One of the hardest things to leave in Minnesota was our friends and  support network. We have now been in Tokyo for a little over a month and it is safe to say we miss our people.  We are thankful for technology and have been able to keep in touch with some people via google hangout video, facebook messenger and facetime!  We even have gotten a piece of personal mail, which is incredible also for the fact that most mail we get is in Japanese!?!!

As we were busy packing and preparing for our big move I continually reminded myself “PEOPLE MATTER.”  Our to-do-lists were never ending and we were stressed out but we knew people were more important than things.  We tried to prioritize people as much as we could.

We felt so blessed our small group and some folks from Mercy’s Care team were willing to help us prepare our house for rental. Thank you small group!
              

Our dear friends Annetta  and Barnabas Howard offered to host a going away party for us.  When Jess Carlson also offered the help I knew they would get the job done!   Life was chaotic for us but  they handled it all beautifully.  We are so blessed by all the hard work they put in.  We had so much delicious food left over I didn’t even have to cook for a week! Thank you Annetta, Barnabas, Jess, Brett, and everyone who came to our party! I know there are some pictures that we missed 🙁  But we are thankful for everyone who came out!

There are also a couple people who stopped by in the last couple days before we left…. notice Caleb and I are looking pretty tired and sweaty from working on all the house stuff. Thanks friends!

I have so much more to write, more people to thank but I am going to post now with the goal of posting “People Mattter Part 2” within one week!  Stay tuned.  As always THANKS FOR READING!