Father's Day

I know I'm a little bit late on this one, but I just wanted to say that I'm thankful for my father. I don't often have the chance to tell him this because we don't live near each other or see each other, but whenever I speak with him I try to let him know how much he means to me. And now that I am a father my appreciation and gratitude has significantly increased for my own father, as I'm learning how to be a good father to my own son.

Not sure how old I am in this picture.... but, I love you Dad.

The Joys of Marriage

Marital communication can be fun. It can also be very challenging. Especially when each partner wants to be understood by the other, but refuses to understand what the other is saying. Lol.

So the other day, Joy and I got into a doozy of a disagreement. The bottom line though, was that we just didn't understand what the other was saying. Or rather, refused to try to understand. Pride is a communication killer, boy oh boy.

So, in usual me-fashion, I didn't talk to Joy for awhile because she hurt my feelings. Basically, I threw a grown-up temper tantrum. But one thing that I absolutely love about Joy is that she is the first one to want to reconcile after any kind of argument that we have.

Well, next day she visits me at work, wearing a really nice summer dress and looking beautiful as usual, and brings me a white chocolate mocha frappucino from Starbucks. I knew what she was doing.... and by golly, it worked, lol.

On the way home, I decided that I would buy her a card and write in it how sorry I was and what a doofus I am, etc, etc. And of course, I picked up a quart of chocolate ice cream from Baskin Robbins for good measure. :) So I get home and she sees the card and says, "Oh, THAT'S funny." And she pulls out this card that she got for me. Yep.... you guessed it. We got each other the SAME card!

Man.... we probably laughed for a good 5 minutes at each other. And then we relayed our stories of how we chose that exact card and why. And they were virtually the same stories. Either great minds think alike, or we are slowly starting to become more like each other. At any rate, it was pretty funny and it served as good comic relief in light of the disagreement we just had.

Epic Man-Adventure

Last Saturday our church had a Mother-Daughter banquet for all the ladies who were either a mother or a daughter. Which was..... pretty much all of the ladies in the church. Anyways, Joy went with her good friend Maget, so I got to take Isaiah for the afternoon. Well, after pondering some things to do for the day and after talking with Maget's hubs, Adam, we decided to go on a hike to some waterfall that we had never been to before. I chronicled the adventure with my camera, and so I would like to take you on a journey in this blog of what I like to call our "man-adventure".

*Disclaimer: I refer to it as a man-adventure, because after starting and reading the book Wild At Heart, apparently these types of things are good for the masculine soul.*

Alright, so the journey begins in the manliest of vehicles, our little yellow Nissan March. Ok, maybe not so manly. But at any rate, we didn't let that discourage us. We started driving north, and after a little while Isaiah was having some man-food withdrawals, so I jumped in the back to satisfy his cravings with some solid food. He was glad to see me.

Oh! I almost forgot to mention. We had to bring our trusty scout dog to make sure the trail was safe and to fend off any wildlife that wanted to mess with this manly trio.

So Adam took the wheel for the rest of the drive.........

while I pumped Isaiah up with some pep talk of how real men behave in the wild.

We arrived to the bottom of the trail after about an hour of driving, following some directions I printed out on a piece of paper. Contrary to popular belief, men are actually pretty good at following directions. We only had to turn around what? like once? or maybe twice? I'm not sure.... the point is, we didn't actually have to ASK anyone for directions. Being on a Japanese island didn't really have anything to do with it either....

Well, this "trail" that I mention... it was actually the stream coming from the waterfall! So you basically have to hike up this stream/river to get to the waterfall. Pretty epic. Pretty manly. Definitely not an adventure for the faint of heart. So in usual Izzy-style, she scouted the river for us to make sure that there were no piranhas or crocodiles in the water.

I mean, even if there were, Adam would've been sure to wrastle them critters down. Thankfully he didn't have to. I think all the creatures got scared at the sheer sight of such manliness.

The journey continues...

With some breaks to play.... man-breaks of course!

Some more epic scenery and masculine posing in the middle of the river.

Then, of course, our manhood came to the test. A rock wall stood between us and the rest of the trail. So of course we had to conquer this test of strength, agility, and endurance, all the while being gentle enough to protect Isaiah. Tough test, but we made it (the rope helped).

After some more hiking and rugged river scenery...

We arrived!

Triumphant and conquerors. True men. Real men. Of genius. River genius.

Adam decided to display his true man colors and hike to the top of the waterfall, at which point he debated with himself whether he should do a graceful swan dive off the top of the falls, but after realizing that such a dive would put his masculinity into question, decided against it.

Needless to say, his man-image was saved.

Well, we were pretty sweaty after our hike up, so Adam decided to take a real man's shower in the wild.

After nearly drowning three times before reaching the bottom of the falls, he was victorious and showered epicly. Of course no man-adventure is complete without some good eats, so in true fashion we sat Isaiah down (who was having a complete blast learning what real men do),

and proceeded to feast on our snacks. However, Ritz crackers were not manly enough for Isaiah, he had to show us up and try some rocks out for the taste.


Once we had our fill of food and Isaiah had his fill of rock, we began the journey back down to the trailhead. Besides some near slips and misses, and Adam having to carry Izzy across some deep parts (she was scared of the water... you know how girls can be), we made it back safely. And I think that I can speak for all members of our trio, but after we got back we held our heads a little bit higher, put a little bit more strut in our step, and chuckled a little more heartily. You know... man-stuff.

Back Home!

I am back in Okinawa, praise the Lord! I know this blog has been a while in coming, but I have just been busy getting back into a routine, and getting re-acquainted with my family.

First off, I want to thank everyone who has been faithful to pray for me and for my family while we were apart. God has shown Himself faithful and true to us, and both Joy and I have grown tremendously in the Lord as a result of our time away from each other.

While we were only apart for a seemingly short time as compared to a usual Marine Corps deployment, we experienced some things that were unique only to being on ship with the MEU, including no contact via phone or Skype, and work email access only, when the ship wasn't in a 'communication lockdown' due to OpSec. Communication was definitely a stress point, but the Lord preserved our relationship through it all.

My wife has been such a huge source of encouragement and strength to me. Joy took care of all family matters that I usually take care of as the leader of our home, to include bills, all of Isaiah's appointments, changing Tri-Care providers, and scheduling all Space-A traveling and flights, etc. It takes a special kind of woman to be the wife of a military man, and I am truly amazed at the how she stepped up to the plate in my absence and seamlessly transitioned to the role of both parents while I was gone. The Lord has surely been gracious to her and has blessed her with strength that I'm not sure she knew that she had. I am so thankful for and proud of my wife. God is so amazing to show Himself mighty when we need His presence most in our lives. My respect has truly grown for Joy over these past few months.

I can honestly say that our time apart has brought us closer together. I guess it's crazy how that works, but it just does. The spiritual growth in our lives that resulted has been awesome! The Lord taught us both some amazing lessons of His faithfulness, while I was on ship and Joy was traveling in the states.

Actually while I was on ship, I had some extra time in the evenings to really study the Word, read some good books, and listen to sermons on podcast. I also met some amazingly solid Christian men on board and we met for Bible study about 3 times a week, apart from Sunday chapel service. It was so awesome to meet with fellow brothers in the Lord whom I hadn't met until I got on ship, but our brotherhood in Christ brought us together immediately and we got along like old friends.


One of the studies that we actually went through is called The Truth Project, which is a DVD series put out by Focus On The Family. It is really good! It's a 12-session series that explores in depth the truth claims of the Bible, and holds those truth claims up to the truth claims that we are bombarded with everyday from culture, society, religions, history, philosophy, etc. It was very beneficial to go through, and in my opinion it is a must-see for every Christian.



Additionally, I read a couple of good books on ship, but the one that impacted me the most was The Holiness of God by R.C. Sproul. Wow, what a great soul-stirring book! In a nutshell I learned that we can't really worship God in truth until we see Him for who He is as He has revealed Himself to us. I also learned that we just kind of go through life without any sense of the presence of the holy. This book will convict of sin and lazy Christian living, not because it's on par with scripture, but because it points you to scripture; and the Holy Spirit can and will use that scripture to stir an attitude of fear and worship within you. The Preacher of Ecclesiastes says it right when he says, "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, For this is man’s all." And this book has helped me to see the all-importance of doing just that.

So again, I just wanted to express gratitude for all who have prayed for myself and Joy while we were away from each other, and also share what has been going on in my life for the past few months.

Here's a story for you.... kinda funny, but kinda sad too: The day that I got home, Isaiah obviously had no idea who I was. He completely forgot all about me. Anyways, Joy and I decided to go out and get some japanese food for dinner that night. Well, he was fussing at the restaurant so Joy said, "Hey why don't you feed him." I was like sure, no problem. Yeah....... Isaiah would have none of it. He threw the biggest fit! And Joy couldn't figure out why. But it was because he didn't know who I was. Like, "Who's this random dude trying to stuff food in my mouth?" He was reaching out for her and everything. He wanted to have nothing do with me! I was sad.

Lol, but it's all better now. He loves it when I come home from work. He gets so excited, so that makes me happy again. I absolutely love being a father.

31st Marine Expeditionary Unit

The day has arrived. Today I leave for 3 months to go on a little vacation in the Pacific islands with the 31st MEU. While I am excited and looking forward to the opportunities that await, I'm also sad that I will be leaving my wonderful family behind. This will be the longest time that I have been away from Joy, and now Isaiah, since I have been in the Marine Corps. While 3 months is weak sauce compared to the typical 7 or 9 month deployments to a combat zone, it is still time away from my wife and son whom I love dearly. During this time away, I will most likely miss Isaiah's first teeth coming in and his first full-on crawling times, and probably a host of other things. I can see his little teeth nubbins on his bottom gum, so I know they are not far from appearing. He's also already starting to shuffle himself across the floor and hold himself up, but he's not quite at the crawling stage yet.

However, on a positive note, Joy is going to take advantage of our time apart to go back to Washington and possibly North Carolina so that the extended family can shower some love on Isaiah. :) And on her of course! I'm soooooooo glad that my parents and her parents will have a chance to meet Isaiah. Please take good care of them both!

Also, I'm looking forward to this "deployment" for a couple of reasons:

1) Over the past couple of months I've ordered like 7 books off of Amazon.com, and I'm going to be bringing some good reading with me to keep myself engaged while on the boat.
2) I've alread heard word of a couple of solid, Christian men that are attached with the MEU, so I'm hoping that we can start up a Bible study on the boat. I know that I would definitely be super encouraged by a Bible study, and I'm sure other Christians would as well.
3) This is my first experience of actually 'doing something' since being in the Marine Corps. Up until now, I haven't actually done anything/gone anywhere significant.

This is probably mostly from my own perspective, but I have often struggled over these past 4 and 1/2 years as to why the Lord has not allowed me to deploy and do the very thing that I joined the military to do, which is to defend my country. But..... I know that His plans are higher than mine and His ways beyond figuring out. So I'm thankful for the time that I have been allowed to spend with Joy and to cultivate and strengthen our relationship together. I know that His timing is perfect, and that this opportunity came at exactly the right time in both of our lives, according to His will.

Pray for Joy please as we are apart from each other. She will have to be both parents to Isaiah and basically run the household while I'm gone.

Pray for me also, if you would. Pray that I would gain a deeper knowledge of God while I'm gone, and specifically, that I would abstain from giving in to temptation whether on ship or in a liberty port. I am certainly not perfect and being married does not automatically disqualify me from the snares of temptation.

Thank you so much for your spiritual support.