Andrew and Christie Weixel's house is starting to take on a bit of a lonesome air, as shelves here and there stand empty of the household goods that are making their way to storage.

As the young couple packs up their house on West Avenue B, selling and storing the physical parts of their current life in Bismarck, there is one loose end.

She is smoke-gray with intelligent green eyes - appropriate for a lady named after a famous scientist.

Other than finding a home for Miss Fermi, their cat - named for physicist Enrico Fermi - the Weixels are on track to leave Sept. 30 for a nine-month mission trip to Japan.

The young couple, 29 and 30 respectively, were fortunate - they were able to sell their house without even listing it. Word of mouth from a neighbor to a friend to a friend produced someone who made an offer, which they accepted.

Both are leaving their jobs to make this trip. Christie Weixel, a former teacher of physics and chemistry at Century High School now working at Gateway to Science, and Andrew Weixel, webmaster at Dakota Collectibles, will put their life skills to work when they get settled in Japan.

Christie, who has been to Japan once, in 2000, to visit a college friend, expects that she may be teaching English or working with youth; Andrew said he could be doing anything from maintenance to teaching to leading adventure camps.

They'll be living in an apartment in the greater Tokyo area and will be mentored by long-term missionaries. The goal of their work, whatever it will be, Christie Weixel said, is to build relationships with the people of Japan so they will be comfortable hearing the message of Christ.

Mission work seemed interesting to her and the idea of a mission trip had been in the backs of both of their minds, Andrew Weixel said, but really solidified when they talked with missionaries at a local gathering of Steer Inc., a mission support organization.

"We thought, why not?" Christie Weixel said.

The application and acceptance process has taken about six months. The sponsoring organization, OMS, founded in Japan in 1901 and formerly called the Oriental Missionary Society, specializes in evangelism, church planting and theological education and sends more than 100 short-term missionaries each year to Brazil, Colombia, India, Ireland, Korea, Mexico, Russia, Spain and Ukraine.

As part of the documentation process, the Weixels submitted paperwork that included their work experience, life stories, letters of reference and narratives about why they wanted to go on a mission. The acceptance came on June 26, leaving them three months to get ready.

To prepare for the nine-month stay, they've been reading up on Japanese culture and studying the Japanese language - which uses three alphabets - via flash cards.

Having people to practice on once they arrive should speed up the learning process, they said.

"It will be a crash course when we get there," Andrew Weixel said.

Though they said it's hard to leave family and friends, neither feels apprehensive about the plunge:"We know this is something God wants us to do," Christie Weixel said.

Well, maybe a little apprehensive, but only about earthquakes, she said.

And, OK, maybe a little about Japanese food - Andrew likes it, Christie doesn't.

The organization asks short-term missionaries like the Weixels to raise their own funds for these trips. The couple, who attend Century Baptist Church in Bismarck, have done some fundraising and are currently about halfway to the $18,000 that it will cost for travel and living expenses while they're there.

They're keeping their future plans deliberately open as to whether they will move further into mission work.

When the nine months is up, "we're leaving it open to see where God leads us," Christie Weixel said.

For more information about OMS International, visit http://www.omsinternational.org or contact the Weixels at 221-2653.

(Reach reporter Karen Herzog at 250-8267 or karen.herzog@;bismarcktribune.com.)