Day 3,534

The Yellow Home!

After a week in Punta Gorda and two days traveling North in a loaded down Suburban, we have arrived! Hello, yellow home, North Carolina!

Here’s what’s been going on:

After having asked for and then given our release from Japan due to our inability to travel there together as a family, Adam had to wait a little while to clear waivers in Japan in order to become a free agent with the league there. In the meantime, he continued throwing bullpens, contacted a team, and once being cleared, signed the contract. We packed up, said an incredibly sad goodbye to our church family—which proved to be the hardest one to date by far after having spent so much time in the last year there with the people we so dearly love—and drove across the state to Punta Gorda. Because of the nature of baseball signings, trades, moves, and assignments, we were unable to share what exactly was happening at the time. Finally last night, Adam was activated and able to share the news: 

We signed with the Tampa Bay Rays!!!

He ended up throwing a couple bullpens at their Spring Training facility in Port Charlotte, FL and once he finally faced some live hitters (after nearly 9 months of not pitching to anyone other than myself and a bullpen catcher and not attending Spring Training at all), they assigned him to their AAA affiliate in Durham, North Carolina in order to get him some innings in actual baseball games. 

So for now, we’re Durham Bulls!

And what a tremendous organization we’ve signed with. We’re thankful for our opportunity here and excited to see how the Lord will use us in the days ahead. 

And to the Golden Eagles: thank you for so graciously releasing Adam from his contract in order to pursue a job here in America. We had great hopes for all that a season with the Eagles would bring and the children continue to talk about Japan to this day—when I ask Molly to repeat her sentence using “please” instead of a command, she ALWAYS says “onegaishimasu,” which means please in Japanese!

 Neither the team nor we could have foreseen the closure of Japan due to the virus, and so we are especially grateful for their willingness to care for the needs of our family when they didn’t necessarily have to. We’ll miss you, Golden Eagles. And someday, maybe we’ll see you again.