After of 36 hours of travel we have been blow away by God's faithfulness concerning this trip! Here's a quick summary of our travels thus far.
First off we were able to able to raise $1520 out of our goal of $5200 which has been a great start. God blessed us with just enough cash to convert into yen for food and ground travel while we're here. Then we'll start paying off the airfare of $3500 when we return from the trip with additional funds.
Our first flight from Cincinnati CVG to Washington was delayed because the temperature inside the cabin rose to an unbearable temperature. The captain told us the flight crew was very understaffed and he wasn't sure when we would take off. We only had a 1 hr 6 min layover in Washington before our flight to Tokyo "Narita" so naturally we were a bit concerned. We immediately turned to prayer and had peace that things would work out whether the repairs took 3 hours or 5 minutes. Almost immediately a very intense maintenance member arrived, who sprinted from the engine to the cockpit about 3 times and fixed the problem in about 25 minutes.
Upon landing in Washington Felicia and I had 20 minutes to run from one terminal to a shuttle bus to run to the other side of another terminal. Felicia and I were literately sprinting up and down stairs with luggage for 18 minutes across the whole airport. We were one of the last people to make our plane, but God didn't let us miss the 13 hour flight to Narita. Once our plane was on the runway our pilot told us that we were over loaded and that we had to return to the terminal to drop 5000lbs of cargo. Fear loves to manifest itself in uncertainty and the though of going the whole trip without our checked bag containing all our clothes, as well as my checked ovation acoustic guitar was quite concerning. So again we prayed. We knew that without God at the center of this trip nothing would work, with or without a guitar. After dropping the cargo we embarked on a 13 hour flight and trusted that we would have everything we need in Japan. This was so fitting, as we began our sermon preparations about God calling and providing for Abram. It takes faith to hold onto God's promises.
God provided for the baby and Felicia during the flight as well. Prior to the trip Felicia was diagnosed with gestational diabetes and she was also examined for blood clots in her legs. She wore compression socks and walked around every hour and she actually had a pain free flight.
Upon landing in Narita we were greeted by our luggage and guitar, which we then checked onto our final 1 hr 15 min flight from Narita to Osaka. Besides being ridiculously tired and hungry, we were able to arrive in Osaka around 7pm on Saturday. We then traveled by 3 different trains to reach Morinomiya station which is near a castle.
Felicia had the wonderful idea to finally take a taxi to our Airbnb location. The taxi drive had a lot of difficulty taking us to the proposed location and dropped us off in roughly the right location at 10:30pm. Would we ever find somewhere to sleep, again we prayed. I walked up to the wrong building that the taxi drive pointed to and looked in the mailbox for our room key...of course no were to be found. A man living in the apartment unit came out, recognizing that we were lost.
Recognizing that he didn't speak English I said "dokonidesuka?" while pointing at the address to ask him "where is this". Making the same confused face as our taxi driver, he ran inside to get his cell phone and pulled up google maps. This was a gift from God as we found out in the airport that neither of our phones would work while in Japan. He then walked a block and a half to our actual Airbnb apartment. The kindness was utterly shocking to me.
So in conclusion, I know God is in this trip. Lives are going to be changed, and we are supposed to be here.
If you want to support us in prayer here's our schedule:
Today we'll connect with a friend from college named Koki to explore Osaka city.
Tomorrow we will take a 5 hour train to Shingu and do ministry there for a week.
Next week we will be doing ministry in Tokyo at both Niza church and Tamagawa kid's camp and then we will fly back August 7th!
First off we were able to able to raise $1520 out of our goal of $5200 which has been a great start. God blessed us with just enough cash to convert into yen for food and ground travel while we're here. Then we'll start paying off the airfare of $3500 when we return from the trip with additional funds.
Our first flight from Cincinnati CVG to Washington was delayed because the temperature inside the cabin rose to an unbearable temperature. The captain told us the flight crew was very understaffed and he wasn't sure when we would take off. We only had a 1 hr 6 min layover in Washington before our flight to Tokyo "Narita" so naturally we were a bit concerned. We immediately turned to prayer and had peace that things would work out whether the repairs took 3 hours or 5 minutes. Almost immediately a very intense maintenance member arrived, who sprinted from the engine to the cockpit about 3 times and fixed the problem in about 25 minutes.
Upon landing in Washington Felicia and I had 20 minutes to run from one terminal to a shuttle bus to run to the other side of another terminal. Felicia and I were literately sprinting up and down stairs with luggage for 18 minutes across the whole airport. We were one of the last people to make our plane, but God didn't let us miss the 13 hour flight to Narita. Once our plane was on the runway our pilot told us that we were over loaded and that we had to return to the terminal to drop 5000lbs of cargo. Fear loves to manifest itself in uncertainty and the though of going the whole trip without our checked bag containing all our clothes, as well as my checked ovation acoustic guitar was quite concerning. So again we prayed. We knew that without God at the center of this trip nothing would work, with or without a guitar. After dropping the cargo we embarked on a 13 hour flight and trusted that we would have everything we need in Japan. This was so fitting, as we began our sermon preparations about God calling and providing for Abram. It takes faith to hold onto God's promises.
God provided for the baby and Felicia during the flight as well. Prior to the trip Felicia was diagnosed with gestational diabetes and she was also examined for blood clots in her legs. She wore compression socks and walked around every hour and she actually had a pain free flight.
Upon landing in Narita we were greeted by our luggage and guitar, which we then checked onto our final 1 hr 15 min flight from Narita to Osaka. Besides being ridiculously tired and hungry, we were able to arrive in Osaka around 7pm on Saturday. We then traveled by 3 different trains to reach Morinomiya station which is near a castle.
Felicia had the wonderful idea to finally take a taxi to our Airbnb location. The taxi drive had a lot of difficulty taking us to the proposed location and dropped us off in roughly the right location at 10:30pm. Would we ever find somewhere to sleep, again we prayed. I walked up to the wrong building that the taxi drive pointed to and looked in the mailbox for our room key...of course no were to be found. A man living in the apartment unit came out, recognizing that we were lost.
Recognizing that he didn't speak English I said "dokonidesuka?" while pointing at the address to ask him "where is this". Making the same confused face as our taxi driver, he ran inside to get his cell phone and pulled up google maps. This was a gift from God as we found out in the airport that neither of our phones would work while in Japan. He then walked a block and a half to our actual Airbnb apartment. The kindness was utterly shocking to me.
So in conclusion, I know God is in this trip. Lives are going to be changed, and we are supposed to be here.
If you want to support us in prayer here's our schedule:
Today we'll connect with a friend from college named Koki to explore Osaka city.
Tomorrow we will take a 5 hour train to Shingu and do ministry there for a week.
Next week we will be doing ministry in Tokyo at both Niza church and Tamagawa kid's camp and then we will fly back August 7th!