Spring 2020 camping trip

On Monday we went on our fifth Spring camping trip in Japan. The first one, in 2013, was on our own at a citrus and dairy farm on the Pacific coast of Chiba Prefecture. Since then we've camped four out of the last five years during CAJ's Spring break with the same family. It was our sixth camping trip with these guys, so we've got things down pretty well. They cook two meals, we cook two, and we do our own lunches. If you don't cook, you help with clean-up. 

We went to a new campsite again this year: in Chichibu, west-north-west of home. Only about 80 km by the slow road, meaning speed limit 40 km/h or less. So it took us about three hours to get there!

Red arrow = home
Blue arrow = campsite

Our strategy for finding new campsites is Google Maps. We find an area we're interested in visiting and type in "camping" and explore the options. Mostly going for places that have a website with financial information on them. Many campsites here seem to have hidden costs: like not just charging for the site, but also per head, or per tent, or both. A common charge is showers. The campsite we visited this time had four-minute showers at 200 yen a pop, which quickly adds up for a family. Thankfully we took our own bags for rubbish, they would have charged us for that too.

Only this time our strategy got derailed a little. When we arrived at the place we thought we'd booked, they told us to turn around and drive back a couple of kilometres back to a different campsite. We weren't sure what was going on, but I kept repeating in my head, "It's an adventure..."

We found an empty campsite, but a very excited owner. He welcomed us warmly, with a torrent of words and we quickly figured out what had happened. The valley had been damaged during the typhoon last autumn. It turns out that there were two campsites in the area that were owned by the same people and those people were more concerned about restoring their flooded sites than updating their website. They had changed the first campsite we went to into a bungalow-only location and switched all the camping to the other location they owned. One phone number for both locations!

The campsite had been busy over the long weekend just past, but we were the only campers from Monday to Wednesday. Initially my heart sank as it looked like a gravel car park with not a blade of grass in sight, but we found an area down the hill that was a bit more attractive and set up a very comfy and spacious camp. The toilet and shower facilities were all new. Showers possibly a little too well ventilated for the chilly weather we faced, though. Only one of the eight campers braved a shower!

The location turned out to be gorgeous: right next to the Arakawa river, though to get to it you had to walk down a steep path. Once there, though, it was a fantastic place to ramble around. Thousands of loose rocks of all sizes. The kids were old enough to go down there on their own and spent hours exploring, climbing, throwing, building, and taking photos.

The track down to the river from the campsite.

Monday night (in fact both nights) the temperature dropped down to about zero fairly quickly. Most people were in bed before 9pm on Monday. Having camped at temperatures like this before, we were well equipped with fairly basic stuff (not expensive winter-camping equipment). Just lots of warm clothes, long underwear, and blankets. So bed became cosy pretty quickly. It wasn't easy to get up and face the next morning, which was cloudy and blustery.

We typically had a lazy camp. Tuesday was too cold to sit around a lot, though (9C), so we all wandered along the river in the late morning. After lunch many of us retreated to warm tents for naps, books, or games (yes, shelter from wind should not be underestimated when you have at least intermittent sun). Almost all the kids disappeared mid-afternoon with one of the men who had found a couple of caves to explore. Those of us left behind started up a fire early as a way to keep warm, before we started on dinner prep.

We spent a long time on dinner on Tuesday night because I got a bit ambitious with the food, but no one complained. It was fun to play with the fire and generally just hang out. Oh, and the food was good too (campfire pizza is yum, but it does take a while, as do chicken "legs" and chocolate banana boats).

Because the night was still young, we built up the fire after dinner and sat around it for some time. A bit of singing, one poem recited, some Australian history/literature/culture explained to our US friends. Fire was a fun part of this camp. The owner had welcomed us using any sticks lying around the place, and we found plenty (and burnt it all). That's pretty unusual at a Japanese campsite.

March for us has been very different to what we thought it would be: same as for many of you. We've been doing distance learning all month (thankfully driven by the school, not me). Most of the things we'd looked forward to were cancelled, including a week of field conference in Hokkaido at a hotel with all you can eat breakfast and dinner, plus multiple swimming pools. So it was fantastic to have one plan not get cancelled. And being away from the craziness of living closely with 30+ million other people. All of you will identify with the challenges of living with the current uncertainty. Staying home just seems passive and not how you should face a threat like we've got. So going out and doing something away from others was incredibly refreshing, even if we weren't totally disconnected from the world (I didn't take a photo of all the phones being charged on one crate on Tuesday afternoon!).

Anyway, here are some photos for your enjoyment. Some taken by me, some by my 14 y.o. son.

We really want to try this campsite in the summer. Looks like some great
water fun could be had...

Our youngest son did this! And took the photo.

He also threw this rock, then photographed the result!

The rock formations were fascinating.

I was on bacon and eggs-duty for Wednesday breakfast. Lots of fun.

Three tents (only two visible) plus our usual "annex". Ostensibly the kitchen and
wet-weather living room, except we had no rain.

We decided that our bigger tent would be more comfortable with only
our double-bed airbed and one single mat. Worked well to
borrow this little tent, although the occupant of it didn't
agree 100%. He enjoyed the independence, but the logistics
of living in such a small tent are different to one you can
stand up in!

Can you spot the flowering cherry blossom in the middle of the photo?

That rock retaining wall provided lots of climbing fun. Across the road there were
a couple of artificial climbing walls as well as a flying fox that some enjoyed.

Not many buds on this baby cherry blossom tree. But we really did do
three days of "hanami" (Cherry Blossom picnicking).

Rambling along the river on Tuesday morning was fun.

So glad we got to do this trip. Great memories. Also reinforcing how good it is to have solid shelter, electricity, internet, beds, cupboards full of food, etc. We really don't have anything to complain about.

Grieving from a distance

I have written quite a bit about grief over the last few years here. And again, I'm grieving a loss, as you will have read yesterday. As my good friend buried her youngest son today, I sought a way to appropriately process that from this great distance. I have made it to very few funerals over my life, usually because I haven't been in the "right" place and without a budget or capacity to get to the funeral.

The last time I wrote a poem was April 2018, on the anniversary of another death. I am not a poet or particularly a consumer of poetry, but it seems as though grief is one thing that prompts me to "get poetic." However badly written, it helped me to write this to my friend this afternoon.

From a distance

When we said goodbye to you
All those years ago at an airport
Three kids between us
An adventure ahead
We never imagined
The heartaches that would follow

That parting was rough
But we didn’t know
The grieving would never end
That each time we’d meet
We’d have to part again
And reopen that wound

Now we have nine kids between us
One of yours just gone to heaven
I wanted to be by your side
But that was not to be
I’m grateful for the years we’ve walked 
Together, yet apart
I know our prayers and friendship bridge the gap 
But I long for that hug that I know is waiting till next time we meet

We still don’t know what lies ahead
What else will come our way
But I’m thankful for what we have
The abundant love we’re been given
Though our journey is not unmarred
Though our grief never ends
There remains the joy of friends waiting to reunite
A friendship that knows that distance doesn’t limit

Surprise in the mail at just the right time

In recent months I have mentioned a friend going through a rough time. I have her permission to tell you an amazing story from this month.

She is part of a trio of friends we call RAW. We've been friends for many years, but only in the last 18 months have formed this group and keep in almost daily contact via Messenger (they both live in south-east Queensland). Not long after we decided to be more intentional about staying in touch with one another we each encountered significant difficulties, including: our family who were told we couldn't return to Japan at that time and my friend's 12 y.o. son was diagnosed with brain cancer.

In mid-January this year, just after his 13th birthday, he transitioned into palliative care. We've been walking with her (virtually, in my case) through this horrid, yet incredible journey.

On the morning of March 4 she wrote to us that she'd been reciting to herself out loud in a car journey on her own: "He's dying, he's dying" to try to grasp the reality of it all. That really hit hard for me. She and I both have over 20 years of parenting under our belts and we've always seen our kids recover from illnesses, but it clearly wasn't going to happen (aside from divine intervention) at that point, and that was hard to get our heads around.

That same day I drove into the mountains with a van full of ladies for a two-night retreat. I fear that they wondered if I'd be able to cope with the two-hour drive, as I was a bit undone when I picked them all up.

That evening at the retreat I was able to spend time in prayer about this situation with a missionary colleague. She is no stranger to watching loved ones die and we poured out our hearts together (with no lack of tears on my part). 

Later I wandered over to the area where a small jewellery stall was set up. This is no ordinary jewellery. It is the outworking of a ministry called Nozomi Project. (I wrote about it a couple of years ago here—this link included a TED talk video by the founder.) "Nozomi" means hope in Japanese and it is a project set up "to bring sustainable income, community, dignity and hope" to women who suffered great loss in the 2011 triple disaster. That disaster claimed, that in a matter of minutes, the lives of around 16,000 people and destroyed or damaged over a million buildings, leaving hundreds of thousands displaced. The jewellery features broken pieces of pottery left in the wake of the tsunami and other up-cycled pottery.

Their tag line is "beauty in brokenness" and fitted the situation with my friend so well that I thought it would be fitting to buy her a present.

I tucked the earrings away in my bag to deal with later and got on with that retreat, and then the writers' retreat that followed straight on afterwards. I got home from those four nights so exhausted that it took a week to recover, meanwhile the earrings sat in a pile waiting to be dealt with. I asked my other RAW friend what she thought I should do: send the earrings as a surprise, or let her know they were coming. Her response was: 

"Surprises are always nice...I'd go with that...We can pray that they arrive just when she needs a nice surprise in the mail...God can arrange it."

On March 16, more than ten days after I'd bought them, I finally got to the post office and mailed them.

On Monday this week (23rd) my friend's son died. Great sadness as well as great relief. He testified to his strong faith in God until he could talk no longer. A great joy and challenge to all who watched this journey.

On Tuesday, while our family were camping, I received a strange photo from the friend who had suggested we pray for God's timing. It was of our friend opening a small parcel. On closer inspection, I saw it was about the size of the parcel I'd sent eight days earlier.

And yes, not only had the beautiful earrings arrive a day after my friend's son died, but our mutual RAW friend was present to witness it and tell her the whole story.

We cried tears of joy "together". She wrote:

"A gift that kindles a flame of joy for all of us in dark times . . . just wish I could give you a real hug to express it! . . . I love the symbolism of a God using fragments to further his story of gracious blessing to us in our frailty."

When I asked permission to tell the story here, she wrote: 

"Sure. Go for it. Whatever you think needs to be told to give glory to the Great Orchestrator."

So, trusting him in the small things, and the big things. This was such an encouragement to the three of us. It amazed me that I, who couldn't be there to hug and help my friend through her struggles (I only was able to be with her once during those 16-months), could even be somewhat "physically" present and an encouragement. I know that our prayers have helped and encouraged her, but this miracle of God's timing was an extra special blessing to us all. And another memorial stone to look back on when we doubt God's care for us.

Refocusing with a ride to the park.

Yesterday I hit a quiet patch. In a job that has multiple deadlines each day, I know that these quiet spots don't come often and are usually short. Brilliant that it coincided with a warm, sunny day. So what better thing to do than go for a ride? The last time I rode to my favourite big park was November, so it was time! After lunch I told my distance-learning teens where I was headed, and took off with a flask of coffee and a book in my basket.

Well the park was a different sight to November. We're on the edge of the most beautiful time in Tokyo: spring. A time when there seems to be different flowers on show every week for about two months.

The most common cherry blossoms weren't out yet (and I'm glad they weren't because this week they would have been blown away), but there were some early bloomers and a general sense of hope in the air. Quite different to what sitting at home and looking at social media is giving me.

The passage that my husband preached on so often when were were in Australia in 2018 comes to mind: Matthew 6: 19-21,25-27:

19 ‘Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also... 25 ‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? (NIV)

We worry and fuss, about the things we treasure here on earth being messed up (like plans and freedom). We worry about food and clothes and health. But "look at the birds of the air..." (or I could add, "the flowers"). And most pointedly: "Can we add a single hour to our lives by worrying?"

So here are some flowers and other sights from my ride yesterday for you to enjoy. Maybe they'll help you refocus on our heavenly Father who knows what we need and is not taken by surprise by any of this.

One of the early bloomers in the Cherry Blossom family.

Ready to burst. This is one of the most popular species of Cherry Blossom.

Always love the gum tree in this park. It's a piece of Australia that we rarely see here.

Rape Seed flowers that are commonly planted near Cherry Blossom trees
 in  Japan. They make a nice contrast.

Daffodils, always delightful.

I've been riding past banks covered with this green plant and sprinkled with cute flowers (see below). This time I stopped to take a photo.

I couldn't get close enough to get a good shot on my phone, but there's at least half a dozen turtles sunning themselves here.

I enjoy riding this path, instead of on the roads. It is a bike/footpath only, between houses. It exists, I think, because it goes along the line of some high voltage power lines. But locals (and the local government?) have made it a very pleasant place to traverse.

Professional development in cross-cultural ministry

“Professional Development” are words that I knew in my pre-missionary profession. My husband is in charge of this for the staff at the school he works at. But I don't hear these words often in mission circles. I wonder why? Maybe because we don’t think of what we do as a “profession”.

I had to essentially leave behind my former profession, Occupational Therapy—at least in terms of formal registration with a national registration board—when I started down the road of cross-cultural ministry. I couldn't keep up with the professional development  requirements, not to mention afford the costs involved in remaining a legit Allied Health professional in Australia.

So having left something that is fits a narrow definition of profession, I found it helpful to think about what I currently do using those familiar terms. 

What is a profession?

Dictionary.com has a very broad definition of profession:

a vocation requiring knowledge of some department of learning or science: the profession of teaching.

the body of persons engaged in an occupation or calling: to be respected by the medical profession.

My own professional development

Over the years I've gained a lot of knowledge about Japan, the culture and language, I've also gained knowledge about cross-cultural living—especially in Japan, and about many aspects of missionary life. So I guess I've been growing in the profession of missionary. Though I've never thought about it in those terms.

The time at the writer's retreat ten days ago also convinced me that I've grown into a third profession (or a fourth, if you count motherhood as my second profession): that of publishing. It's what I've spent a lot of time learning about and doing over the last decade. It amazed me that I could sit and talk with people about many varied aspects of writing and publishing. It shouldn't have! I've gathered a lot of information and expertise over this decade, none of it official with a certificate or degree, but certain not without merit.

And somehow I've had this mindset: always desiring to learn, and to grow.  Perhaps it is just my curious mind, although I don't discount the influence my university education and subsequent few years in the Occupational Therapy field had on me. 

The location of my first major professional development for
writing: Hong Kong.
Yes, it's not your usual Hong Kong image, is it?

Our mission helps with this by insisting on goal setting and regular reviews with supervisors. But what I do is a little outside the bounds of what many of the workers in our organisation do, so a certain amount of being a self-starter has been necessary. I don't actually know another missionary on any mission field who works as an editor (though I'm sure they exist, somewhere). And I'm doing this as a predominantly English speaker in a non-English speaking country, so there are less resources than if I were elsewhere. Therefore I've had to be creative.

Over the years my professional development in relation to publishing (there's more if you include cross-cultural living) has included:

• Reading books about writing and editing (and buying them, something I don't do a lot for pleasure on a missionary budget, but when I come across a useful professional resource, I'm keen to lay my hands on it).
• Reading many articles online.
• Writing a lot. Over 3,000 articles on this blog and probably over 100 articles published in magazines and a couple of book contributions also.
• Being a part of an online critique group and other online groups over the years has taught me so much.
• Editing and being edited. Nothing like having to edit someone's work to make you think about what good writing is. Nothing like being called on a decision you've made when editing someone's work to make you think about why you do what you do. I've got a great production team with the magazine who don't let me get away with sloppy work.
• Managing a magazine has been another level of learning and growing. Learning how to efficiently put together a quality product with a volunteer and long-distance team and also how to manage a team. Learning how to work with writers has been another, sometimes painful, journey. Much of this has been learning on the job, figuring things out as I went. Not only have I learnt about being a leader, but I've also learnt about how to be a good follower.
• I've had to learn how to use various online tools, that was especially the case when I took on my current social media manager role for OMF Japan. But also tools that I use to help me with the magazine (see this post and this one).
• Attending conferences, workshops, and retreats
• OMF Writer's retreat/workshop in Hong Kong 2010
• Magazine editing training Manilla 2009
• Christian Writer's conference Victoria 2014
• OMF Social media workshop Manilla 2017
• International Christian Publishing conference (LittWorld) in Singapore 2018
• Training with OMF about leading teams Bangkok 2016
• Led six writer's workshops/retreats in Japan
• Completed a couple of small online courses, and in the middle of another with Udemy.
• Attended a hands-on photography course.
• Attempted (and failed) to learn inDesign, the program that our magazine designer uses.

Well that's quite a lot when you write it out like that!

Last month I found this article and it is very helpful. It looks at what we do in cross-cultural ministry from the position of a profession and notes the vital importance of professional development, especially for those who stay a longer time.

When things get quiet here, I sometimes wonder about what the future holds for me with my current skills. I don't know. But I do know that I will not be content to become stagnant. I want to keep growing, keep taking on challenges, keep learning new things.

The writer's retreat I led 10 days ago didn't allow me to do much writing. But it did stretch me professionally. Having to answer questions about publishing and doing one-on-ones with people asking about publishing, writing, and editing issues was hard. This was especially so because there is much more time pressure when you are sitting with someone, if I encounter a difficult editing issue at work I can often walk away from it for a while and come back, or consult a resource or someone else. It was hard, but it was good for me.

What about you? Thinking outside the box, how has professional development looked for you in recent years? What are you looking forward to doing in the near future? What would you like to do, but haven't had the chance yet?

Five days, two retreats

I want to write about last week and weekend before it gets swept away in the midst of the present and the urgent. It's already starting to fade a little in my memory, especially the first two days, so it's time on this dreary, cold, and wet Saturday, to write.

Last Wednesday I went to a women's retreat. Many of the women who come look forward to this all year. It's the one time in the year that they get to gather with others who speak English and be ministered to. It was a difficult time to hold a retreat, but it was also an encouragement to those who felt able to attend.

Wednesday was a hard day for me. There were so many logistics to take care of. Not only was I going away for four nights, I was going to two retreats, the second one I was in charge of. I also had a van-load of women I'd volunteered to take up with me. So, lots to juggle. Emotions too. I've got a good friend who's going through an incredibly rough patch. We're in touch almost daily and it's hard to be so far away, sometimes those emotions are getting on top of me at present, Wednesday was one of those days.

It was a great relief to get to the retreat a bit early and have some moments on my own. With school in distance learning mode, I'm not getting much time on my own at present, nor alone time with David: it's not easy.

I went for a walk before breakfast on the first day, this
pond is close to the retreat centre.

The highlights from the women's retreat that stick in my mind are two-fold:

1. People I met and had good conversations with. That's usual for this retreat. I was able to take some time to step away from the busyness of life and process where me and my family were at the moment.

2. Worship. Both together with others. Crying through English worship songs (singing in English in a group is something I miss). Working hard to calm my heart and soul to be still enough to listen to God during the "Morning Stillness" time after breakfast. I dwelt on Ps 46 on the second morning: We do not give way to fear because we know God has overwhelming power and he is our refuge, strength, and is ever-present. Therefore we can be still. 

Backed up by the speaker who spoke on the story in 2 Chron 20 in one of her three talks. Vs 12 is especially poignant: (King Jehoshaphat prayed) "We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you [God]."

The retreat was over all too soon and I was hurtled into being responsible and looking after others, rather than being looked after!

The house we used for our writers retreat is an OMF holiday house (the same one we went for holidays twice last year). It is more suited to families than gatherings of unrelated adults, but our group of 13 managed okay. The trickiest thing was that due to the risk of pipes bursting in winter, the water gets turned off and pipes emptied. We had to turn them on, and then off again at the end of the weekend. It wasn't a straightforward task and one of the three apartments never did get the hot water going. 

I slept in the loft. Which had a great view over
the main gathering area, but unfortunately
 meant I couldn't go to bed early and, on the
first night, when I slept very lightly, I heard
every toilet-flush (bathroom was under the loft).

I am so thankful that I had outsourced catering to another writer, so I didn't have that to deal with, but I really could have done with someone who could take care of practical matters such as water and packing cars (thinking my husband would be perfect for the job, but he was at home with our teens). I am also thankful that people generally rallied around and helped when they saw the need: washing up, drying, heating up left-overs etc. In many ways it was quite casual, like a big family event (minus the tensions that arise in families).

The retreat came together in such a way that made me feel like I was a maiden following in God's footsteps, rather than someone pushing my own way through the dense forest. So I had high expectations and they were exceeded!

I had three goals:

1. To provide a space for people who write to get away and do that.

2. To energise writers by getting them together.

3. To offer my help with writing/editing, if people wanted it.

To do that I put these things into the schedule:

• we started each morning with a devotion and time to pray
• plenty of time to write
• time to get to know one another, of course living in close proximity helped a lot
• a warm-up writing activity on Friday night
• time to exchange writing by reading something out and getting other's feedback in a group (scary, but very helpful)
• a time to talk about common problems I see as an editor (eg. flabby writing)
• one-on-one time with me to talk about their writing

It was the last of these that was most surprising to me. I've never done this before, and was surprised that people seemed to want it. I ended up talking to most of the attendees individually for about half an hour each. We talked about all sorts of things, including how to reduce repetition in a piece of writing, structural issues, publishing routes, talking through an idea for a children's book, how to improve a devotional, and how to learn more about writing and publishing. I heard writers talk about where they were on their writing journey just now, and what they hoped for the future. One of the writers brought his 10-year-old daughter and she amazed us all with her writing. I even got to sit down with her and we talked writing for half an hour too. I found it exhilarating and scary, challenging and exhausting.

In fact the whole weekend was incredibly intense for me. Of course that is me, I am not the calmest, most laid-back person you will have met, especially in a group setting where I am in charge. But somehow God enabled me to do it, even with not enough sleep.

Saturday night was a free night. I believe some people wrote, but several of us ended up playing a creative pictionary crossed with Chinese-whispers type game. We sat around a table, each with a piece of paper. We had to write a phrase at the top of the paper, then pass it on. The next person had to draw the phrase, then fold the paper over so the third person who got the paper could only see the picture, not the written phrase. And so it continued. Alternating between writing and drawing. We ended up with some hilarious results. The phrase I wrote was "It was a duct-tape kind of day" and went through cannons firing planks to finally a rabbit combing paper! I cannot take credit for organising the game, but it was definitely a highlight. Life has been pretty serious of late and the opportunity to laugh loud and long was very therapeutic.

On Sunday afternoon I not only had to facilitate the closing up of these three apartments (bringing these writers down from the heights of creativity) but I had to drive back on Sunday afternoon. To be frank, that was a bit scary. By then I was running on coffee. I wasn't falling asleep at the wheel, but I wasn't in the best of conditions. I'm thankful that one of the writers who travelled back with me volunteered to take a driving shift (it was under 2 1/2 hrs journey, but still, when you're tired that's a long way).

The four days away took a lot out of me, but I don't regret doing them at all. In fact I want to organise another writer's retreat, sooner, rather than later. But I'm waiting on God's leading on that. 

Mostly I'm just grateful that I'm able to use the gifts and experience that God's given me to serve others. Even at the women's retreat I was able to help others with something of my experience. On the Thursday night they had a panel of experts, and asked them questions mostly about missionary life. Audience participation was invited. I was able to tell a little of my journey to being a missionary-editor (it's an unusual speciality for a missionary). It's a journey that began at this same retreat about 13 years ago. I was also, in a different portion of the evening, able to tell ladies about some of our strategies for staying mentally healthy when discouragement come knocking. Two things I do is setting up lily pads (enjoyable planned events, like holidays, or even coffee dates) to look forward to and finding things that you can do where you are that you can't do in your home country (from something simple like a food you can buy here, to something complex like camping).

Anyway, that's enough words. In fact I've typed more words than I got to write during the whole writer's retreat! One of these days I'll go on a retreat where I can do the writing.