Trying to settle...

Hello from Japan!!
We're finally here! It's certainly good to be back (aside from the ugly humidity that we are NOT used to yet!!) :) We enjoyed our first few days back in Japan visiting with friends that Bobby knows from seminary (they now live about 2 hours south of us!!). We had a great visit with them and are so thankful for their friendship... super excited to be so close now! They have 2 little ones... an almost 4 year old girl and a 1 year old boy which of course adds to the fun when we're together :)

Anyway, we're now back in our area (about 10 minutes outside of our "homeland") staying with our incredibly gracious co-workers until we find a place of our own. Unfortunately, the things we had counted on happening very quickly (finding a home and a car) are taking a lot longer than we were hoping and it looks like it will still be a little while before we'll be on our own. There's just a lot of technical things getting in our way... [for example, the company we want to rent from requires us to have a guarantor that has to be 1) family 2) living in Japan and 3) Japanese... none of which we have! so we will most likely have to pay a company about $600 to be that person for us!] that are making things go slower than we had hoped, but we are trying to be patient.

Apparently I'm not nearly as patient and as flexible as I thought I was! Definitely something I need to grow in. I'm struggling with a "poor me" attitude and I don't like it because I know it shouldn't be there... but it's hard to get rid of! I know the Lord is taking care of us and all these delays are not a surprise to Him, but it's taking a while for me to accept that. It's no fun living out of suitcases in someone else's space... especially after having spent the last 3 1/2 months in a similar situation! I know our co-workers are happy to have us and are providing wonderful hospitality, but it's no fun feeling like we're invading their space/routines. The good news is, they were expecting things to take this long, even though we weren't!! :)

But, like I said, the Lord is taking good care of us and I have no right to complain. He has been and still is so very good to us and this is just a good reminder to me that I need to keep my mind on things above... which I will confess is much easier said than done for me at the moment! ;)

On a little different note... I'm realizing that I did a terrible job of blogging this summer! Here's some pictures on Facebook for those of you who haven't seen them yet... http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151107260317437.490843.517722436&type=3&l=503540be02

I'll try to update more often once we're all settled in... for sure will post pictures once we have a place to live, but no guarantees how often you'll hear from me once I start my full time language study! Thanks for keeping up... and being patient! Thanks for your prayers too! :)