Garrett came out of his dorm on Monday afternoon (23 July) and handed me his phone that was opened to a maps app that was zoomed way in. He told me to zoom out and I found myself looking at Okinawa Japan! At first I thought this was just one of his jokes and he was pulling my leg about where we were really going. But after asking him if he was serious five times, he showed me the paper that told us... I started crying immediately. My first thoughts were that it was so far away from our family and friends and that we would most likely be having our first baby (or two) ten THOUSAND miles from either of our moms... But I still felt excited nonetheless. And the more we talked about it throughout the evening, it continued to grow on me. Especially when we came to the realization that the Lord really has been on our side and blessing us extensively. We were both impressed with the idea to get married earlier than September in case we got stationed overseas, and here we are heading to the other side of the world. The Lord has known all along where He would send us and has given us the means to go there together with the lease amount of hassle in regards to paperwork for the military. Garrett also calmed my mind by bringing up what I'd known, but not been heeding; that the Gospel will be the same there and we will have a church family over there that will help us and provide the support whenever it is needed. We both are super excited to explore and experience such a wonderful place. We have plans to get scuba certified almost immediately after getting there and taking full advantage of the clear, blue ocean! I currently have my brother's best friend stationed at Kadena Air Base for the US Navy and he has been the most helpful in giving us small facts as our questions arise. It'll be good to get there and have someone who has been there for a while and is familiar and kind of get us settled in.
In case you don't know, Okinawa is not part of main-island Japan. It is it's own island south of Japan.
