Home.

Well, as most of you know, I'm back on American soil these days.

The journey home was fairly smooth, minus a little ticket mix-up in Tokyo. Once that was solved, I was good to go. Watched some in-flight movies and took a couple of naps...about 20 hrs later I was waiting for my bags in Tulsa with my parents. I did lose a wheel on my suitcase in Tulsa, but that was almost funny considering how it was dragged up train station stairs and made two overseas flights just to get banged up at my last stop. God is good!

My last weekend in Tokyo was really great. As I mentioned in my last post, I spent the weekend at a friend's house near Mt. Fuji. It was a really relaxing time and it was nice to just spend time with everyone before we went our separate ways. Sunday morning, I went to my last service at Tokyo Urban Church. That was hard! I really miss TkUC and my church family there. My cell group bought pizza (pepperoni! yay!) for lunch and they gave me a traditional Japanese style purse which was really nice! I took a ton of pictures and then I headed over to GAP church to see our friends there.

After GAP, we went to Starbucks so I could use the free drink coupon that came with a gift from my friend Kohei. While we were there, there was an earthquake. No one was injured in that earthquake, but it was pretty wild to be there when it happened...

That night, summer team members Liz and Eric joined Robert, Yuri, Kohei and I at the student center to hang out and we did a praise and worship set. Robert, Liz, Eric and I were planning on staying up all night so we would sleep on our flights the next day. They were all leaving pretty early in the day so I was going to help them get their stuff on the train in the morning before going back to Susan's to get my own stuff together. The boys ended up falling asleep, but Liz and I persevered. Around 5:45 a.m., we loaded up and started walking to the station in the pouring rain. I think it had never rained that hard all summer, but it was okay...we got to the station and Kohei was standing there! I was so surprised. He had gotten up early and came to see us off which was really nice. I'm glad he was there, because he ended up going all the way to the airport with the boys and Liz and they needed the help with their luggage.

Pastor Sakai drove me to the airport when it was my time to go, which was really kind of him. It's a two hour drive and my bags were SO heavy! So, Pastor Sakai and Susan were there to see me off at Narita Airport. At first, I felt too tired to really feel sad but when I got through security and got in line for immigration...that's when it really hit me and I started crying. I met so many amazing people this summer and I experienced a lot of really cool things. Bigger and better than that though, God just really opened up my eyes and my heart in new ways. It was hard leaving Tokyo and the summer behind, even though I know God has amazing plans for this year in Chi Alpha and with the international students on my campus.

Tokyo looked bright and beautiful as the plane took off from Narita. It was already dark and the city lights were endless. I'm glad to be home now, getting ready for my senior year at Northeastern State and seeing all my old friends. I'm still praying for Tokyo and the campuses and churches I worked with this summer and I hope you will keep praying for them as well.

I hope to return to Tokyo by next fall. Thank you so much for supporting me on my first trip to Japan and I'll be in touch through this blog if and when I start planning on returning. Again, thank you so much and I pray God blesses you as you have surely been a blessing to me!

-Amanda