Kelly - Safely back in Seattle

I was originally going to title this "Home Safely", but then I began to ponder where "home" truely is for me. I already miss Japan... and I know amonst the team members I'm not alone. For the TMK team, Vincey may have been the only one on the bus back to the airport who openly cried, but my heart was crying with her. Many of us are already pondering about returning next year - you could almost "see" the little wheels turning in our minds about how we could continue to serve both TMK and NBF.

This day was one of those bitter-sweet days. Soo sweet to have a few of the neighborhood kids/moms come down to the church to send us off. Sweet to spend our last few hours together as one team, sharing memories I pray none of us ever forget (well, ok, maybe some of the memorie we should forget...) Bitter in that these were our last few hours in Japan...

We all arrived back in Seattle safely. I am truely amazed by how much God protected this team this year, no injuries, no lost members, no major lost anything, (and to my knowledge, the Nokendai team all got their luggage at Narita). There were difficulties, but if you a took the monent to step back, you could see God's hand is all that was being done.

One way that I know members of our team have been changed is with our perspective on things, Tom was up-graded to business class but he frequently wandered back to the cozy economy section because it was lonely up there, and while Heather was able to get a window seat instead of the middle seat of 5, (although she was only 4 rows away) it felt like she was off in another world. I had the option to up-grade Sharon and I as well, but to all of us, in the end, our personl comfort seemed less important than being with the team.

Stay tuned though. We've all been asked to post our 3 most memorable moments from this trip... hmm, was that memorable or meaningful... time to go back to sleep or nap or what-ever I was doing...