Weekend synopsis

I'm struggling to get time for this...the weekend was busy and I wanted to write a bit about it, but I've come back to the reality of several important things (including a magazine to finish) to do before we go away for holidays/visiting family.

So this will be a quick one. On Friday afternoon we drove just over an hour to a place we've been to many times before: Tamborine Mountain. It's a little plateau that Wikipedia tells me is eight kilometres long, five kilometres wide and 525 m high. Not really a mountain by the standards of most of the world, but we're talking Australia here, the flattest continent! 

It's a place that, for more than 60 years, has hosted Christian conferences and camps. Mount Tamborine Convention Centre is a familiar place to us, though we've rarely been there in the last 20 years when we were in our young adult years we often went to camps up there. The weekend was nostaligic in many ways, not only did the place bring back many memories, the event did too. In 1998 we attended a missions conference there, International Outlook, as newly weds. It was that weekend in March that we began the long journey to becoming missionaries with OMF, we started filling out application forms.

Over the weekend we also met a number of people who we have known for many years. The furthest back was a man I knew as a child, he left to go to uni when I was around 12, but I saw him one further time when I was around 19. It's been a long time! 

The property is beautiful and well cared for. Eucalyptus trees everywhere. When you've never left Australia you don't really notice them so much as we do. In Japan we rarely see these trees, but they are everywhere in Australia. I can't stop taking photos of them! The weather over the weekend was gorgeous too.

Times have changed in 20 years. A barista at a missions conference!

More packed bags and in the backgroudn is
an exhausted boy asleep (he arrived
back from a school camp just before we left
for the weekend)

It was different being there with teenagers. They would have preferred to stay home, though our youngest soon found a couple of other missionary teens to hang out with. There were actually few teenagers around. I can understand why parents of teenagers don't bring them to events like this, though. We had to be there for work and had no other option but to bring our guys.

We spent a lot of time talking with people. I'm not sure how much good we did. The journey towards mission is long and involves lots of conversations, so who knows what part we played. This lady in the photo browsed our OMF stand and picked up our prayer card. She then sat down and read it. I was intrigued. I'm pretty sure I had a conversation with her the next day about Japan and students.

This is a former WW2 aircraft hanger, the main meeting room, about which we also have many memories, including that first step of getting application papers for OMF (not dreaming we'd be back there 20 years later as "seasoned" OMF missionaries).

It was a good weekend, in that we were reminded by the main speakers of the great need for the gospel in this world. Many still have not heard and have no opportunity to hear the gospel. It's the message that booted us into missions in the first place, it is good to be refocused on that need again, especially while living in Australia where it's relatively easy to forget the needs of the rest of the world.

It's a strange job that we have

Dragging your teenagers around with you in your job isn’t a normal job.

I "write" stuff all the time in my head, but it's a little strange that that sentence popped into my head earlier today. Of course I know that we don't have a "normal" job. But it suddenly occurred to me that most people don't take their teenagers to work with them. Most people don't have to negotiate and make lots of work-decisions with their kids in mind. At least not in the way that we do.

We're finding life and work at the moment is quite a tightrope, and it.
isn't easy to keep good balance.
Of course it is for most people, but the forces at play for us at
the moment are different to what we usually experience.

For example, twice this week I've declined "work" simply because of our boys. Both were churches more than an hour from where we live. 

One invited us to speak at both their morning services, one at 7.45, one at 9.30. In order to get to that we'd have to either leave inordinately early or stay the night. They offered to find us accomodation, but in the context of being only a couple of weeks after having spent ten days in Perth for work with our boys (plus a couple of other factors I won't name), we decided to decline the early service.

The other offered us opportunities to speak to mid-week groups. This is something we love to do, but in order to manage it, again we'd have to stay overnight somewhere, and probably more than one night. This one was easier to decide about because we've got only one car and a boy at school.

I know that kids influence most people's work decisions, but probably not quite to that degree.

Then I had another conversation with someone about when we'd next be in Australia for home assignment. Nothing is in "stone" yet, but we're thinking that we might come back for a few weeks in the middle of 2021, after our middle son graduates. But not for a longer period until 2023, after our youngest graduates from high school—five years away. This was greeted with shock. However, if you think about it, not many people with teenagers would like to rip their kids out of the school where all their friends are and move to another country for a year for work. Yes, I know it's what God's called us to do and we do it, but it isn't what most people are willing to do, nor what most employers ask of their employees (military excepting, of course).

Our boys have grown up doing this. We've been doing it since before we had children. It's a part of our lives. But that doesn't make it easy. In some ways it helps me to remember that we're doing hard stuff here. That being a teenager is hard enough without all these complications that our jobs and lifestyle add to the mix. I think they know that we care about them, that we try to make decisions with them in mind. I hope they do!

As we now go away for the weekend to a missionary conference, I hope that they will remember that we do try to consider them, even though we're dragging them along too. I  do hope that it is all worth it too, even though we might never know if it was.

Fusion of Japan and Australia

Yesterday I met a close friend for lunch. That was super special. We have the kind of friendship that I don't have to waste time on the superficial, but can dive right in and know that there's not going to be any issues with that!

After that soul-refreshing time I went for a short walk around a nearby Japanese garden with my camera. The idea of a Japanese garden in Australia is quite interesting to me, after having lived in Japan and spent time in some of their very old gardens. Japan really takes gardens to another level! (Here's one of their top three gardens that we visited a couple of years ago. Here's an inner city one I visited on my own last year.)

Anyway, I haven't been to a Japanese garden in Australia for a long time. Here's what I found: a fusion of Japan and Australia.

The garden is called "Nerima Garden", a celebration of a sister relationship between Ipswich (where we are living in Australia) and the city of Nerima (which is only about 2 km from our house in Tokyo).

Our house is at the "pin" and you can see Nerima marked between there
and Tokyo city central.

But actually it is only about 2km between our place and the western border of
the city of Nerima.

This is quite a typical looking Japanese garden scene. It looks quite different to Australia in general, especially because it is so green and Australia really is very brown and dusty at present as we experience a significant drought.

They have a traditional tea house, which of course was locked up, but by getting close to the glass, I managed something of a photo of the inside. The floor is just like the floor in our  bedroom and lounge rooms in Tokyo. I'm sure the smell would have cast me into homesickness!

This method of paving paths is very much a Japanese style.

The fusion: this isn't a plant usually seen in a Japanese garden! I believe it's a member of the Xanthorrhoea genus and is pretty common in Australia.

In the middle of this Japanese garden were some huge eucalyptus trees. Something you'd never see in Japan. However it was surprisingly hard to get a photo angle that showed both Japanese and Australian elements (possibly would have been better in the morning or on a cloudy day).

Here you can see a gum tree and bamboo.

The gum tree (eucalyptus) with the Japanese-shaped bushes and the tea house.

Back to Japan, here's the tea house with some bushes shaped very much like they would be in Japan. I found the Australian sun is very strong, even on a spring day, it made photos with strong contrast between shade and sun difficult to take well. This year is the first time I've used a "fancy" camera in Australia.

And then a couple of Aussie lizards were sunning themselves, they're pretty flighty, though, so I only got one or two photos of this one.

Azaleas were out. These you see in Japan and Australia. They are used as hedges in our city in Tokyo.

A different angle on the pond and "lantern feature". 

The garden was walled, just like many Japanese gardens are. 

Just outside I found the gorgeous bottle brush. Also had fun trying to figure out the right manual settings to use, but I was happy with the result in the end.

This is bougainvillea, a prolific non-native in Australia (from South America, I believe). We once had one right next to our driveway and it needed constant trimming, because it not only grows fast, it's got nasty thorns. But in the right place it is a gorgeous plant. 

I've had little time to go wandering with my camera in nature, so this half-hour was a delight. I hope you've enjoyed this little excursion too.

Japan family fun night

On Saturday night we ran a Japan-themed family fun night at our home church. Of all the various up-front things we do, it's one of our favourites. Alas not many churches take us up on the offer to do it. Over the years we've done them in about six different churches.

The principle is simple: introduce people to Japan and mission in a fun way, with lots of interaction and activity.

On Saturday, we knew that people would probably wouldn't all arrive at 5pm when it began. So during the first hour we had a variety of individual activities for people to get into the theme: from origami to Japanese-themed colouring-in and worksheets to dress-up in Japanese clothes. The kids really got into the origami, but there were quite a few takers at the photo booth too.

Then we had a bring-and-share dinner, to which we contributed rice balls (onigiri) and coffee jelly.

After dinner the main programme began.

We divided the group into teams by playing "happy families" where people were given a card with a Japanese surname on it and they had to find the rest of their family.

Then we ran a slipper-chopsticks relay (pictured). They had to change out of their shoes into Japanese slippers, run up to the bowls and move five sultanas from one bowl to the next with chopsticks and then reverse the journey back to tag the next team member.

Chopsticks proved harder than the slippers, though David did advise them not to run in the slippers!

The next activity we started moving towards our theme for the evening: support. Each team got a bag with 45 plastic blocks and had to create a tower that would support this "Japanese missionary" (aka wooden doll). They did really well at this!

The main element of the evening is pictured below. One volunteer (a young girl) was our "missionary" who was first given a box representing "ministry". She was then given a lot of other boxes representing other things missionaries have to do, or need in order to function healthily, eg. visa help, language and culture learning, education of their kids, spiritual growth. Needless to say, she looked rather overwhelmed after being loaded with all that.

So we got more volunteers to take some of the load off her (I've blanked out faces for privacy reasons). It was quite a powerful demonstration of how missionaries involved on the "coal face" of evangelism and church planting, can be mightily helped by having others around them to help. It was pretty obvious that without all those other tasks, the missionary would have a lot more time to do ministry.

The analogy was continued when David asked everyone else to form a circle around the kids. We represented those who remain in the sending country and we support the missionaries by praying, giving, etc.

It was a fairly small group but we were hopeful that those who did come would not forget what they learned there. As our home church, it hopefully helped them to understand why we're doing what we're doing as support workers.

Speaking at churches when you're a support worker in mission isn't the easiest thing. People like to hear conversion stories, news about people being baptised. Teaching science and editing a magazine doesn't have quite the same impact. So we've been trying our best to raise awareness of how important what we do is to those who are evangelists and church planters. That what we do will help those who do those things stay longer and be more effective.

We have one other opportunity to present this to a church group this home assignment. Though if you're reading this and would like us to do this in your church (and you are in SE Qld), then do get in contact with us as we've still got some Fri/Sat nights free (or even mid-week nights).

Big elephants

I wish I could write about some stuff that's been going on recently. There are a couple of elephants in my room that I just can't write about on this public forum because they concern private family matters. But they're taking energy and headspace.

I had someone ask me the other day what was wrong, that I seemed more stressed this home assignment than in previous years . . . but I didn't feel I could share honestly with them either. 

These rice plants looks great. But do note that it has its
feet in the mud! Missionaries can be the same. Look good
on the outside, but don't forget that there is mud too.

So what can I share? How can I write in a way that's consistent with my philosophy of being honest and open, and yet protecting people I love (and myself)?

Perhaps a reminder that what you see isn't all that's going on.

Missionaries deal with stressors that are common to others, but often there is a twist. Check out this list (not all these are mine, but some are):

• Educational issues. TWIST: educational options aren't so broad on the mission field. Home assignments mess with education, especially when moving between different educational types, and different school years eg. Japanese to American, American to Australian.

• Job satisfaction. TWIST: ministry in a country like Japan, where few receive the Lord means it's hard to see what a difference it makes. It can be hard to come back to tell people about what's going on and not be able to report amazing results from the ministry there. 18 years ago we were saying that less than 1% of Japanese people are Christians. We're saying the same thing this year.

• The challenges of extended family. TWIST: we rarely see extended family and problems can be amplified by this absence. Also, they're used to doing things without us, so including us can cause problems. Not to mention non-Christian family members who don't understand why we do what we do.

• Lack of community. TWIST: our community (i.e. people we call our friends) is both widespread (our good friends live across the globe) and constantly changing. Then we change countries for home assignment and find that, for various reasons, community is even harder to find. Loneliness and relationship stress is a big issue.

• Psychological problems. TWIST: often psychological care is harder to access on the mission field. Psychological problems also can be exacerbated by the stressors of life on the mission field.

• High expectations. TWIST: in my experience the expectations on missionaries are different to those on other people. At times it feels like we're expected to be amazing people who don't struggle. We're expected to not make mistakes. We're expected to be able to move in and out of our home country with ease. We also have high expectations of ourselves, for example, expect that we can survive without good community, cope with high stress, persevere without encouragement.

Okay. I'm going to stop there.

To counter the above, I'd have to say that we have the amazing experience of being supported by many in prayer. You shouldn't underestimate how important that is. I think we are in a very privileged situation that many Christians never experience: having many people praying for us. More than 200 people get our prayer letter every month. I've got no idea how many of those pray for us, or how often or how in-depth they pray. But I know that there are people who aren't on our mailing list who pray for us!

James 5:16: "The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working."

Last Sunday we were asked, as we stood in front of a church congregation, for an example we've seen of God at work. I said, "That we've never asked for money and we're still in Japan after 18 years." If I'd been faster at thinking on the spot, I would have expanded that —it's not just the money that God's provided, it's being able to stick at it through all the challenges that have come, and continue to come our way. But all the praise goes to God!

Different presentations every time

So, one of our most obvious jobs these six-months is the up-front speaking. We spoke at two churches in July, and three Sunday morning church services plus one mid-week church meeting and three other groups in August. September is not too much different.

For our sanity we're using the same basic presentation every time. One that we mostly prepared before we came to Australia. However, it also gets tweaked every time according to what we've been asked to provide, the audience, the time we've been given. We add bits in, or take them out, and now, ⅓ of the way through our time here, getting quite adept at this. Tweaking also means altering the power point presentation as needed. 

For example, here are some of the requirements we've been asked to meet:

Church A: 
1.     Share during the service for 5-10 minutes with maybe a summary of what’s been happening in your family and in Japan
2.     After morning tea, to do a 45 minute more detailed summary/presentation of your ministry and OMF’s ministry in Japan (and able to take questions at the end)

Church B:
He (pastor) concurs and you have all the time from 10.00am to present your story and finishing with David preaching. We will need to finish at 10.45

Church C:
Would you be interested in attending a church breakfast? You would have the floor after we had all eaten.

Meeting at a theological college:

[Speaking] from 0930-1020 followed by morning tea 1020-1050 where there is time to chat with the students in a more relaxed setting. . . it will be great for them to hear directly from you of your own experiences, positive and negative, your learned priorities and how you have changed or had to adapt during your time away from Australia. Plus whatever else you deem appropriate. 

Church D:

MLT will try and organise you to visit Bible study groups between those dates and speak at the Mission spot on the Sunday. The Mission spot is 10 mins long and if you have any visuals if you please contact this person...

Mid-week church meeting:

We would like to invite you to one of our Wednesday mission nights to share with us. You have been once before and always appreciated.  I remember you had an activity on sorting garbage in Japan. We start at 7pm and finish at 9pm, with a coffee break at 7.40pm.

Another mid-week church meeting:

Our group can be anything from 12 – 26 people, and yes seniors. All able to drive them selves to the church. We don’t know anything about you or your mission. The group loves hearing from those working in Gods field and you would be warmly welcomed.

We start at 9.30am with morning tea, followed by a devotion – I can get someone from our group to do it or you can do it – about 15 minutes. Then our guest speaker for about 30 minutes with a question time if possible. We can provide a computer and screen if you want to show photos etc.

As you can see our "brief" varies significantly between groups. Sometimes this is written clearly in an email, sometimes it is nutted out over a number of emails or instant messages, or even on the phone (shock! Yes, it still does happen!)

It keeps us on our toes. We enjoy the more formal, small group times where we can interact with our listeners more, but understand the value of getting some precious minutes in front of the captive audience on a Sunday morning.

Our theme of Support and Mobilisation is helping to keep our presentations focused. We're telling people how important it is to have support personnel in mission and putting faces on what that looks like.

Of course this whole thing comes unravelled if we ever have to face the same audience twice, but thankfully that doesn't happen very often.

Ah, but now I need to get back to actually doing that: editing work for the magazine. Thankfully our two meetings for Sunday are pretty well organised, thanks to our method above, plus a little bit of experience under our belts (more than four years experience over the last 20 years) and I can spend time doing other things!

Post-monster weekend

We stayed in inner city Sydney and I enjoyed seeing all the
old sandstone buildings lining the streets. Quite a different
look to a city in Japan. This is Central Station.

Yep, we've been back in Brisbane for a few days now and are still trying to get traction. Actually it feels as though that's been the case ever since we arrived in Australia over nine weeks ago.

David and I were talking about this as we drove home this morning from yet another one-off opportunity to share about what we do in Japan and the needs there—no single work-week looks the same as any other. That means we're having trouble getting into any kind of rhythm. I know that I've written about that before, but it continues to be an issue that we struggle with.

Time in Sydney and Canberra

Friday was an "in house" meeting time for missionaries
with OMF, whether serving in Australia or in Australia on
home assignment. We were also blessed with all the
 members of the international leadership team, including
our international director.

That is probably not going to change until we're back in Japan in January, so I guess we just have to go with the flow as best we can.

The weekend away in Sydney and Canberra played out pretty much as we'd expected. Plus the stuff you're not supposed to talk about: grumpy teenagers, grumpy adults dealing with grumpy teenagers, and four exhausted people trying to deal with all the demands. Even the extroverts on the "team" were struggling by the end of more than three days of constant people to cope nicely. 

On Sunday, after three late nights, we were very pleased to get back to where we were staying before 9pm. And then there was great relief in the troops to set our sights for home on Monday morning. Monday functioned as a "day off", even though we had an 1½ hr flight in the middle of it. We did no other work other than travel, which was a nice mental break.

Our international director (second from right) sitting with Sydney pastors
(and their wives )who've known him many years. 
One of these saw him when he became a
Christian as an international student many years ago.

We had a sprained ankle thrown into the mix too. Our youngest used crutches much of our time away, especially in the longer walks: between hotel and conference venue, between conference venue and inter-city bus stop (a 1.5 km walk, partly uphill!), and in the three airports we traversed. 

Jumping to Canberra. We were excited to see many get involved in our
origami. So many wanted to do it that we had to set up a whole table.

There were many people, but also many encouraging encounters over the weekend. I'm struggling to recall examples, from many conversations at the OMF conference, but I do remember that many at the church on Sunday remembered us from times past. It is the fifth time we've visited this church over the last 19 years and the last time we went to their church camp. That many encounters begins to leave an impression on a group. It's a church that was very much on our team from day one and have stayed with us all those years. Though it is a long journey from here, we're always encouraged to visit them. 

Time out

I spotted opportunity and deliberately took some small slots of time-out on both Saturday and Sunday afternoons. 

On the Saturday I got some delicious coffee and stumbled upon the Queen Victoria Building. A place I'm pretty sure my parents dragged us through when we visited Sydney many years ago...but my memory is very vague on that. It has amazing architecture and is just a beautiful place to just walk around. Not a place, however, that I would take my family of boys, they would be very bored unless we found some food.

My photos are woefully inadequate. The scale of the place is amazing and not easy to get into a frame of an iPhone! I was mostly just needing time-out from people (and hadn't planned on photograph opportunities). I brought a book here and read for over an hour.

Queen Victoria building, built in the late 1800s. It's not full of shops.

 A sample of the stained glass windows.

In Canberra, for lunch we went to the house of a friend of David's from uni days. I noticed a park just up the road. Later mid-afternoon I went for a wander and found some cherry and plum blossoms blooming! Not too many people get to see that twice in one year.

Happy to be heading for home. Canberra Airport isn't large. I boarded early
with our son on crutches, and we spotted David and our other son walking to the plane.