Settling...and a car

Today it's four weeks since we landed in Australia. A lot has happened in that time. I wrote this Facebook status last night:

Tonight it’s a month since we left Japan. That means we’re about ⅙ of the way through our time in Australia. A bit of a shocking figure! I mentioned this at dinner and the boys were shocked too. We’ve worked hard to get as settled as we can, but still feel a bit rocky. I suspect we might not really get much past that this year.

My parents visited us last week and were surprised at how well set-up our home appears. They correctly guessed, though, that we've had experience in getting set up fast and, because we don't have much time to "fool around", we needed to set up fast. We also don't have a lot of stuff here in Australia, so it's not been that hard to organise it all. Also, most of our furniture is borrowed, we're not bothering to work hard at getting things exactly  right, or even stuff that's good quality. We're making do, and that's fine. On top of all that we had a lot of help at the start: a bunch of people moved all the furniture and boxes in before we even set foot in Queensland, without all that help (and especially the friend who coordinated all the people donating furniture), we'd be a lot further behind.

What's harder is getting emotionally settled. That's something that you can do a bit about, but in the end a lot of it is out of our control and just takes time. And because we're a family unit, one person's emotional stability struggles often affects us all. It's hard to write much about that without violating people's privacy, so I'll leave it to your imagination.

But really, I started this blog post wanting to tell you about one of the big things we have to be thankful for from the last month: this car.

No, this is not our car in Japan, it is our car to use in Australia. Very similar in looks, and, in fact, this was manufactured in Japan. A Christian couple has lent this to us for six months. We've so grateful. It's going to get quite a work-out, with some of our family living more than 800km away from our home base, as well as all the driving that our job entails (we're driving to Toowoomba for the day on Wednesday, about 200km of driving, and then back there again for the weekend on Friday).

We're in the car so much more than we are used to. That's just daily life in Australia; driving a boy to school each day, getting groceries in the car . . . actually pretty much anytime we go out, aside from a stroll around the neighbourhood, it's in the car. That's so different to our daily lives in Japan, and one of the many things that we're adjusting to.

I was grateful to have coffee with some local friends this morning. I wasn't there as the "returning missionary", I wasn't the centre of attention, I wasn't there in a work capacity. It was nice to just be accepted and welcomed. Driving home afterwards I felt just a little more grounded in the current place than I had before.

So though there are things that I'd like to be different, for us to be more settled, I am thankful, also, about so many things.

Here's a prayer I'd like to dwell on:

16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3, NIV)

To deeply know the greatness of God's love for our family at this time, that's what will help us through.

Some Australian photos from July

 I haven't had my big camera out much in the last month, but when I took a look at the SD card this week, I found some nice photos. Parts of our journey that you haven't seen. So here's a selected slide show for you.

This was a sunset from where we stayed in Sydney, our first few nights back in Australia.

One day in Sydney we played tourists and did a tour of the iconic Opera House. Truly a remarkable building, with a possibly even more remarkable story.

 So photogenic! It's hard not to be awed by the amazing skies they have in Australia!

This tree overlooks the Opera house in the nearby Royal Botanical Gardens. We only walked on the edge of it, but the abundance of space this close to a city centre is always impressive. 

 We rushed around in Sydney centre. During our day there we did the above mentioned tour, met friends headed to Taiwan with OMF, and hung out in OfficeWorks! The latter was a frustrating couple of hours trying to use their equipment to download our lease to sign it (we got the manager of the store to witness it), then upload, and send to the real estate agency, so that the keys could be picked up the next day. It was a difficult afternoon that we didn't particularly enjoy. The internet was poor and progress so slow that it looked like we were setting up home there, as our three boys sat around in the aisles!

Here's one of the historical buildings in downtown Sydney. Don't ask me which one!

Yes, this is my family, doing our best to be tourists.

After a few days in Sydney, it was great to get out of the city. We drove two hours south to meet good friends who live much further south. We spent the weekend together with eight of our nine kids!

Love gum trees (otherwise known as eucalyptus trees).

We had a BBQ at a nearby dam for lunch on the Saturday. Got to see a little bit of wildlife. Our middle son got very close to this very bold Willy Wagtail.

Barbecuing lamb! The windchill factor here was pretty significant.

More wildlife. This is a wallaby, I think.

And a large goanna. It would have been at least a metre and was enjoying sunning itself on this bank.

Gorgeous escarpments.

Another gorgeous tree/sky backround.

Fungi!

This was below the dam wall. Obviously been water through here pretty regularly.

The boys (and seven of the eight kids were boys) enjoyed throwing rocks in here. If you look carefully, to the right of the centre is a splash.

Picturesque roots.

This is the 12-bed "cabin" we stayed in. it was perfect for our needs, with a huge living area where everyone could have their own individual lounge chair. The orange reflection in the window is the sky behind me at sunset (see photo below).

We looked across the valley to this escarpment.

Pretty flowers. Anyone know what they are?

This was particularly to show you the car someone lent us. It's a story on its own. On a Australian ministry-families Facebook page I connected up with a former missionary couple who were willing to lend us their second car for the weekend! They'd never met us. It was a bit mind blowing to just drive away with their car a few minutes after meeting them (and their house was just five minutes walk from where we were staying in the large city of Sydney).

Moving on to our own backyard. Our the back of our house is scrub. Actually it is a high power line corridor. But a nice place to go for a walk. In places it looks like much of non-urban Australia. It's lovely to be so close to this, it feels like we're not quite so much in the city, even though we're only about seven minutes from an expressway!

One more gum tree/sky shot.

Adjusting to new rhythms

Sundays are work days for us for these six months in Australia. I know many missionaries work on Sundays routinely, but not us. Our work in Japan is mostly done during the week and during office hours. So when we change countries, we change jobs and change major life rhythms too. It takes a lot of adjusting to.

The weekend just past looked like this:

Saturday

Part of our new neighbourhood. Very different to where we live in Tokyo!

We spent a lot of the day preparing for our visit to a supporting church the next day. That
 included what we would say up the front (about 10 minutes), the powerpoint presentation we would use, the other visual aid we'd prepared, as well as the table display we'd prepared (books, leaflets, magazines, and a display board).

We didn't spend all day Saturday working, we took some time after
lunch to go wandering in nearby scrub. This isn't far from our house.

Sunday
We left at 8.15, drove an hour, then spent 30 minutes getting set-up and settled, spoke during the service, spent an hour or so afterwards talking to people, then packing up, and driving home. 

It doesn't sound like a lot, but it was exhausting. 

In those short 30 minutes of set-up time we stumbled into another church who were meeting on the same premises (it's a Seventh Day Adventist church that has several halls that it rents out on Sundays to churches/sects without their own church building). Thankfully that error was quickly spotted by a leader who checked that we were in the right place. I guess we looked a bit odd, sporting a suitcase, a large display board (still in its carry case), and a long poster-cylinder.

We didn't just drive straight home, we grabbed some fast food for lunch and then half-way home stopped off to pick up our eldest son, who drove us the rest of the way, getting 50 more minutes of driving practise in (he needs 100 hours to go for a test). 

Soon after we arrived home some family who are holidaying in the area dropped in for a few hours to visit.

I was exhausted by the end of the day. I had to lie down straight after dinner as I felt a bit ill.

Monday
I hadn't factored this in. The fact that the weekend wasn't a restful time and that I needed mid-week (preferably early in the week) time off. I'd booked myself in for an optometrist's appointment for Monday morning, along with needing to do groceries after the weekend, and then without much break, take a boy to the doctor (the latter couldn't be scheduled later, he had an infection that needed attention). So by the end of Monday I sported a headache and wasn't in great shape.

Glad to be back in Australia?
People keep asking if we're glad to be back in Australia (some say "back home", which is another whole topic). I can't answer that question with a 100% positive "YES", because making any big change takes a lot of energy and has negatives attached to it. Making a big change as a family is even more gigantic than just doing it as a single or couple. Yes, there are many good things about being in Australia, but there are things about it that aren't so good, like adjusting to lots of change all at once.

As I said at the start of this post, one big change is our change in jobs. We're now spending weekends and other times talking about what we do in Japan. That's considerably different to writing and editing at my desk in Tokyo from Monday to Friday between 8.30 and 5. It's also different to teaching at a school and overseeing professional development and curriculum. The rhythm is different, the stressors are different. We need to be gentle on ourselves as we adjust to the changes.

Re-entry thoughts

These last weeks have been so busy! Our youngest son started at his old Australian school last Thursday. A lot of the busyness since we landed in Australia was focused on getting key things done before he started school. 

This is an old photo from just before we left to return to Japan last
time, when our youngest son (middle) was representing the school in a
cross-country meet. Consistency, like the same school, has
helped us all in these big adjustments. 

Now we're left doing the less urgent, but still important things. For example, me getting to an optometrist, which I did this morning and ended up spending two hours there. 

It was a good experience, actually. Like the school our son is attending, the optometrist is the same one we've been using for years now. She remembered my face, which is a huge help, and has our records. The other big help is that she was born in Asia and came to Australia as a kid, so the idea that we're living in Asia most of the time isn't a big deal for her. The other lady in the shop who I dealt with had an accent too, and I asked her about it (we spent quite a long time together sorting out new frames etc.). She was grew up in Scotland, born to Canadian and English parents. She met her German-Australian husband on a Kontiki tour and now lives here with her two boys. So I wasn't weird to her either.

One things I've really struggled with in these last weeks is explaining. How much backstory is appropriate? At the optometrist it was very appropriate, because they were dealing with lenses that had been made in Japan and that I was less than satisfied with (another story here, about Asian optometrists and how my fears have been confirmed: they do tend to under-prescribe and it's bad for your eyes).

Conversational struggles
So here are some examples of other conversations where I've struggled to know how much backstory to tell:

Last week we visited the Ipswich Athletics club with our boys. Our middle son is doing online schooling and the deal was that he'd join a sports club as well. It's been a tricky experience: joining a club that you know very little about and that is outside on a field with no obvious "office" for enquiries or application. This was all made more complicated by what seems to be wrong start time on the website! 

I ended up talking to several coaches. The president gave me the spiel about the club and showed me where to sign up, but I struggled to explain our circumstances. Did I need to tell him that we'd been in Japan and that our boys had been in an American school there? (School sport is very different and has an impact on what we're doing now, rather than just rolling with the Australia school sports seasons.) Probably not, but it came out of my mouth, to my son's dismay (I could feel the eye rolling). I should have said just that we'd recently moved to the area and our boys were interested in joining the club...then waited to see if he wanted more information. But once you start down the road of giving too much information, it can be hard to stop.

Later in the week I took one of the boys back to the library to see if we could get them to get in a book that was missing from their collection and that he really wanted to read. I also wanted to change to passcodes on our library cards so that we could use the online catalogue, because we could no longer remember what they'd been from three years ago. The librarian had trouble understanding why I couldn't remember the passcode, because they routinely use the last four digits of the member's phone number. I guess we could have looked up our old phone numbers . . . but we just wanted to change the numbers to something more easily remembered for the future. So of course, to my son's mortification, I had to explain that we'd been away overseas for three years and couldn't remember the last four digits of our previous phones. I thought I did a better job of containing the oversharing, though.

But it's hard work every time: how much information do they need?

This afternoon I had to take a boy to the doctor due to an infection. We, of course, needed to update our details with them and it was almost like she was testing me. What was my former address . . . mind blank. I came up with the suburb, and then she prompted me on the street and I came up with the first of two digits for the street number. I lamely said, "We've been away for three years..." But didn't overshare and she was too busy to enquire about where we'd been. I probably redeemed myself by being able to tell her my new mobile number from heart (I've had to do this so many times in the last three weeks, it's almost tattooed on my head).

Benefitting from consistency
Earlier, our son had been shocked to hear that it would be a 20 min drive to the doctor. Why so far? Same principle as the school and optometrist—this is the clinic we've attended ever since our first home assignment in 2004. This was the place that told me I was expecting our youngest. They've got our records and our trust (though not all the doctors are fabulous, generally we've been satisfied, and the huge thing is that we're not new patients, which can be a barrier for getting an appointment). It's given us consistency, in a strange way, to use these same services over the years, even with the big gaps in the middle. The other one is the dentist, who also was born in Asia and loves that we live there, which makes the matter of getting dental work done much sweeter!

This has become quite a long post, but I hope it gives you a glimpse into the daily, probably invisible challenges that we're facing at the moment and tend to sap my strength.

Our house in Australia

It's now been about a week and a half since we moved into a rental house in Brisbane (actually Ipswich, but if you're not an Aussie, you won't know that that is the city just to the west of Brisbane).

We've made a lot of progress and it's starting to feel like ours. We really appreciate all those who cleaned the place, collected and moved in furniture borrowed from others, and moved in our own stuff too (we'd stored mostly sentimental things as well as linen and kitchen stuff, but not furniture). There's nothing like living in a place, however, for helping you to figure out where to put things so that the household runs smoothly and works for your family.

One thing we've done in the four places that we've lived in Australia since moving to Japan in 2000, was put up our pictures on the wall, not many, but some quite significant.

This one of Uluru, an iconic Australian sight, was bought by my husband before we got married and long before we actually visited this remote spot in central Australia. The picture is large and heavy, but does a great job of brightening up a house that's mostly white.

I can't remember where this little guy came from, but I like him very much, and again he breaks up the white. I especially like this position at the end of the short hall to our bedrooms.

This one has a lot of sentimental value. It was my bouquet at our wedding. It looked more spectacular in real life (more red, less gold), but I'm really glad for this gorgeous keepsake that we've had up in every home we've lived together in in Australia.

Here it is, positioned to be seen as you walk into our bedroom.

And a few other sights of our home: the view out our bedroom window. Living here, you can take for granted the gorgeous blue skies we get so often. But when you've lived in a place where blue like this is very rare, it is an absolute treat! Not to mention the gum trees (practically) in our backyard.

We've set up this space with practical goals: notices to be pinned up, recharging stations, keys, library books, games etc. I'm not quite sure what will go on the white board yet. We've got another white board on the fridge that I'm keeping updated with "What's coming up" so as to help with anxiety about future events, not to mention communication within the family (fridges are great places to communicate with teens!). The kitchen is working well too. I'm loving so much bench space!

This was a great step forward this week too. Getting our fourth bedroom into shape as an office, not just a place to dump extra boxes. We've been working on getting our presentation material into shape. Sunday is our first public engagement. This is a cosy place to work, and there's a window right next to my desk where I can see our gum tree in the front yard. 

I'm so thankful for this quiet place to call home for the next six months. It's got several features that I've rarely enjoyed in my adult life: an ensuite, a walk-in-robe, a dishwasher, a kitchen with a lot of bench space, a double-car garage with a remote control door, and a separate-from-the-bathroom yet inside laundry. Oh, a backyard too, but not too big a backyard (last time we had a huge backyard that was hard to take care of).

We have phones, and internet too. So we're all set up, really quickly.

Just thankful. Especially thankful that we can be settled so quickly, that that wouldn't have been possible without some very key people here who worked hard on our behalf before we even left Japan.

Unexpected changes

It's been over a week since I posted here and a lot has happened. Instead of listing all that out for you, I'm going to give you a story that might answer some questions, or maybe will produce extra questions.

I'm typing this in a library that doesn't look like a library (we're still waiting on internet at home). It should be a familiar space—it was our local library for the last two times we were back in Australia. One of the hardest things about coming back to Australia is finding that things you thought would be the same as you remember them, have changed, and we're finding this one quite unsettling.

The area that we've moved into is similar to where we've lived before: in 2009/2010, and 2014/2015. It's an older area that is rapidly expanding on the edges. I vaguely knew, through social media, that there were library changes, with a new library opening up in one of the newly developed areas, but I didn't know what those changes looked like.

I now know this familiar library-in-a-park has turned into a place that looks more like a bookshop. The decor is black and grey, the space we can use has more than halved, and there is no sign of Dewy Decimals. Most disturbingly, there are very few books here. The ones that are here are on free-standing bookshelves with little backboards amongst the books announcing things like "Pop science", "Award winning", and "War".

It's great if you're just looking for something to catch your eye, but if you're searching for a specific book or topic, you'd be better off staying at home and looking up the online catalogue and reserving the book you want. I'm very much in favour of online catalogues, but I do feel a little short-changed here, like the comfortable social experience of wandering around in a library has been pulled out from underneath me.

We woke up this morning in our newly rented house, the fourth morning in a row that we've done so. It's getting to be a familiar place. We know where many daily things are, we've had a few showers, and the washing machine has done some loads. I've been able to comfortably cook a couple of evening meals there, and we have all we need to basically function, physically. 

But it takes longer to feel "at home". Outside of the house we feel a bit like we're in a foreign country, like strangers looking on. Of course we blend in better than we do in Japan, so it isn't easy for others to see that we're feeling a bit unsteady on our feet.

Starting work?
One question we're fielding is: "When are you starting work?" Well, I guess in a strange way, we've already started work. Work on home assignment is a multi-faceted thing that doesn't have clear boundaries. We've already caught up with more than half a dozen friends/supporters. How do you define that: work or pleasure? It's part of the purpose of home assignment, but we'd never like any of our friends to think that catching up with them was work-only. I've been answering email and dealing with work-related editing/magazine management stuff online, though much less often than usual as we don't have wifi at home, other than via our phones.

Other work-related things we're doing in these two and a half weeks between arriving in Australia and having our first official "appearance" at an event includes medicals and debriefing with OMF and psychologists.

Stepping into the library this afternoon was disturbing and we struggled to hold back our exclamations about the changes. One boy struggled to hold in his anger. But for me, at least, one short exchange helped. 

The librarian found us blundering around and asked if she could help. I explained that we'd been away and were struggling to take in the changes. She explained what was going on and then offered to change our membership details. As she changed our details, she vaguely remembered us, remembered this family of three boys who usually live in Japan who were here before.

That made it feel like I had come home, at least in a small way. That I could be something of a local here, even if temporarily.

My God is my rock

Hi from the other side of the ocean. We've been in Sydney, Australia since Monday morning. That makes it about 60 hours. 

See the last few paragraphs of the post for the reference to this.

Actually we arrived quite exhausted. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were very hot and humid, as well as physically and emotionally exhausting. On Friday and Saturday we finished up packing and cleaning our house, on Saturday I picked up our youngest son from camp about 1½ hrs west of our house by car and we travelled—with some of our luggage—to our mission's guest home (about 1½ hrs on trains).  

On Sunday we dealt with some final details, some of which were confusing and difficult to figure out, including a miscalculation on our luggage amount. During all this time we were also dealing with ongoing discussion about where we were going to live in Brisbane/Ipswich from July 8, not to mention boys who weren't enjoying the upheaval. There wasn't much rest. I was fighting mentally to stay away from negative and repetitive thoughts about practical details and some relationships.

Late on Sunday afternoon we travelled another hour by train to the airport, eventually getting on the plane at about 9.30, but not taking off until midnight due to some fault they were working on before we could take off.

The good thing about getting to the plane completely spent was that I slept better than usual on an overnight flight. Nothing as good as a horizontal sleep, but not too bad. I saw a fun Australian movie—BBQ—and some episodes of an intriguing TV series—Speechless.

Monday we landed in Sydney, made our way through customs and immigration with few issues, and eventually were reunited with our eldest son. It was a little anti-climatic as a reunion because so many other things were going on at the same time, not to mention that we were exhausted and not everyone was coping so well (one boy didn't sleep at all on the plane). Thankfully we were able to get to our holiday accomodation quickly and crashed.

On the journey from the airport I received a phone call from our friend working on housing to say that one of our housing applications had been successful. Great relief ensued! Followed by confusion later about the proper procedure that had to be followed to make it a sure thing. We're still waiting on a lease to sign, but keep getting assurances from the agent that it's proceeding forward, with a goal of the key being picked up on Friday morning, so surely tomorrow we'll see the lease.

Tuesday (seems like a long time ago, but just yesterday) we caught trains—a challenge in itself in a strange city—to meet an old friend of David's for lunch and then spent the afternoon at a large shopping centre. David got a phone and we sat at a coffee shop for a few hours while he got it functioning and then we went to see a movie (knowing that this was one familiar thing that we could do as a family that everyone was happy about).

Wednesday (today!) we decided to keep it low-key. We slept in and the boys have pretty much stayed at home. David and I met another old friend of his (and support of ours) for coffee, and bought a few more essentials and something for dinner.

Tomorrow we get our "tourist" hats on and head to the Opera House and meet some more friends who are heading to the mission field soon.

These few words can't convey the emotions that have run strongly through this all. Landing in Australia after being away for years is never easy. I always feel a little raw. One of our boys walked around staring at the ground yesterday much of the day. He was feeling the uncomfortableness of being in a new environment. He was worried about being left behind when we walked too fast, but as a teenager, also didn't want us to hold his hand. Challenging. Parenting through these changes is hard.

On Saturday, when I went to pick up my son, I took half an hour to walk down to the nearby river. It is gorgeous, I've been there before, and I knew I needed a moment in the midst of the madness to appreciate God's creation. I loved seeing this big rock in the middle of the rapidly moving water. It reminded me of how King David referred to God as his rock several times in the Bible. Here's one:

Oh, I must find rest in God only, because my hope comes from him! Only God is my rock and my salvation— my stronghold!—I will not be shaken. My deliverance and glory depend on God. God is my strong rock. My refuge is in God. All you people: Trust in him at all times! Pour out your hearts before him! God is our refuge! Selah
Psalm 62:5-8

Such comfort in the midst of upheaval.

That's enough for now. Thank you for your prayers!