Tomo and I are in Michigan right now at SEND’s headquarters for candidate orientation program (COP). This is the same program I went through back in 2007 when I was accepted as a missionary appointee with SEND. However, SEND’s policy is not to send a couple out on the field unless both spouses are appointed as missionaries, which means that Tomo also needs to go through the process.
I’m also sitting in on most of the sessions, getting a little refresher course on support raising, and getting to see and talk to a lot of the SEND staff that I’ve gotten to know over the years. It’s been very encouraging, because much of the staff is comprised of missionaries who worked in Japan for many years, a number of them even know and have worked with Tomo’s parents, and some even knew then before they were married.
The next two weeks will be pretty busy. Tomo will have to endure a number of evaluations (although this morning I learned that she scored the highest out of all the appointees on a language acquisition test, despite the fact that the test was written with English speakers in mind). We’ll be getting pictures taken so we’ll finally have prayer cards with both of us on them. On Saturday we’ll be interviewed as a couple by the SEND board, and a week from Friday, at the conclusion of the program, Lord willing, Tomo will officially be appointed as a SEND missionary. We’ll also get a new list of financial requirements, which dictates the amount of support we’ll need to raise before SEND will allow us to go out on the field.
Support has been a little slow since I last went through COP two and a half years ago, but things are also a lot different. I believe God has had a plan along, and I’m excited to jump into support raising officially as a couple.
When I finished COP in 2007, I was single, I went from Michigan almost directly to Romania leading a short term team from our church, I came back from that to continue leading the high school and college groups at church, and soon started dating Tomo, and subsequently got engaged and married. God had me involved in a lot of different ministries and was introducing a lot of changes, I could barely keep up. Now however, God’s cleared a lot of things off of my plate, and I feel like this is the time to finish raising support, and get over to Japan.
Please be praying for this week. Pray for Tomo that she does well on all the tests and doesn’t get too stressed out. Pray that the interview goes well, and that she will be appointed. Also please pray for wisdom as we try to set a departure date that is both realistic and rooted in complete faith in God’s ability to provide.