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.