I don't know how many people read this blog who don't know about what is going on with me already. It's been awhile since I've had words to update. Here are the cliff notes:
In January, God told Joel and I that we would go back to Japan this year. We believed Him just enough to think about it for a couple weeks and then continue with life as normal.
In February, I decided to take a doula training course and experiment with the career path of helping moms birth babies. The Christian community house and I prayed about whether to stay together after Joel and I got married.
In March, "the big one" hit Japan. Wedding preparations seemed to take over life. But the question hung behind the busyness...would this earthquake mean that God actually was going to send us back to Japan this year?
On April 2nd, Joel and I got married. :D
We drove to the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee and had a lovely time of a honeymoon. And, on the way, got an email from a good missionary friend. She was seeking Christians who would fill English teaching positions in Fukushima City and praying that God would send witnesses and build Christian community there.
Despite all of my longing to go to Japan, I found myself wrestling a lot before I could say 'yes'. It was hard to imagine how my single missionary life and my new married life would come together. And was it best to put this kind of pressure on our relationship right at the beginning of our marriage?
Our car broke down while Joel and I were avoiding the questions. We got it to a shop, and a repairman drove us to a park where we walked in circles, laid in the grass, watched the river flow, and asked each other what we thought about this opportunity for the three hours while our car was fixed. We realized that, while we had much to be afraid and worried about, we had seen little to show us that God was *not* calling us to Japan, and much to suggest that He was. Surrender together as a couple is a pretty cool thing.
I think for awhile I thought having a husband would mean that there would be someone who would pull me along...someone who would ease the burden when those hard surrender moments come so that I didn't have to dig deep into my unwillingness and turn my heart over to the Living God. Not that I ever would have said it in words like that. I more would have said, "I want him to encourage me! And be bold in following Jesus to draw out my own boldness and courage!" But then, there is the realization that it is somehow sweeter to be scared together and to lay our lives in His hands, neither one of us knowing or understanding fully what it will mean.
May has given us quite a few more curve balls, which I don't seem to have words for right now, but all of those aside, we are flying to Japan on June 13th. We'll be living and working in Fukushima City, which is a little bit outside of the evacuation zone from the nuclear power plant. We've both been in touch with a different English school, and are working out the final details to be employed.
It's kind of funny to think about Joel and I wandering through the park on our honeymoon, afraid of what might come. A chance to love on the Japanese people during one of the greatest trials they've known. A chance to live our own lives and struggles towards God, not only because I need His goodness and provision in my life, but because I have the chance to show that to a people who are also much afraid, and whose lives have also been shaken. A chance to continue watering the seeds in Japan I have already sown and prayed over. A chance to shake my heart out of the complacency of ordinary life and back into a life where the need for urgent prayer is right in front of my face. A chance to see God's light shining in darkness, yet again.
I cannot help but smile. God is good.
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