The Great Wait of 2012

"For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord..." Jeremiah 29:11

Hey all! I am now two days away from moving to Japan where I will be teaching English for the next two and a half years as a missionary for the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, ELCA. You will frequently see me refer to this as J-3, meaning Japan three year. I am going with two other ladies, Morgan Dixon of Georgia, and Laura Fentress of California. In later posts I will discuss how this all came to pass, but for now let me explain the insanity of the last two months.

The original plan was for the three of us to leave on September 25th. With this in mind I was commissioned by my church on September 2nd and had a big going away party with family and friends. Shortly afterwards we (Laura, Morgan, and myself) received word that there was trouble with our visas and our leave date might be delayed for a month and a half at most. And so the Great Wait of 2012 began. Okay, allow me to admit something. I do not wait well. I have plans. Always. Frequently ten years in advance. When I find that a huge life change is not going according to plan (I know, like it ever does?) I don't always handle it well. This was no exception. However, there was a chance, however slight, that we might still leave on the 25th. So I continued to pack and plan, and by the Saturday before Leave Day I was ready. We still hadn't received any word, going or not, and on Skype that Saturday night we had no clue what to think. Word came on Monday that we would not be leaving the following day and the Great Wait of 2012 continued.

I had quit my job at the library at the end of August in order to give myself some time to prepare and I considered going back. However, the reality of the situation was such that we had no idea when we would be flying out and it could be any day. First coping mechanism: buying things. Clothes, travel oddities, DVDs... it was, frankly, ridiculous. I wasn't buying big things, and they were all things I "needed". Another pair of slacks for teaching, a laptop bag, an outfit for church, a pair of black pumps to go with the new slacks, you get the picture. I thought I had room. And according to my understanding of excess baggage limitations I did have room. My understanding was very, very wrong. But more on that in a minute. I think more than anything I was shopping to get out of the house. This whole shopping spree thing didn't last long, but it did some damage. The full extent of which I was to find out later. While in the house I was often studying Japanese, finding things to do in Japan, studying Japanese history, etc. etc. I'm sure I actually retained more than I think I did, but as of right now I feel like I can't remember anything I spent so much time studying in the past month and a half.

Claire, my younger sister for any of you readers who might not know, was home with me during all of this (except for this last week cause she got a job! Whoot!). She was spending her time filling out job applications like crazy. In reality we were terrible for each other. When one was all ready to get things done, the other was being lazy, which usually led to both of us lazing around the house and, in general, being rather pathetic. Then my parents would get home from work. I was driving my family batty. All I could talk about was Japan and I hadn't even gone yet. I felt like I had no life outside of preparing for Japan. My other friends had all begun their new graduate jobs and were insanely busy, most being first year teachers. So I stayed home and talked about Japan and made my parents and my younger sister want to scream. Anna (older sister), my dear, consider yourself lucky to have escaped the madness. I think I should mention that the thought that I might leave any day prompted MANY "final" goodbyes. Honorable mention goes to: Alicia, Jenn, Sarah, and Lauren. I can't tell you how many times I hugged friends and family and we expressed that we actually hoped that this would indeed be the final goodbye.

Around the second week in October I had enough of waiting. Which brought about the second, more healthy, coping mechanism. I didn't think going back to work at the library was an option with the thought of leaving any day still there. So instead I called both branches that I had worked at and asked to volunteer. I went for my first day on Friday. It was great to see everyone again and spend a few hours in productive activity. That Friday night I was home alone and started to have stomach pains. It wasn't terrible, more of a mild annoyance and I ignored it. By Sunday afternoon I was not doing so hot and I resolved to go to the doctor first thing the next morning.

My family doctor couldn't find any of the usual causes of stomach pain of this kind to be the case and scheduled me for an abdominal ultra sound for the next morning. She left me with instructions to call if the pain got worse. Lo and behold it did and Monday evening found my mom and myself in the ER at Methodist Hospital. They promptly sent me in for a CAT scan to make sure it wasn't the appendix. After "ruling that out" they injected me with lots of pain killers and sent me home. Monday night was awful; I was in so much pain I couldn't sleep.

My doctor called the next afternoon with the results of the ultrasound. They thought they had a diagnosis, but in order to be sure they wanted to do a laparoscopy. Minor, outpatient surgery, I was told, with a recovery time of about two days. It was scheduled for Wednesday, October 24th. This phone call came too late in the day for me to call the ELCA and I resolved to do so first thing in the morning. And I bet you know what comes next.

The morning of October 17th I got on my email with no thoughts other than to get the Global Mission's HR phone number. I had over the last several weeks restricted myself to checking my email twice a day, at noon and at five. I broke that rule and hopped on early in the morning to get the number I needed and, naturally, the email I had been waiting weeks for was the first thing staring me in the face. There may have been a bit of screaming. I opened it with shaky fingers and breathed a sigh of relief. Our visas were on their way and we would fly out the week of the 29th. I had time to get the outpatient surgery and still go with Morgan and Laura. I called the ELCA and filled them in, stressing that I would be fine and would of course be able to leave with the others. HA!

I went in to "outpatient" surgery on October 24th at the Methodist Women's Hospital. I was nervous, but incredibly thankful that I was still at home when it happened. The first thing I heard upon waking up after surgery? "They ended up taking her appendix out," I heard a nurse say, presumably to another nurse, right next to my bed. All I could think was, "Wait. Are they talking about ME?!" and then I went back to sleep. Yes, they were talking about me. My dad called the ELCA for me and let them know of the changes and I spent the night in the hospital.

I emailed Laura and Morgan and we set up a Skype chat to discuss the fact that I would no longer be flying with them. I was torn. On the one hand I was so thankful that it had happened while I could recover at home. On the other I was incredibly upset at the delay. On Halloween, the day that Morgan and Laura flew out, I had my turn around day. I was glad I wasn't on the plane though, because I still felt pretty sick as the day started. The following day I got the okay from the doctor to leave, and the day after that I was told I would be leaving on Sunday, November 11th.

This past week was a flurry of repacking and re-goodbye-ing. Which leads me back to my earlier point about excess baggage. I was prepared financially to pay $252 in excess shipping costs. The area of my two big suitcases was over the 106 inch limit (really lame as each of my suitcases is a standard 61 inches but whatever) and each weighed more than the 50lb limit. No big, I thought. The ELCA gave us a shipping allowance, and I was moving for two years. I had already had a major lesson in materialism when I got rid of a ton of clothes, shoes, and books before packing the first time. I was about to get my second lesson. It's not an easy thing to pack you "life" into two suitcases, a carry-on, and a backpack that has to fit under an airline seat, but I accomplished it and was rather proud of myself. I thought I had better check the excess baggage fees for Singapore Airlines one more time. And about had a fit when I realized that it wasn't $84 each time your bag was too big. If it weighed to much it was THREE TIMES the number in the above table. Which meant that I would now pay $588! I'm not entirely sure how I missed this the first time. I even called Singapore Air the first time to make sure I was okay. Whatever. Point being, I had to lose five pounds from one bag and a whopping twenty five from the other. Please note: I considered fibbing that last bit as it is embarrassing to admit that you bag, which was supposed to weigh 50lbs, actually weighed 75lbs, but I did not.

Bag one lost two pairs of shoes and (this is the most distressing) my beloved Archeological Study Bible. I had a travel bible in my backpack and, have you ever seen the Archeological Study Bible? Its massive and probably weighs like five pounds on its own. However, I will probably ship that in a box before I go as it is really important to me. Bag two. Oh bag two. All of my books. I had been so proud at the amount I was taking (hardly any in my opinion, but you'll note I am not telling you the real number), my DVD case, and most of my toiletries. I had to chastise myself on the last one. I am going to Japan, they have it there. I was in tears at the end, both because of what I was getting rid of and also because I was in tears over what I was getting rid of. I felt so selfish and materialistic. So many people don't even have enough possessions to fill my suitcases and here I was in tears because I couldn't take DVDs. I was joining a long history of missionaries who went to these incredibly remote places around the globe and I was upset because I couldn't take my favorite books. I had a Kindle! It wasn't the end of the world, but in some ways it really felt like it. I was trying to surround myself with my stuff, like that was going to make what I was about to do easier. Nothing can make what I am about to do easier, nothing but faith that this is all according to plan.

I will say goodbye to my family on Sunday morning at Eppley Airport. There is a chance that I will not have another hug from them for two years and four and a half months. That thought makes me want to bawl my eyes out, but we don't talk about it because it won't change anything. This is a dream I have been after my whole life. My family knows that and I know they are proud of me. I am blessed to have such support behind me as I set off. Thank to everyone who put up with my insanity for the past few months. I couldn't be here without you, you know who you are.

Once upon a time my parents gave me a necklace with the following quote on it from Shakespeare's A Winter's Tale: "To unpathed waters, undreamed shores..." Let the adventure begin!