course, I didn't remember anyone's name. I was just thankful that I was able to brush my hair before we got off the plane, and had enough energy to smile. The newly instated squadron commander was there and said that if we need anything, all we need to do is ask.

Our sponsor, Sharon Gilmer, took us straight to the Misawa Inn and let us have an hour to freshen up before we needed to go start in-processing. We were pleasantly surprised when we walked through the door of our room and saw that the ladies from the squadron had hung up a welcome banner, and stocked our fridge with food and snacks. There were also some Japanese gifts, including a personal gift from Jon and Claire, who had been out visiting Misawa the week before. They definitely did a good job of making us feel welcome!

The next few days were a blur. We knew that James and the guys were going to deploy in a few short weeks and so we needed to get settled in as quickly as possible, so Sharon took us around to every place we needed to visit in order to make that happen. She went and looked at the available base houses with us and helped us pick out our unit. She also took us to the local cell phone provider and helped us get signed up for 2 Japanese iPhones. When we got hungry, she took us to one of her favorite local restaurants and pointed out the best grocery stores and things along the way. She even helped us pick out a car! As far as sponsors go, I'd say she gets an A+ because she was able to answer all of our questions and took care of our every need until we were ready to stand on our own two feet.

After all of the initial in-processing was finished, we participated in a 3 day program the base requires called "Right Start". Its purpose is to help us get acclimated and to teach us everything we need to know in order to be successful here in Misawa. The first day was pretty brutal - a full day of briefings from all of the base agencies explaining what they do and where to find them. The one fun thing about that day was taking a Japanese driving course and getting a driver's license!

The second day we went on a guided tour of Misawa city. Our guide took us to some of the local places of interest - a Buddhist temple and cemetery, a museum called The Samurai House where we learned about the way the locals lived before the area was "Westernized", and the local International Center where we learned more about Japanese culture and all of the cool places to visit in the country. At the end of the tour, they took us to a local shopping center where we got our first taste of what it's like to order food at a Japanese restaurant. Most of them have big display cases full of plastic recreations of all of their dishes so all you do is point to what you want to eat and they cook it for you. Over all, it was a good day and gave us a good sense of what the city is like.

James and I were pretty fascinated by their decorative man hole covers.

One of the biggest shocks of the day was learning the theory behind using the traditional Japanese "Squatty Potty." Thankfully, most places we went had western style toilets as well.

On Friday we went on a longer tour of the nearest large city called Hachinohe. It's about 45 minutes away, and offers much more in the way of shopping and entertainment. The first stop was a huge fish market where we had an hour to wander around and oogle at all of the live and wriggling specimens. I really don't like sea food so I was kind of dreading this part of the tour, but it was so bizarre that I couldn't help but enjoy myself.

After that, they took us to the train station and taught us how to buy a ticket on the bullet train. That may come in handy if we decide to take a vacation to one of the neighboring countries while we're here. One of the coolest things about the train station was the huge parade float they had displayed in the atrium. Our guides let us have a few minutes to be typical tourists and take pictures.

After that, we went to one of the largest and oldest Shinto shrines in the area and learned about the other national religion of Japan. They taught us how to purify ourselves by washing our hands in the fountain, and how to "pray" (offer up a wish for good fortune). James and I chose not to do that part, but walked around taking pictures instead. The architecture was very beautiful, and it was nice to be out in a more quiet and peaceful place after sitting on a bus and walking through crowded business and shopping centers for 4 days.

This iconic red symbol is a Torii Gate - it marks the entrance to all Shinto Shrines.

In addition to all of the welcome activities and in-processing, we tried to dive into the social scene of the squadron as well. I shared several meals with the ladies of the squadron and am already making friends with several of them. We also got invited to a surprise birthday party for one of the pilots at the O club on Saturday night. The theme was "Stay Classy" so we all dressed up and had some drinks and hors'dourves. Everyone was surprised that we had some formal clothes in our baggage and were able to dress up. Just goes to show that the Wentzels like to come prepared for anything!

The final thing we did during our first week here was try out one of the services at the chapel on base. One of the Christian couples we've clicked with said they like the chaplan at the 8:00 traditional service best, so that's where we went first. The chaplan was indeed very nice, but I think the service was a bit TOO traditional for our taste so we are planning on trying out the 11:00 contemporary service this coming weekend.

That evening was a bit more encouraging in terms of being spiritually fed. We tried out a couple's Bible Study attended by pilots from both squadrons. All of the people there were very nice and welcomed us right away. We are looking forward to going back and building up a strong support system here like we had in Phoenix.

Over all, it was a good first week. Somehow we managed not to let the jet lag or tiredness creep up and prevent us from doing all we needed to. Soon I'll tell you all about our second week when we got moved in and started to put our life together in earnest.

On The Road

We had a crazy week and a half of traveling between Phoenix and Japan. We would have liked to take more time to see everyone, but since James will be deploying very soon, we needed to get to Misawa as soon as possible so he can get combat qualified. James calculated how many miles we drove in that time, and said it was roughly 2,200 miles!!

Here’s the rundown of all we did:

FRIDAY, APRIL 2nd: We drove 8 hours from Phoenix to Sante Fe, NM where we spent the night at a cute southwest-inspired bed and breakfast.

SATURDAY, APRIL 3rd: Santa Fe to Colorado Springs, CO. We spent most of our time that day with family and our friend Ren Cowan, who treated us to some fabulous treats at the Trinity Brewing Company where she works.

SUNDAY, APRIL 4th: Easter Sunday! We went to church at First Pres with my family, then enjoyed a big Easter brunch at the house. James was excited that he got to have some of his favorite sweet potato casserole before leaving the States. After we were finished eating, we gave my brother Nate his graduation gift since we wouldn’t be there for the ceremony in May. I think he was expecting something like a CD or a tee shirt, and so he was very pleasantly surprised when he opened up his brand new digital camera! I figured it would come in handy during college, and will hopefully help me keep up with all he will do and see.

MONDAY, APRIL 5th: That morning we went to breakfast with our good friend Amy Drown at the Omlette Parlor. She had never been before so it was fun to introduce her to a great hole-in-the-wall place. After that, my mom and I went to the post office to figure out how to ship packages to an APO box so she will know how to do that after we move. Then we packed and did laundry before meeting up with our special friends and mentors Dave and Claire Thorpe. We went out to dinner at Poor Richard’s, then walked down town and bought some Josh and John’s Ice Cream, and finally wound up discussing life over iced tea in their kitchen. As it turned out, there was a drawing of a Japanese Samurai drawn on the chalk board in Josh and John’s so we had some fun adding to it and taking pictures with it. =^) Dave and Claire are AWESOME and we will miss them greatly when we’re gone.


TUEADAY, APRIL 6th: By far our longest and hardest day. We planned to drive 12 hours from Colorado Springs to Las Vegas where we had a reservation at the Inn at Nellis AFB. The day started out on the wrong foot – literally – when James stumbled and twisted his ankle on the rocks outside my parent’s front door while we were saying good bye. I should have known it was a bad sign.

We chose to take the route through the mountains that went through Breckenridge up to I-70 and past the major Ski resorts on our way out west. We saw on the forecast that it was possible we might run into some light snow… but never expected to get stuck in a full-blown blizzard. It started snowing near Breckenridge, and by the time we started climbing up toward Vail Pass, we were in near-white out conditions. Our hearts sank as we passed under an electronic sign saying “I-70 Closed. Exit Now.” We found a coffee shop by Copper Mountain and went inside to call the weather service. The news was not good. The road in front and behind us were both closed, and the snow was not going to stop until the following day.

We were trapped with no hope of getting out of there any time soon. We talked to James’ mom and, after looking at the online web cams along the roads there, she confirmed that it looked really bad up there. Before we truly started to panic, we all prayed that somehow we would make it down the mountain safely. Almost IMMEDIATELY, we heard that the roads were open again so we quickly jumped into the truck and miraculously made it down out of the Rockies before things got too bad. We saw online the next morning that they got 19” of snow in Vail that day so those roads opening when they did are a truly miraculous answered prayer.
We continued to deal with snow and heavy winds all the way out to Vegas. The weather in the mountains had delayed us by a couple of hours so we ended up being on the road for 14 hours instead of 12. Needless to say, we were so relieved with the lights of Vegas came into view that night.

As tired as we were, we made it a point to spend some time with our friends Ryan and Lacey Worrell who happened to be staying at Nellis as well while he was participating in a Red Flag training exercise. It was great to see that they are doing great. (We participated in their wedding at Tahoe in October).

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 7th: We drove through the Vegas Strip so I could see the Casinos before driving out to San Diego to spend the night with James’ step-brother Sam, his wife Alison, and our little niece Madison. They bought their first house since we saw them over Christmas so we enjoyed seeing how they have set up their new place. They have really done a lot in the last few weeks and I think it will be a VERY nice home for them. We spent the afternoon playing with Madison while Sam was at work, then we all ate dinner and watched some TV before crashing for the night. It was a quick trip but it’s always good to see family. 

THURSDAY, APRIL 8th: After breakfast, we drove up to Santa Barbara to see James’ parents. On the road, we had our last In-N-Out Burger, and our final Blenders Smoothies (sad day – especially for me since I could only have a couple of bites of James’ burger instead of my own!) It was there in SB that our journey in James’ truck came to an end. He loves that truck and does not want to sell it, so Bob and Nancy graciously agreed to take care of it for us while we are over seas. In addition to taking care of that, we had some good talks with his parents, and had fun walking around State Street with his long-time friend Doug Christ. Doug took us to a swanky frozen yogurt place which I enjoyed because I could actually eat the non-fat ice cream!


FRIDAY, APRIL 9th: After running some errands around town, we met his grandparents for lunch and said good bye to them. They are great and I always enjoy spending time with them so that was a very special part of the trip. After lunch, we headed back to the house and spent a few hours trying to figure out how to fit all of our stuff into our suitcases. Then we packed it all into his parent’s car and drove to the Santa Barbara Airport where we hopped on a flight to Portland, OR to see James’ dad and his family. They picked us up from the airport and treated us to Chinese food and great conversation.


SATURDAY, APRIL 10th: That Saturday was James’ little half-brother Josh’s first day of baseball, so we went to his game and cheered him on. He got to pitch for the first two innings, and actually did really well. He struck several people out, and had a few runs batted in as well. After the game, we drove downtown and took a gondola-like tram up a big hill which gave us a great view of the city and the surrounding mountains. Then we toured the big, state of the art medical campus up there where Valerie (James’ dad’s wife) has worked. Finally, we had dinner at a swanky café in one of the more happening neighborhoods in Portland.

After we returned to the house, I worked on packing everything up while James played a computer game with Josh. He clearly looks up to his older brother so I wanted to make sure they had as much time together as possible. Then it was time to hit the road one last time. We piled everything up in the back of their mini van and headed up to the Seattle-Tacoma Airport where we would catch our flight to Japan. It was a long way for them to drive, just to drop us off (about 3 hours one way) so we are so thankful they were willing to do that for us. It also gave us an opportunity to have some great quality time together before leaving. Josh used his computer to make a cute animated good-bye card for us, and ended the evening by saying “You all have no idea how fun it is having you here!” 

We arrived at the airport at 11:00 pm. Our flight took off at 5:00 am the next morning, but we had to be there no later than 1:00 am in order to go through customs and everything in time. Of course, there was no one at the airport so the check-in process was a breeze and we found ourselves with 4 hours to kill before boarding the plane at 4. This wasn’t a huge problem since we had plenty of books and other things to keep us busy – but we were really tired and it was FREEZING in the airport terminal. We tried really hard to stay up the whole time so that we could sleep on the plane but I finally gave in and joined the other people who were sleeping on the floor. It wasn’t any more comfortable than sitting in the chair, but at least I got to sleep for about 45 minutes which helped pass the time.

"PEACE-ing" out of the USA!

SUNDAY, APRIL 11th: The flight over to Japan actually went really well. It was no secret that I was very anxious about having to sit on a plane for nine and a half hours straight, but because it was a larger plane, there was more room to move around and the seats were decently comfortable. They left the lights off most of the time so we were able to sleep a good amount of the time. They also fed us breakfast and lunch, and played 4 movies which gave us something to do when we got bored of reading. The time went by decently fast and before we knew it, the flight attendants were preparing the cabin for landing!

To be continued…

Final Week in Phoenix

The week before we left Phoenix really flew by. It was only a couple of weeks ago but so much has happened since then that the memory of all that we did has grown a bit fuzzy. I guess I should write it all down before I REALLY start to forget...

Monday morning the movers arrived to start packing up all of our stuff. Normally I probably would have been really sad as the reality of the move set in with each box that was packed. However, we received a phone call from the doctor that helped to divert my anxiety.

I had been struggling with some strange stomach pains for a while and went in to see the doctor the week before just to make sure I was ok before leaving town. We hoped there was nothing wrong, but sure enough the doctor called and informed me that I have a bunch of gall stones and probably need to have my gall bladder removed ASAP. As you can imagine, I freaked out because that would have completely messed up our very precise travel plans. Thankfully, we were able to use Skype from our hotel room to call the flight doctor over in Misawa, who assured me that they were able to remove my gall bladder in Japan if I could hold out until we arrived. That, coupled with the general surgeon from Luke’s diagnosis that my case is not urgent at all helped me to calm down and trust that everything would work out ok. I would just have to really watch what I ate on the road (not an easy task), and be prepared to go to the ER if my pain significantly increased because it might be infected.

Tuesday, the movers returned and packed all of our boxes and furniture into big wooden crates that would later be loaded onto a big ship to Japan. It was hard watching the truck drive away and realizing that we would not see our stuff again for weeks or months. After they were gone, we worked hard to clean out the house before handing the keys over to our landlord on Wednesday.

The rest of our time was spent doing out-processing stuff on base and saying good bye to our friends. Tuesday night was our final night with our small group. It was a great final night! The students were much more attentive and talkative than usual, and they all seemed sad to see us go. They had a cute little good bye cake for us, as well as some very thoughtful gifts. One of them was a faith-based travel journal to help us record all of our adventures.

Wednesday night, the family of one of our small group girls – Paige Prielipp – invited us over for dinner. It was a very informal evening, where we just talked and ate for a couple of hours. But it was a big blessing since home-cooked meals would be a rarity over the next couple of weeks.

After leaving their house, we went to our friend Caleb and Jordan’s house to say good bye to them and Ashley Leary. Again, it was all very laid back. In many ways it felt like any other night of hanging out. But at the end of the night, Caleb asked if he and Jordan could pray for us before we left. That kind of sent me over the edge. That prayer simultaneously made the fact that we were parting much more real and impressed upon us how much we value their friendship and would miss them. Needless to say, there were some tears shed that night.

Thursday was a big day. I had my last ladies’ Bible Study that morning and said good bye to my friends. Then we went and hung out with one of our closest friends from Palm Valley Church one last time at our favorite hang out in Phoenix before driving up north and selling my Subaru. Finally, we had dinner with our friends Dave and Lynn Gertiser and spent a few hours of quality time with them before saying good bye. We had a laugh as we were walking out the door and I said “Please don’t pray for us!” What I meant was that I wasn’t sure I could handle another heartfelt commission because I knew I would bawl my eyes out… So I tried to amend my statement by just saying they could pray for us after we left. ;^)

Friday morning I packed everything up in the truck and ran a few last-minute errands while James finished up his M9 pistol certification. Then he did his final out, we climbed into the truck and hit the road!!

Benediction

Today was our last day at Palm Valley Church. =^(

I think that the reality that we are leaving Phoenix in a few days is finally starting to hit me, and it definitely made it hard to get through all of the good bye's today without bawling my eyeballs out in front of people. While I hate saying good bye and I'm sad to go, I think God really spoke to me through the services and my quiet time today, and I am feeling a bit more at peace.

This morning's sermon at church was about our Unstoppable Savior. One of the associate pastors spoke this morning. His name is Mark Olmos, and he happens to have done a lot of mission work with people in Japan. Coincidence that he would be speaking on our final Sunday? I don't think so. ANYWAY, he talked about how it's a fact that Jesus died and rose again, and how the power of the one who conquered the grave lives in us so we are an unstoppable force here on earth. It was a very motivational sermon, and got us all excited about going out into new territory and doing big things for God!

After church, we attended our last big youth mentor meeting and said good bye to our friends from the youth ministry. I had a hard time swallowing my tears as we all talked about the incredible things God has done through us this year, and talking about all that He has in store for our students in the future. I'm so sad we're going to miss out on all that they have planned! But everyone was so encouraging and, although I know that what we did here at Palm Valley was not for our glory, it's nice to hear people say how much we will be missed.

On the way home from the meeting, I was really struggling to keep my composure. I knew that we have so much work to do tonight to get ready for the move, but I felt that I really needed something to help keep my mind focused on the good rather than the bad side of this move. So I popped in the final DVD session of the Bible Study I've been working through by Beth Moore called The Patriarchs: Encountering the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This is the study that my women's small group chose to do this semester, and it has been SUCH a blessing to really dig in to what God has to say about his promises in the midst of traveling and trials. Because it was the final session of the 10 week study, Beth immediately jumped in and started talking about how much she hates good bye's, and why we all hate endings. Incredible how God can use something random like this to speak directly to you, huh? The topic of the session was how God will eventually tie everything up nicely at the end of time, but until then he is more interested in tying things together. Well, I wrote down what she said after that and am keeping it as a talisman against my sadness, and to help me get through the next few weeks as we leave the familiar and go where God's leading us.

"Any time He brings us to the end of anything, it's because there is a new beginning."

Now it's time to go and pack everything up, leave my home and my friends and everything familiar and head out to the land that God has shown us. I am confident that He will bless us there, but have no idea what that blessing will be. I'm glad those of you who read my blogs will be able to join me on this journey!

Please pray for us as we're traveling - that He would keep us healthy and safe and that we would keep a good attitude while we are trying to get established over there. I want this to be a good experience but, like Beth Moore, I hate saying good bye and enjoy being comfortable and know that I will struggle very much to stay positive when the homesickness inevitably sets in. Also pray that he will lead us into good Christian fellowship so that I can establish a good support group before James deploys in May. So much is changing and big things are on the horizon!

Good Bye Party

Well, we've come to our final week in Phoenix! How crazy is that?? It seems like just yesterday that we were settling into our new house and I was telling you all about how excited I am to have a Chipotle AND an In-N-Out AND a Target nearby. Now it's time to pack up and move on.

Since so many of our friends are getting ready to leave at the same time, we decided to throw one big joint good bye party at a local coffee house/bar called Ground Control. It's one of our favorite hang-outs because it has a fun atmosphere with really great food and drinks, AND it's owned by an AF guy so the pilots feel right at home. (The name was specifically chosen because it brings both airplanes and coffee grounds to mind. ;^)

It was a really laid back night. In a lot of ways it seemed like just another night with our friends rather than a farewell celebration. Many of our AF friends, as well as a few people from church, came out and we spent the night talking and laughing together. I took a couple of pictures but honestly, it was more about just spending some quality time relaxing with people we care about.

As we drove away I realized that the fact that we aren't going to see most of those people again for a really long time hadn't hit me yet. We said good bye without any tears, and left without really feeling sad. I suppose that's a good thing, because now I can look back on last night with nothing but happy feelings.

Youth Preview Service

Right now our church here in Phoenix is getting ready to move from their rented space at a local high school into their own building. It's been really exciting watching the whole process unfold, and we are very sad that we won't be there to see the grand opening in May. However, we did get a taste of some of the awesome things they will be able to do there last weekend.

One of the big changes they will make is having one big youth service on Sunday nights in the main auditorium, instead of having four Sunday school classes throughout the weekend. That way we can have all of the junior and senior high school students together all at once, and focus on having one incredible service instead of stretching our resources out over four smaller services. The leadership recognized that this will be a big departure from what the church members have been used to, and so they decided to give the students and their families a preview of what the big youth service will be like.

We invited the students to show up to the church an hour early, and set out a bunch of free pizza and games to help entertain them and their guests (we had 31 new students that week!!) There was also a big white wall set up where we asked them to write down what holds them back from telling their friends about Christ. James and I helped check people in so we could keep track of how many people attended. There were SO MANY students, and it was exciting to help greet the new people and welcome them to our church.

When the service began, different youth mentors and volunteers helped lead some fun and crazy games that related in some small way to the night's message. Then our worship band rocked the house with some very loud but moving music. Because the service was held in the big auditorium the tech people got to go crazy with the different colored lights so it was quite an experience!!

Then, right before the main message was delivered, the Jr. High pastor got up there and talked about how we need to ask God to help us break down the walls that prevent us from sharing our faith with others. As he was talking, two people brought out the big wall with all of the writing on it. Then at the end he got out a giant hammer and punched some holes in the wall, and finally knocked it down.

After our youth pastor Darius gave his sermon about how important it is to be going out and fulfilling our purpose in life which is to help people come to know Christ, he asked anyone who wanted to commit their lives to Christ (or recommit, as the case may be) to come forward on their knees and pray silently as some music played. It was by far the most moving part of the service as dozens if not hundreds of students silently walked forward and got down on their knees and committed themselves to living as they have been called. There were very few dry eyes in the house as Darius walked out and prayed over them and blessed them.

Clearly, it made an impact on the students because there were a lot of new faces in the crowd this morning at youth group. These kids are beginning to step out boldly and invite their friends to church, and lives are beginning to change! I am so excited for all that God has in store for the church when they move into their new building. I am confident that they will need the extra space for all of the new people that will come there seeking God, and I am also confident that this is a church where they are sure to find Him. =^)

Operation Write Home

Right now the youth group at church is doing a series called "The Biggest Loser" (playing off of the title of the popular reality TV show) centered around the idea behind Luke 9:24:

For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.

We've talked about giving of your time, money, and talents, and then planned fun service projects for our small groups to do while the kids are on spring break this week. Darius asked us as youth mentors to think about a cause that means something to us as we were brainstorming ideas. Since James is in the military, we looked for things that might benefit the troops, and help us share a little more of our lives with the kids. I had seen something a while ago about an organization that collects hand-made cards for troops who are deployed over in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since several of our kids are pretty creative, I thought that would be a good option.

After a bit of research, I found the website for Operation Write Home, which is exactly what I had in mind. As they explain on the website, soldiers serving in the middle east are often away from home for months if not years at a time, which means they miss out on a lot of holidays and important parts of their families' lives. They would love to send greeting cards to help celebrate, but there is no such thing as a Hallmark store in the desert! So, volunteers make beautiful, blank holiday cards and send them to the people at Operation Write Home, who organize them and ship them to their military contacts for distribution. They strongly encourage schools and girl/boy scout troops to participate, so I figure this would be perfect!

We collected all kinds of decorative papers, stickers, ribbons, and other art supplies and got together at our normal time to make as many cards as we could. Some of the boys were not very excited about having "arts and crafts" time at small group, but still made some nice cards. The girls really got into it though, and by the end of the hour and a half meeting we had a stack of 35 unique artistic creations! Below are a few of my favorites...