When I Left: Part 4

4…

My flight was extremely long (about 15 hours) but I slept a little. I just remember thinking, “Focus on right now. Do not think about anything past right now.” When I made it to Japan I remember all the thoughts that tried to enter my mind, such as: 

You have 764 days left...

You can’t do this...

Your luggage is too much...

You’ve hurt your family...

They’ll never be the same... 

You’ll miss so much...

But as soon as any of those thoughts would enter I would just beg the Lord to take them away and I would repeat “don’t worry about tomorrow... only right now. I trust you Jesus, you are worth it.” I don’t know how many times I repeated that in my head... too many to even count, it was constantly flowing through my mind. 

When it came time to grab my luggage, no one helped me (sadly) but I pulled those 50lb. bags off of that thing that goes around and around (not sure of the technical name) and went through customs, still barely able to see over my luggage on the cart. As I came out my Team Leaders (who would quickly become my family) met me and hugged me. Tara said “welcome home sweet girl we love you and are so happy you’re here.” The next few moments consisted of getting my luggage to their car and finally just breathing in the air of this country that was now my home. I was too tired to process anything else... I think I fell asleep in the car but I honestly don’t remember. My team leaders told me that I could stay at their house for that first night if I wanted to, but I knew that if I didn’t go to my apartment and stay alone that first night I would never want to stay alone. And I knew that I would eventually need to have a hard moment of realization that this was my place. And I was here for good. When I pulled up to the apartment it looked so foreign. Nothing felt familiar. I walked into this place that was simply one small room... my leaders showed me how to turn my shower on, flush my toilet, and helped me to unpack my “bed”. All of those seem like things a semi-smart human should be able to figure out... but as I said, EVERYTHING was foreign. Even the bathroom... we realized I didn’t actually have a bed I only had a blanket which I wound up using as my bed for the first two weeks before I gave in and purchased a memory foam mattress cover which I folded up to make a small bed... 

*I used a beach towel that night as my blanket... actually I used that towel for the first 2 months as my blanket. All of those things just kind of happened, not because I wasn’t being taken care of, it just was the way things went for a bit. I didn’t even think twice about it. It was kind of like getting on that plane. I knew I had to do it and so I did... and he helped me through. I laughed about it all mostly because I thought it was kind of funny to sleep on the floor with a beach towel as a blanket.. YOLO. *

I finally took a shower after my team left my apartment... a cold one, because I didn’t have hot water for the first several days. And went to bed. I fell asleep for a few hours and woke up around 1am terrified. The enemy always attacks when we are weak, and for me that’s at nighttime. I woke up and thought “There’s no way I can do this, I can’t even make it through my first night.” So, I called one of my friends who was also about to leave for the field. She told me “Each new second will be easier. This is the hardest part so just remember that you never have to go back to it.” It wasn’t until that moment that I finally let myself cry... really cry. All of the feelings of excitement and fear, turmoil and triumph, I let it all out. And when I closed my eyes I saw my parent’s faces and heard my sister’s words over and over again... The next morning I woke up and began my new life only having two goals for the first several weeks 1) find something positive in the morning and 2) find something positive in the evening. My quiet times with the Lord were what pushed me through each day and the Lord met me there on that futon in the tiny apartment. The place I was so terrified of (being alone) became my altar where I had to deny myself over and over again to experience the filling of His Spirit and the immensity of His peace. 

As I sit here now I’m surrounded by friends, who are now family, as we study and worship together. It’s home now and all of those hard moments were worth it, I wouldn’t trade them for anything because Christ became my all in all. He walked with me and spoke to me and comforted me in ways that I had never experienced before.