Our last two and half days in the States were spent in Virginia. It was so great to be back “home” and get to see so many wonderful and dear friends. It was a whirlwind, and of course, not long enough, but still such a joy to our hearts to be with so many who have been such a blessing in our lives. My pictures don’t do the time justice, as I am missing many faces in this post, but here are a few fun ones:
Aunt Martha and Uncle Mark were along for most of our visit, which always makes life super fun. We are so thankful for the excitement that the Lord has ahead of them… Mark beginning his first semester of college at UVA in August, and Martha becoming a wife in September!
Our visit was just in time for Liam and Phoebe’s One Year Birthday Party. It was the perfect chance to celebrate these two precious children who we love so much and have watched grow from afar. Here is Liam with his Mom and Dad and his birthday cake.
It was also a great chance to meet new friends and reconnect with old ones. Martha was happy to meet Canon Reid for the first time. Look at those two sets of blue eyes!
And Noa got to meet her almost-birthday-buddy, Jude Lookabill for the first time. Another fun friend who we can’t wait to see again. We’re praying that Jude and his parents will be here in Japan real soon, and the kiddos can be MK buddies together too! 
It was also a special time of reconnecting with old friends. Eric had fun catching up with some of our fun friends, the Reid family! In our time in Harrisonburg, we loved getting the chance to babysit these guys, or just come over to hang out.
Noa loved seeing a very handsome and grown-up Paul Tongen once again. I love this photo of them checking each other out.
We love the Tongen family and it was such a joy to see them, along with many other families from our home group while we were back. What a treat!
Here is Noa connecting with BF Kathryn Sink. We have so many pictures of these two since they were babies and it was fun to watch them play together again. Here’s a big hug!
And of course, splashing around in the pool with Liam made the time even more fun!
And finally, a Noll-Cole trio! How fun to have these three, Noa and Phoebe and Martha, all just about 9 months apart from each other, get to hang out. 
Although we wish we could have played longer, it was such a blessing to get to see her for just a bit. Phoebe and her parents will move to California in a few weeks. We are so excited for where the Lord is taking them, but sad that they won’t be in Harrisonburg anymore when we go back. We pray, though, that no matter where the Lord leads our families, he will only strengthen our friendships and let these little cuties always enjoy whatever time they get to be together.
We have successfully completed our first trans-pacific plane ride as a family of four and, really, it wasn’t so bad. We were blessed to be next to the only empty seat on the plane (empty because all the gadgets were broken) which was a great blessing. We were also flying during what would have been our night-time so that was a big blessing too. The girls slept a lot and we didn’t have any meltdowns. God was very gracious to us and we’re very thankful. Hopefully the flight home will be just as uneventful…
Yesterday was an adventure! Noa went to my parents’ house and Eric, Martha, and I made the trek to the U.S. Embassy in the middle of Tokyo. After 4 trains and subways to get there (about 2 hours, the whole of which Martha slept in the snuggly), we made it to the little piece of America here in Japan. It was actually a lot like the DMV, nothing impressive, but we were thankful that things went relatively quickly and we were able to apply for her Consular Report of Birth Abroad (it will be like her English birth certificate), her passport (which we need very soon in order to apply for her visa to live in Japan), and her social security. Some people have asked us if she will have dual citizenship. Japan is one of the hardest countries to get citizenship in, and being born here holds little value on the issue so we have not even thought of exploring that option. Right now she’s just 100% American 
We hit rush hour on the way back so we were on a pretty crowded train. Thats also when Martha decided to stop being the angel child and start wailing. For over 20 minutes on a hot, crowded train, Eric bounced up and down trying to comfort her. She eventually wore herself out and just looked around the rest of the trip. It was one of those things that could have been really stressful, but there was nothing we could do to change the situation so we just smiled at those who stared and kept smiling at each other and Martha, thankful that about half the passenger at least had headphones. It was wonderful to get home and go to bed. Martha and I both slept great – she went almost a 7 hour stretch for me, for which I am incredibly grateful. I needed the rest after walking around the big city. She obviously needed it too.
The newest citizen of The United States of America (outside the Embassy – see the flag?):
I wanted to get up our Easter photos but I don’t have the cord for the camera here at home. I’ll have to share those later. For now, here’s a few random ones:
With Aunt Hannah
About 2 months ago, we weaned Noa off the paci, using the logic that pacis are for babies and Noa is a BIG sister. She seems to have gotten it pretty well, though she’s occasionally been known to “taste” Martha’s paci. The last few weeks, though, she’s picked up this bad habit that we are trying to figure out how to break…
Welcome Calvin Pfeil! Calvin was born 11 days after Martha (even though their due dates were exactly a month apart!) and we are so glad he is here now too. Sarah and I enjoyed being pregnant together and I know we will have fun with our little ones being so close in age. I can’t believe Martha slept through her first date!
Here is Martha in her special sweater made with love from her Grammy. Eric’s mom is always spoiling us with beautfiul handmade gifts and we just love having those tangible reminders of her love for us. In fact, the red sweater that Noa is wearing in the photo above is also a Grammy Special. Thank you thank you thank you Grammy! ( or as Noa says, “Mimi”)
We had a great week at our Asia Area Retreat in Malaysia (MTW has these area retreats for missionaries every 4 years). God blessed us with great speakers, seminars, and times of worship, as well as some fun time together as a family and with other missionaries. We left with refreshed souls and excitement for what God is doing in Japan, as well as Asia.
This was Noa’s second flight ever. We have figured that in 3 weeks we have spent 28 hours on planes. Talk about a lot for a little less-than-one-year-old to handle but she did great. We are so proud of her newfound traveling skills. She finds ways to keep herself busy on the flight.
And this time, they gave us a seat at the bulkhead (I think thats what its called) where Noa could have a little bed to sleep in. Very nice perk to the flight, if you ask me.
This was where we had meetings every morning and late afternoon, and some evenings. Both Dr. Paul Kooistra and Pastor Joseph Wheat were the featured speakers. It was really encouraging seeing the missionaries from other regions in Asia-Pacific.
Below is a picture of our new friend, David Cunningham. He and his family are missionaries in Australia and he gave a testimonial one evening. Eric really appreciated the caution he gave to young missionaries about burn out and the encouragement as a man to make family a priority.
We loved getting to spend time with our team, and it was a special treat to be with the Dingle and the Pfeil families, as they are in Karuizawa at language school and won’t be joining us in Chiba til next year. Both Rebecca Dingle and Sarah Pfeil are expecting their third children this coming spring so we’re excited that this next batch of team kids will be so close in age. Noa got to spend some time with Annabella and Olivia Pfeil and she loved it! Big girls are just so much fun to watch!
While there all the missionaries are given a “day off,” and we went to a neat water park/amusement park/zoo called Sunway Lagoon and had a great time playing in the water all day. Actually, the water and the sand. Here is another picture of Noa just enjoying Olivia so much.
We stayed in the water park part all day as that was the most fun for Noa. She even took a little nap on the beach. We were blessed to have Grandpa, Uncles Mark and Micah, and Aunt Hannah along for the trip so of course Noa had lots of people to watch her and play while mom and dad went down some water slides. At the end of the day, we had the special treat of eating at Pizza Hut. I can honestly tell you that pizza never tasted so good. What a blessing!
Most days we were pretty busy with meetings and worship services, which was a tremendous treat and so refreshing for our souls. One afternoon, however, Eric and I took a date into the city, leaving Noa in the capable hands of Micah, Hannah, and Mark (and all their MK friends).
We thought it would be pretty cool to go to the top of this tower, the KL TOWER, FOURTH highest in the world (impressive, huh?). Well, we weren’t as capable as we thought and it ended up taking a bit longer than we suspected to get to the tower itself.
The KL tower sits on a large hill in the middle of the city and we ended up having to walk halfway around the hill and then up the whole thing… quite a hike! On the way we met this little guy. Which we thought was pretty cool until he started following us on the wires above the path. All of a sudden I was imagining headlines of “American Couple Mauled By Monkey in middle of Kuala Lumpur.” Maybe thats why it was such a tiring hike… I made Eric run half the way to get away from the monkey!
It was pretty cool to be at the top of that huge tower and the city is so beautiful! There is a ton of history that we learned and it was neat to see the beautiful creation all throughout and in the distance.
These are Malaysia’s “Twin Towers”
We had such a great trip, but it was also exciting to come “home,” anticipating making this home as we have time now to actually settle. The plane ride back was pretty uneventful. Here’s a sweet photo of Noa and one of her biggest fans, Uncle Micah.
Our whole team rode on the planes together, so we made quite a crew. This photo doesn’t really capture the 35+ adults and children that we traveled with. Pretty fun…
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