September 8, 2020
Warning, long update ahead. A lot has happened in the last two weeks.
Two weeks ago, I woke up to a call from my director with very good news! She told me that the Japanese government decided that they should exempt teachers at international schools from the entry ban because to keep them out of the country deprives the students at the international school of their right to receive education. That is a pretty specific exception, if you asked me! It is so specific that it could not possibly be anything other than God saying "I am showing you My power to get you specifically there." I know it is thanks to all of my wonderful prayer warriors bringing my needs before His Throne day after day.
Throughout that day, I went about making sure I had everything I needed to send off my application to the consulate in Houston. I overnighted it via FedEx, and it got there Wednesday morning! Smooth sailing from here, right? Of course not! Cue Hurricane Laura, threatening the whole Gulf Coast, and causing Houston, including the consulate, to shut down and prepare for evacuation. Thankfully, nothing happened in Houston besides some rain, but the consulate was still closed all of Wednesday and Thursday.
I received an email from the consulate on Friday saying I needed a letter of reason stating my case of why they should allow me in when the country is still closed to Americans. They said my school could mail it to me and I could mail it to Houston, or my school could mail it directly to them. Well, if we waited for it to get there from Japan, I would be delayed by several days. So once my director woke up (thank you 14 hour time difference for delaying important things that need to happen during business hours), she wrote the letter, and since it wouldn't really make a difference, emailed it to me and I printed it in color and mailed it from here. We figure that, as long as it has the school's letter head and her signature, it's good enough. I couldn't mail it until Monday, and it got there Tuesday, a week ago.
After sending off my application, I had booked a flight from DFW into Narita, one of Tokyo's two international airports, and the one that American Airlines flies into from DFW. Back when I thought I would be coming in the summer, my director had said someone could drive to Tokyo to pick me up and drive me to Nagakute (3 hours by Shinkansen (bullet train) but 5-9 hours by car depending on traffic), but due to school already being in session, she said it would be too far to ask someone to drive there and back.
So I looked into different flight options to get a flight into Nagoya. Of course, it is small enough that I would have to transfer to a domestic flight from an international one in Tokyo, and the only direct transfer was from Los Angeles to Haneda, Tokyo's other airport. So I booked a flight from DFW to LA to Haneda to Nagoya. Wow, so many transfers!
I had booked the flight from Haneda to Nagoya, but as I looked at the layout of Haneda to decide what to do while I wait for my next flight and how to get from one place to another depending on which terminals certain airlines usually fly into, I noticed that American Airlines only flies into Terminal 3, the International Terminal at Haneda, which happens to be across a tarmac from the other two terminals. After reading what I could find, I realized I would have to go through Immigration and Customs just to get from one terminal to the other. This is where everything started getting messy. After Immigration and Customs is the quarantine officer, who decides where you get to quarantine for 14 days, whether at a local hotel or elsewhere. This officer could easily say I needed to quarantine in Tokyo and not take my flight to Nagoya. Yikes!
Through talking to the consulate in Houston, I was informed that a domestic flight counts as public transportation, which is not allowed to someone who hasn't gone through 14 day quarantine yet. So, to yet again change flight plans, I canceled the final leg from Tokyo to Nagoya. My director said she found a special taxi service, which will not count as public transportation for Covid quarantine, to take me from the airport all the way to my apartment. The timing will be interesting because I have to have another Covid test (despite the one I have to get here before leaving) before I can leave the airport, and from what I've heard, it isn't the 15-minute test, more like the up-to-5-hours test. (Even though I have to test negative to leave the airport, I still have to quarantine for 14 days.) All the little details of getting from one point to the next feel to be constantly changing, and all of this plan is contingent on the assumption of getting my visa either tomorrow or Thursday. It all gets shifted ridiculously if I don't hear that I will get my Visa by Thursday. *Gulp*
Wow, that was a long explanation. And a few minutes from now it may not even be accurate. Yay.*
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Before the call from my director two weeks ago, I had been so disheartened. I felt that I would be stuck here for several months, and no kind words of encouragement or assurance that I would go soon helped to really encourage me. I put on a brave face, but inside I felt lost. I was getting used to the feeling of being in limbo, which is not a good place to be. I felt a lack of purpose for whatever time I remained here. No job, busy friends, no ability to prepare for my job once I got there, no real schedule or drive to make one. Teetering on the edge of depression for that long time, exhausted from waiting, not knowing, trying to figure a way around the ban. Nothing I could do or think of was any use.
But God:
Back in March, my mom and I began reading Tony Evans' "The Power of God's Names," though we hadn't gotten very far into it. She suggested we watch his teaching sessions to back up what we had read so far. The books starts at the beginning of the Bible with the first name we find, Elohim. The Creator God. It was a great first lesson, but there was one point that stood out to me the most, and was exactly what I had needed to hear this whole time.
After the 6 days of creation, He rested on the 7th day. He didn't rest because He was tired, but because He was finished. He is so powerful that He can create everything and not be tired, and can now enjoy what He has done. There is rest promised to His people (see the whole book of Hebrews). Once you have done all that God has asked so far (work or gather for 6 days), you can turn it over to God and rest in Him (the 7th day). "God, You've done everything, I have responded to what You've done, You take it from here. Since you rested, I'm going to rest." Then you let God take it from there. You have to understand that "the powerful God, Elohim, is big enough for whatever is taking place in your life."
This point made such a huge difference for me. I knew I had done all I could and all that God asked of me, and now it was time to stop trying to do it in my own power, turn it over to Him, and rest. How freeing! Did anything in my circumstances change? No, but realizing I was not in control anyway, and turning it over to God did indeed bring rest. Of course, this was only the night before my director called to say I could apply for my Visa! Man, I should have watched that video and turned it over to God sooner!
I thank God for each and every one of you for your constant support and prayers through the last several months. I thank Him for the wonderful team of teachers who have been teaching my classes for me, and will continue to teach them until my quarantine is done. I thank God for those who will be keeping in contact me so I don't die of loneliness in quarantine, and for the teachers who will be bringing me groceries and food so I don't starve in my new apartment.
I covet your continued prayers for me as I remember to trust that God's timing is perfect and not subject to my plans of timing. Pray for peace going forward. Going through all of the complicated immigration and quarantine officer and taxi ride and whatever happens between Dallas and my apartment has slowly been looking more daunting and less exciting, fearing getting stuck or losing a lot of money that has been graciously given to support me, doing or saying the wrong thing and getting sent home, etc. Pray that I can focus on God and His power and the Holy Spirit guiding me through each moment. Pray for those with whom I will be interacting, that they would see Jesus instead of me, no matter how jet-lagged I am. Pray for my students and the school staff as they await my arrive and do everything they can to help me get there, and that my trials would draw them and me closer to Him in new ways.
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
In Him,
Amanda
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*Update, September 19: How right I was as I wrote that. All of my plane tickets and transfers had to be canceled, as I still don't have my Visa yet, and half of next week is a Japanese national holiday. Great. So for now, I'll be stateside until you hear from me again. Hey, at least I get to spend my birthday with family and friends instead of in quarantine!
