The J6 Journey: Year 4, February 2nd-3rd, 2019: Leaving On a Jet Plane

Phew. What a crazy couple of days. I was mostly focused on Jared and I, but it had to be between all the kids' things. Keturah had a basketball game at 9 and Justin's Bible Bowl tournament started at 9 as well. Divide and conquer. Jared had already taken Benaiah to work at 7, bought Justin breakfast, and then went on to Bible Bowl. Grandma texted asking if I wanted to leave Abishai with her, and I said, sure, and can you keep him through 4pm? She said yes! So after basketball, Keturah and I went to the library to kill some time, and then stopped at Chick-Fil-A to pick up some lunch (breakfast isn't over until 10:30am). Well, CFA, you disappointed me. I asked for no bun, but you gave me a bun, and you shorted me two regular fries. Sad face. The car in front of us also had some missing items, so she had already held up the line, and I didn't realize the mistake until after we had driven around the building again. Next time, I'll park and go inside. Plus something made the bag soggy. It wasn't quite lunch time when we got to Bible Bowl, so we left our stuff with Justin's lunch and went to watch two more games. By the time we got back to lunch, the bag was soaked and the food was not great. Bummers.

But we did get to surprise Justin! You see, he had been upset at the basketball game two Saturdays ago because he said all of us are never there at his games at the same time. So, it was the perfect opportunity to make that happen. I was a little disappointed that Jared didn't come in to watch the games with us. He was trying to get some work done. I told him that next time, he has to make the effort to watch. But at least we were together. And the kiddos won 1st place in division 1 and 2! Way to go! But it's really because the Henry kids carry the teams. Justin admitted to not studying the last months and didn't speak up when Mr. Henry was impressed with the teams, but felt guilty later when I pointed out that he didn't do anything. He's just not quick enough. Therefore, next year, we are going to move on to something else. Grandma picked up Benaiah for us and we all arrived home at 4.

But from Friday evening until Sunday at 9:30pm, the focus was mostly on Jared leaving. Ok, in my mind it was. I've been fearful and upset for two weeks and it finally just came out. India is not a "safe" place for Christians, and although the area that Jared and Gary will be in is safer than others, and there's safety measures in place, I'm still not used to my husband going off to foreign soil without me and to somewhere even slightly dangerous. I've never felt upset when Gary goes, so I don't know why it's so bothersome now. It also has to do with our season of life. Yes, I need Jared's physical help, but I also need his mental and emotional help. You don't stick together for more than 20 years and not have a deep relationship. Our marriage is so strong right now. And I'm grateful for the tears. I want to be emotional. I want to be present enough to think through the consequences and have no regrets. I ran through a lot of the "what if he doesn't come back?" scenarios. And I cried and cried. I get it. Lots of people travel. Missionaries sacrifice and risk their lives. Christians in foreign countries are still killed every day even now for their faith. We live in a Christian bubble and a mostly risk free zone, protected even physically from hurricanes, earthquakes, snowstorms, and forest fires. Most of the time, Jared's jobs were good and he wasn't persecuted or passed over for a promotion because he is a Christian. We've been so blessed. But the feelings are the same. I'm a deep thinker (and Jared thanked me for that), so I take everything so seriously. And I clung to him until I drove home. And I'm grateful that just a touch means oh so much that words cannot express.

Oh, I never explained what they are doing. They are working with an organization and teaching local Christian pastors leadership materials. Four others from church went as well. I told Jared to immerse himself in the work. Take lots of pictures, and don't worry about me. I will do my part here as he does his part there. As King David of the Bible did, I cried while he was here and while I could like David cried when his son was sick. But when his son died, David got up, got dressed and stopped crying out to God. What was done, was done. Time to move on. And so, I, too, will move on now that Jared and Gary are off and running. The time for mourning is over, time to get to work. We have a few things to take care of in the next two weeks to prepare for Abishai's birthday party, plus the normal load of things and a concert next Sunday that nearly forgot about! I thought it was at the end of the month! Eek!

And two other side notes to mention. One, Benaiah is hating dual credit classes and doesn't want to take any more. That breaks my heart because I had this plan and dream in my head since I graduated high school that they would do the same course of events as I did. And I have to adjust my thinking. We argued for about 30 minutes on Saturday about it. And then I posed the question about whether to push my points or let him decide to fellow homeschoolers on FB and got some great response to that.

And lastly, my New England Patriots wont their 6th Superbowl with Tom Brady! SuperBowl 53 ended with a score of 13 Patriots, and 3 Rams! Very low scoring game! I wasn't watching it because I was trying to get Abishai to sleep and watch Jared's plane take off, but I watched the score for the last quarter on a phone app. I'll share a few more details in the pictures below. But, we won!!!!!

Oo, we got a tiny bit of snow, but then it warmed up quickly. It was very foggy early on and the trees were covered in snow and ice.

Tip off for Keturah's basketball game. Her foot still has a blister from ice skating, so she asked her coach to not play as much. She played during two quarters. I'm glad I didn't have to deal with Abishai and watch the game at the same time. He was at Grandma's.

I did notice that her hands weren't as up this week because maybe she was in pain? The girls worked hard, but they got soundly beaten again.

Lots of good coaching time. And all the girls on the team were there.

Run, Keturah, run.

Ouch.

Gorgeous trees on the drive down to the Bible Bowl competition. The snow and ice were completely gone before we came back. I'm glad I snagged these while I was driving.

Lunch time shenanigans. Daniel wouldn't stop talking about Pokemon, despite Justin trying to change the subject. I just wish Justin participated more during the quizzing time. Keturah and I ended up watching 4 games I think.

Look how long her hair is! She won't put it up for basketball either. And it's actually much smoother and thinner than this. We discovered later that evening that she had two huge knots in the underside layers that she hasn't been brushing well. When it's brushed properly, it's only a little thicker than mine with no wave or curl. I failed teaching her how to brush her hair when she was younger because she says it hurts so I let it be. Well, I've been working a lot with her lately, especially since she's had a an open wound on the top of her head for about a month that won't heal. I am now putting antibiotic ointment on it every day and I think we've gotten ahead of it. I wish taking care of her hair wasn't such a fight. But she insists on keeping it long for now.

Jared made it a point to talk to the coach/quizmaster who lost his wife in a flash flood car accident a month ago. Jerren taught a class for MCC every year. He's been a pastor at the same smallish church for almost 40 years and they are very well known there in Clarksburg, Indiana. So sad.

The kiddos won 1st place in Division 3, so they will move up to Division 2 next month. They had Jamie on their team instead of Daniel and Jordan. I really liked that change of pace, although Jamie carried the team the whole time buzzing in and doing all the bonuses.

Hm, not sure if you really won the right to have this buddy. But Justin does know that he didn't earn it, Jamie did. And he's going to learn from his mistake and study more this month.

Somebody got his favorite Paw Patrol character, Everest, to carry around. And Daddy bought him (at Mommy's request), left handed scissors! He immediately wanted to start practicing his cutting, which is more like a cut and tear process. Teaching him to cut and write is going to be interesting because none of us are left handed. My sister is and Everly and Nora are. We'll see how it goes!

Reading to me in our bed.

Justin waiting for Abishai to come around the corner so he can scare him.

Are we ready for some Patriots football tomorrow? Yes we are! "Love thy enemies" is what I'm going to tell Dan Hamel at church tomorrow. Lol. This is as close to a New England's Patriots shirt I have. I never did get one after last year's Super Bowl.

"I'm a big boy, Mom, I insist on carrying my own jacket." Ok, buddy, ok.

Our neighbor, Jim, (on Gary and Leah's street) baptized our other neighbor, Andrew, today! They share a fence. And Gary wasn't involved except for praying a prayer over them. Sweet! Actually, Gary took Benaiah to Shelby St. for rehearsal, helped Benaiah record the fellow band members listening to his speech for his college class, shook hands before the 9:15am service, and then darted back to Franklin Rd. to be there for the baptism at 10:15am. Then Gary went back to Shelby St. to greet more people and get Benaiah for our 15 minute lunch with everyone before the guys went to the airport. Phew! And this is after Gary had gotten in at 10pm the night before from the airport after being in Virginia for 36 hrs. I'm dizzy just typing that!

Time to go to class, Little Man. Abishai was a little confused because we were way early (because of the baptism) and his normal teachers weren't there. Also, he told us later, that Mr. and Mrs. Boyer were away seeing their (grand)baby. I found out later that they attended the christening of a submarine that their son in law is on or was at where he's stationed at in North or South Carolina. Cool!

Yes, it's such a thing. A map made from the "I hate Tom Brady" tweets on Twitter. Tom Brady is the uppity quarterback for the NE Patriots. I'm not fond of him, but I did find out that there's at least 3 Christians on the Patriots team. And seriously, I doubt that NE can still rig games and cheat with underinflated footballs anymore. That was like 8 years ago, give it up! But check us out. Indiana is in the "deep hate" category. No wonder Dan Hamel plays to the crowd! He actually rooted for the Patriots he said! I am not that loyal to any one team, especially after leaving the States for awhile. However, I grew up with my Dad liking the Patriots, and I'm so fond of my Dad and New England that I'll root for their team over any other team. Then I'll root for New Orleans Saints, and then maybe the Indianapolis Colts, who have literally done so poorly in the last few years they aren't even worth mentioning. The Saints made it to the finals this year though.

Speical delivery on a Sunday! I thought these were all packages of Abishai's birthday stuff when really only one of them was! One was a water bottle Benaiah ordered. One was kid vitamins. One was a game for a fundraiser at Benaiah's school and finally, the envelope had a couple of things in it for Abishai. What a disappointment! But we should be getting packages throughout the next week with Abishai's stuff in it. Stay tuned. I love online shopping! I'll be putting a thank you card and gift card for a restaurant out in the mailbox for the postmaster soon. They bring our big packages right up to our door. And we get 2-3 a week it seems between Benaiah and I. Poor postal worker. They even brought packages last Wednesday when the regular mail wasn't brought because it was so bitter cold and they didn't want the postal workers that walk their routes to be out in it. Sheesh!

Prizes for friends!

Gift bags to put them in!

Short sleeves and snowboots! Because it was literally -1 degrees F before the windchill of -30 degrees F on Wednesday, then a bit of snow on Saturday, then it all melted and it was literally 55 degrees ABOVE 0 F on Sunday. #Indianaweather No wonder my body hates me! Stay warm or stay cold, not both!

Because Jared was flying on an airplane, I had to bring the younger kiddos with me to church so Keturah could do her choir auditions and KP worship volunteering and I could do nursery volunteering. There was no Crave or small groups, so the older boys stayed at home. I went to put my purse down in the nursery, and Abishai decided to pretend he was a baby. He loved his exersaucer as a baby because he could see what was going on. We put it right in the middle of everything between the living room and the hallway to the dining room and kitchen and front door. I'm not surprised he wanted to get back in one! And he did get in it all by himself, too.

I made him take his shoes off of course, but he loved sliding down the ramp and crawling through the tunnel.

Red, white, and blue for those Patriots!

Thank you, Daddy, for my going away present! Jared saw this police car at CVS the night before so he bought it. He's never bought the other kids a going away present. Sheesh. This one's spoiled! It kind of looks like Cooper on one of Abishai's YouTube kids' shows.

Keturah made a little hideaway for herself and her dolls. Actually, that pink blanket was my summer blanket when I was growing up and we used to do that very same thing with it on our bunk beds! And our neighbor in Charlottetown gave us that wolf blanket.

We won! I so wanted to change out of this shirt when we got home at 6pm, because it's a bit tight, but kept it on for good luck, lol. I didn't watch the game, but watched the scores off and on during the 3rd quarter. It was the lowest scoring game in Super Bowl history. The Patriots were playing the L.A. Rams. No one scored an actual touchdown until the 4th quarter. It was tied 3-3 after the 3rd quarter. Craziness!

Booyah!

Meanwhile, I was keeping an eye on this guy evening. Would you like to be on a 14 hr flight with just one meal served early on in the flight? Nope! And he said he only slept for 3 hrs. It was an overnight flight, but because of the 10 1/2 hr time change, they basically skipped 10 hrs. They ended up at a hotel and then flew on a short flight, and then drove to their final destination. The original flight pattern had Jared going directly over PEI. They ended up going a bit north of there though as the pictures will show you.

They flew first form Indy to Newark, NJ, and then on the long flight.

Jared was on the north facing side, and got a few pictures. Unfortunately they didn't fly over Greenland, Iceland, or the UK (except seeing the sunrise over a bit of the Scotland coastline).

The rest of the projected route straight to New Delhi, India.

I saw him fly over NH, Maine, and New Brunswick.

They did not leave Newark on time. Eek.

Finally off the ground! We did text back and forth while they were waiting.

Vermont and NH.

Maine and New Brunswick.

Newfoundland/Labrador

Open ocean south of Greenland and Iceland

Headed to the UK, then I finally went to bed.

Their actual path took them over Norway and Sweden! Sweet! The sun was up but I don't think Jared was awake because he didn't take any pictures of our Scandinavian homeland.

They were still flying when I woke up in the morning. It was 11:15am our time when they landed.

Going over Afganistan and Pakistan. When I showed Keturah these pictures, she identified most of the big countries in the flight pattern, as well as the Caspian Sea! Between our Classical Conversations memory work and 6 years of the Mystery of History chronological history curriculum that has them identify places and color maps every single week, we've got a pretty good grasp on the world geography, even in 5th and 8th grade. Go us! We also talk often about where Grandpa and Grandma have been on mission trips, as well as other friends that have been missionaries, and mission trips that other members go on from our church, etc. Most of it is in the Northern Hemisphere though. There's a couple of places they go in Africa and we support a mission in Guatemala. But most of Gary and Leah's personal travels have been in the north.