Day 5, Travel Day, 8-5-15

 Despite the late night last night, it was up early this morning (7:30am) so we could eat breakfast and clean up the church.  The area you saw where the guys were sleeping is the church sanctuary.  So, all the bedding had to be picked up and put away, some of it being taken downstairs as it was rented.  After clean-up, there was a time to hear from Masa/Chie and BJ/Mary, and for us to present them with gifts.  It was also a time to wish BJ a happy birthday.  He seemed truly surprised that we remembered that it was his birthday today.  We walked then with all of our luggage to where the bus would pick us up (the bus was too big to fit by BJ's church).  It was an absolutely beautiful bus.  We were met on the bus by Keith Carr, our liaison with the base.  The ride was good, but long as the was some construction on the freeway which slowed us down.  The bus drivers are required by law to stop every 2 hours and normally we can make it to Iwakuni with 2 stops, but because of traffic we had to make 3 stops.  Flexibility again.  Because of the delays, we could not eat in the mess hall where our meal would have been free.  Our 2nd choice, their food court, was temporarily closed for renovations.  Our 3rd choice would not serve us because the 3/4 length pants the guys were wearing did not have pockets or belt loops and thus were considered either basketball pants or workout clothes, which are not allowed in the eating areas.  We finally ate upstairs at a fix your own Mongolian BBQ, but even then we had to do take out as we were not allowed to eat inside.  It was fun though to watch your food being cooked.  Wednesday nights also is a special where the food (at $.75/ounce) is weighed, but if you guess the cost within $.10 total, you get the meal free.  We got lucky and got 2 free meals with Lucas guessing within $0.06 and Kousei hitting it exactly.   We had also gotten the news just 2 hours before we arrived, that our housing arrangements suffered a serious setback, but God arranged a workaround.  Maybe more about that later.  We had a team meeting outside to set up the camp for tomorrow and then off to bed.

Pictures
Video Montage