Aaron and I had a good time relaxing, enjoying the warm weather (it was in the 70s!), and eating some good meals. We tried out a church on Sunday. To our amazement, we met a couple who will be going to Okinawa in March too! We might even be on the same plane. Their names are Dan and June. He is an officer in the Air Force and is going to school for intelligence at Goodfellow. They have four adorable kids, all fairly close in age. We went out to lunch with them. It was so nice to be able to share our questions, fears, concerns, excitements and everything about moving overseas for the first time. I also discovered that June is learning to be a quilter! We already decided we'll have to get together to quilt while we're in Japan.
There was one interesting thing about meeting this couple that opened my eyes to the challenges we'll face being in the military. Aaron was excited to meet some people who could potentially be really good friends, but because of Dan's rank as officer, he was uneasy about the appropriateness of it. Part of the code that Aaron has to follow says that enlisted airmen (which is what Aaron is), are not supposed to have personal relationships with officers. They consider it fraternization and unproffessional. Aaron and I had to have a serious talk about what that means for these new friends we'd made. It frustrated me, because I saw this meeting as a divine appointment, a blessing from God, and I had a hard time seeing anything wrong with it... Things like that don't just happen by coincidence! But Aaron has a sense of responsibility to respect and abide by what is expected of him as a member of the Air Force. This code of conduct is confusing and we never really came to a conclusion about what Aaron was supposed to do. He said that he thought he learned that he wasn't even supposed to have lunch with officers. But Dan didn't act like there was a rank difference between them at all. He was respectful to Aaron and treated him like a friend. He sent Aaron an email with links and offering to bring him to church or to let him come to his house if he ever gets tired of being on base. He's just a genuinely nice guy with good intentions... Pray for us that we would have wisdom and discernment about this friendship, and that most of all, we would love God through it. Pray that if God wants us to be friends with this couple, that he would protect both Dan and Aaron and give them peace about their interactions.
Even despite that little hurdle, I'm so excited to be familiar with a couple of people who will be in Japan at the same time as us! It's just another confirmation for me that we are in God's will. Sometimes it's hard to know if the military is right for us. Living apart from Aaron is really difficult, and I know this won't be the last time or the hardest time. It sort of feels like our lives are in limbo and our marriage is on hold. That's not really true, but it's definitely not the same as when we live every day together. Some days I can hardly wait to be in Japan. Not because I don't like it here or because I want to get away, but because for me, being in Japan represents having a 'normal' life again. Isn't that silly? That I would even think that my life is ever going to feel 'normal' again? That I would think living in JAPAN on a military base would feel normal. But I think where those feelings really come from is knowing that my daily life will be with Aaron again... and that's what feels normal to me... Oh, the things we take for granted. :)
I took a couple of pictures for the blog while I was there. The first one is just Aaron and I in front of one of the old fire trucks they have on display at Goodfellow. The second picture is from a town that I drive through on my way to San Angelo. It has the smallest Wal-Mart that I've ever seen, so I had to share it!
It's hard to see, but the entire store is captured in this one picture! And I love how they still managed to squeeze the phrase 'Satisfaction Guaranteed' onto one side of the Wal-Mart sign!
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