Looking back at 2020

It's time for my end-of-year blog post. 

Last year on this day I used some interesting questions to reflect on the year: http://mmuser.blogspot.com/2019/12/looking-back-at-2019.html They were good questions, so I'm going to use them again.

1. What makes this year unforgetable? 

Sunset late in 2020 near our house.

• Well that's easy for 2020. But, unusually, probably similar to most of you: it's experiencing a pandemic, something we've only ever glanced over in the history books.
• For the first time I can remember in my life, I've been encouraged to stay home! All of us working from home during March-June was quite a challenge (though David did spend a good portion of that working at school, seeing as he has his own office only 300m walk from our house).

2. What did I enjoy doing this year?

• Baking. I've always enjoyed baking, but often it's been something that's squeezed in between other commitments on weekends. This year, with everything cancelled mid-year and not much to look forward to, baking was something I could not just plan for, but look forward to, and control. It even enabled me to give some small pockets of joy to others outside our family, in a safe way. This year, I also inherited a stand mixer. First time I've had one in Japan. That was also mostly due to COVID (the owners suddenly decided to go back to Australia when they discovered they were expecting twins).
• Camping. As always. But amazingly, despite the restrictions, we were able to go camping three times, with a couple of firsts: the first time in Gunma prefecture and the first to camp on our own without kids (we were camping with friends).
• Watching God work in unexpected ways. 
• One of those was related to camping. In April/May I had a short conversation with a colleague/friend whose teenage boys had had to suddenly evacuate from their international school in India when borders closed. Her boys were lacking connections in Tokyo, never having lived here. They are around the age of our our youngest son and I was pretty sure that, given the chance, they would be good friends. So, in a God-inspired moved, we invited them to come camping with us in July and they hit it off, not just with our son, but with his group of friends. Despite living on opposite sides of this great metropolis, they've managed to get together quite often. Amazing. 
• And that's just one example. I've heard other stories—one just the other day about a Japanese couple coming to faith this year, despite how hard it's been to meet together.
• A third is this story from March, when I sent a pair of earrings to a friend, and they arrived the day after her son died!

3. What/who is one thing/person you're grateful for?

• I'm grateful to my two friends with whom I formed a trio over two years ago now. We've helped each other stay afloat with daily messaging through what has been a horrid year. 
• Technology, without which much of the above wouldn't be possible and we'd be a whole lot more isolated from one another. We attended church online from mid-March to mid-August this year. Without technology that period would have been much more difficult.

4. What did you read/watch/listen to that made the most impact this year?

• Hmmm, a hard question, as it was last year.
• For the first time I've used an app called Goodreads to track my reading. So I know that this year I've read 108 (maybe 109 books, if I get my current book finished today). It tells me that that's 37,00+ pages with an average book length of 348 pages! Many of those have been crime/mystery type novels. I've always loved this genre and this year found reading to be especially calming when life around about us was in a turmoil. Last Christmas I received a Kindle Fire and I've used it extensively to borrow ebooks from the library, it's been a lifesaver.
• I enjoyed participating in a book club for the first time in my life. Naomi Reed spontaneously started a somewhat random Facebook-based book club to read through some of her books. We started with My Seventh Monsoon, then No Ordinary View, and Heading Home. I think she's done more, but I didn't own those books. The first two were especially interesting to do during the depths of the State of Emergency in Japan (April and May), providing some outside interaction that wasn't work-based.
• I read some books on first-person experiences of mental illness that were helpful in my understanding.
• It's interesting to note that the verse I cited this time last year has stuck with my through this year also: Ps 46:10 "Be still and know that I am God."

5. What did you worry about most and how did it turn out?

• Figuring out how to live with this new infectious threat has been a huge challenge. Just going out to get groceries (which was almost the only reason I left the house from mid-March onwards for several months) was stressful. Watching other people's reactions on social media was also stressful: for example seeing people go out and then ranting about how many people were out and seeing people declare that they won't get the new vaccine was also worrying. However, we've made it to the end of the year without dying, or contracting this new disease!
• I really didn't want the Olympics cancelled, ironically! We amazingly had tickets. But it did. We've still got tickets for the Paralympics, if they happen in September next year!
• Learning to wear a mask every time I was out was challenging, and I still haven't found one that I can wear for many hours at a time without ending up in pain.
• Unrelated to the global pandemic has been my concern for my older two boys. They are both on the verge of new things as their current studies come to an end in 2021. Neither knows what they want to do next. Our middle son is on the verge of adulthood and transitioning to life in Australia. There are many things that concern us about that transition. This has been a big worry for me that I've tried had to hand over to God regularly, with varying success. It remains to be seen how all this pans out, we probably won't know for several years!

6. What's my biggest regret and why?

• Hmm. Possibly, not being able to be with my friend in Australia when her son was dying. I think that was far harder than I'd anticipated.

7. What's something that has changed about me?

• I've enjoyed a new habit formed with David: walking three times a week in the evening. That's a new way for both of us to get exercise. It's been a good time to debrief from the day too.
• To think deeper than that...I'm not sure. This year we passed the 20-years mark, 20 years since we left Australia as missionaries for the first time. It's also 10 years since our youngest started school full-time and I started work in the publishing industry more intently. 2010 was a big year. It's been good to reflect on that journey during the year and see how far I've come. I'm gradually being called on more often to teach others about writing, editing, and other communication skills, rather than just doing it myself. I guess that's been something of a change of mindset over the last 12 months, or longer.

8. What surprise you the most this year?

• I think I was surprised by how much I need to have concrete things to look forward to. Having so much cancelled in March and April (and ongoing cancellations since then) was really hard. I was reduced to looking forward to small things, like looking forward to watching a favourite TV show in the evening, and baking on a Saturday.

So, after that focused reflection, here are some highlights from the year (some have been mentioned above):

• Our three camping trips and two family holidays in the mountains.
• Reading large quantities of books!
• Seeing the new prayer book for Japan published after 18 months of work.
• Successfully leading a series of three, online meetings that comprised our magazine's annual planning time.
• Good conversations with friends.
• Deepening friendships with some friends who were more like acquaintances before.
• More Saturday sleep-ins due to sports events cancelled.
• Finding the capacity to write some poetry/song verses to express deep emotions.
• Leading a writer's retreat weekend in March. 

Actually I think this year is more marked by what wasn't, rather than what was! So many things that usually make up the fabric of our year just didn't happen. Some we missed acutely, others not so much. On Jan. 4 this year, I wrote a hopeful list of things that I was looking forward to for the year. Three of the six things on that list never happened. I am thankful that three did!

Some lowlights of the year:

• My friend's son dying in March.
• In-person school being cancelled from March to June.
• Not being able to see our eldest son at all this year in person.
• Losing a few more friends in my expat "colander" life!

Today is the end of a remarkable year, one that will be a bookmark for the rest of our lives! 

I'm thankful that, through it all, I've been comforted by the one thing that never changes: our God. I reflected on this in April here, and verses like 

"We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure" (Heb. 6:19) 

and 

"The name of the Lord is a fortified tower; the righteous run to it and are safe" (Proverbs 18:10).

As I mentioned earlier, "Be still and know that I am God" has been especially important to me this year. A real sense that though I have little influence in this world, God knows what's going on and my role is largely to stop and trust him in the midst of the chaos. So, as the old year ends and the new year begins, I want to remind myself to do this:

"In the morning, Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait expectantly" (Psalms 5:3 NIV).

My next blog post is going to be an interesting one, as I ponder the year ahead. It seems even more uncertain than a usual year, so how does one even do that? The first post I wrote this year I suggested that 2020 would be a quiet year (primarily with the thought that we might not engage in any international travel). I had no idea just how quiet it would be!

Lamenting this Christmas-time

This topic of lament has come up for me multiple times this year. More often than usual. Possibly because collectively we've experienced more losses than any time in recent decades. I think I'm probably not too far off the mark to say that this disaster has been far more global than anything this world has seen since WW2.

So, I've been pondering lament recently, but also noticing a trend in myself. I've been struggling to see other people experience joy at being reunited with family. Yes, failing to do Romans 12:15: "Rejoice with those who rejoice" (NIV). Probably I haven't been great at the second part of that verse either "Mourn with those who mourn". Compassion fatigue? Or just plain selfishness?

The reality is that this week is probably around when our eldest son would have arrived from Australia to spend Christmas with us, had COVID-19 not derailed international travel (it's been 18 months since we've seen him). It's one of many losses this year has brought, so it's been kind of buried in our thoughts as something not so important. But maybe it's a bigger loss than I thought.

But, after pondering "lament" during the last couple of days, last night it occurred to me that this was also something I needed to bring God, complain to him, and then to leave at his feet. And repeat, as needed.

I recommend watching this 22:48 talk by Elizabeth Lewis Hall, a professor of psychology at Biola University, for some deeper thoughts on lament. I realised that, while she talked about the "anatomy" of lament, by dissecting one psalm of lament, she also talks about some of the short phrases that Jesus used on the cross (see Matt. 27:46 and Luke 23:16) as "laments". 

So a lament doesn't have to be in the form of poetry or song, with clearly thought out phrasing. It can simply be a line, even a thought, directed to God. That's encouraging for I am not especially poetic and certainly there isn't time for writing poetry every time thoughts like these overwhelm us. Writing prose, like a blog post, has helped me process my pain many a time.

Dr. Hall also talks about how putting words to our experience helps to shape our experience. When we express our sadness to God, it's changing our relationship with God, it's increasing our intimacy with him, so that's a great reason to dive into lament:

It’s important that nothing seems to be off limits in terms of what we can bring to God in our suffering. This expression of suffering in lament is a crucial element because what happens then is that our suffering is not denied and our suffering is not minimized. Suffering is not dealt with by explaining it away or by distracting ourselves from it. It’s recognized.

And when it’s recognized, that means that our suffering is legitimated. Research suggests that processing our suffering cognitively and emotionally is necessary in order for growth to occur. 

Biblical laments in psalms almost always include praise, so as we can, it's important to turn to God in praise too. I think, somehow though, in Western Christianity these days we skip the lament, and move too quickly into praise. When I've asked colleagues recently about the worst things about this year, most often they've told me of silver-linings, as if to dwell on the ugly is wrong somehow. But then, I'm not God, so perhaps they're expressing their frustration to him in the privacy of their own prayers, I don't know.

In addition to sadness that our son can't be with us this Christmas, I am also frustrated at the moment by all the people saying that they will refuse to take  COVID-19 vaccine when it is available. What they don't realise is that the more people who do that, the longer this crisis is going to go on. And the harder it's going to be for people like us, who don't live in our home country and whose immediate family is separated by an international plane flight. At the moment, the cost for us to visit Australia for a short time, is not just the cost of a flight, it would mean a total of four weeks of quarantine (two each end), and around AU$5,000 to pay for quarantine in a hotel, as is required by the Australian government, not to mention whatever costs involved in getting the required tests to just let us on a plane.

Australia is (mostly) fine at the moment because they're basically not letting people in or out. I can't see restrictions on international travel being lifted until vaccination (or a pretty darn good treatment option) is found. When I say Australia is mostly okay, I mean that there are industries and sections of the community who are hurting. For example, the education sector that relies on a large number of international students, and the travel, tourism, and hospitality sectors, obviously, plus industries that rely on backpackers, like fruit farmers.

But university students are also hurting. Our son's university did most of the entire year online, and it while it kept things moving through, our son found it a really difficult year. Yes, there is little COVID-19 infection in the community, but health isn't the only thing at stake here.

But that's enough of my ranting . . . to you. I need to go and take my frustrations to God. To quote the Bible: 

"How long, oh Lord?"

What sadness do you need to bring to God? How do you do that best?

Festive Fudge Fundraiser!

Last week on social media I posted about one of the things I love to do at Christmas time: make chocolate fudge and give it to each of our boys' teachers. As an aside I pondered what I would do after our youngest has left school (only two more Christmases after this one until that happens). A few people comments that they'd happily receive fudge from us! 

That got me thinking . . . maybe I could sell them. Then, while walking together last Wednesday night, David commented that a couple of other people we know in the school community are using their skills at making things to raise money for the current fundraiser at school Impact 75 to raise money for an artificial turf field at school (it's currently gravel).

So I impulsively decided to set up our own mini fundraiser by volunteering to make fudge for anyone who could pick them up from us or from school, and pay 100 yen a piece. So far we've sold 100 pieces! I made 3.5 kg of fudge on the weekend and David cut them up, packaged them, and has delivered them this morning to (mostly) staff at school.

It's been a fun venture (and diversion), but I don't think I'll be going into commercial cookery anytime soon. Too much pressure to make things "perfect" and "regular". David had quite a bit of fun trying to cut the pieces into as regular sizes as he could.

David working with the fudge pieces and scales.
His cutting wasn't as accurate as he'd hoped!

If there's anyone else in the local community who'd like to buy fudge from us, I can make 30 more pieces. Please put your order in here by Tuesday 5pm: Fudge fundraiser. It needs to be picked up at school on Wednesday or from us by Thursday night because we go away on holidays on Friday.

Choc-chip shortbread

On Saturday morning over breakfast I indulged in some cookbook browsing. I was tired, but had high aspirations of getting some seasonal baking done. I came across a recipe in my collection that I'd never tried, but looked easy enough for a tired Saturday's baking. It's garnered high praise at home, and one of my Facebook friends asked for the recipe, so without further ado, here it is:

Ingredients

250g butter, softened

½ cup icing sugar, sifted

½ cup brown sugar

2 ¼ cups plain flour

¼ cup rice flour

150g choc bits

1. Beat butter and sugars.
2. Stir in the flours and choc-bits into butter-sugar mixture.
3. If it's hot, you can wrap the dough in plastic wrap and rest it in the fridge for 30 minutes, I didn't need to do that with the room temperature around 18˚C.
4. Shape spoonfuls of mixture into balls and place on tray. They didn't flatten in the oven, so I'd recommend squishing them a little.
5. Bake at 180˚C for 12-15 minutes or until golden. My oven is "hot" so I used 170˚C for 12 minutes.
6. Cool on the tray for a few minutes before transferring off the tray.

December update from the Marshalls

 Here is a generic version of the first page of our prayer letter that I've sent out this morning (no mention of our boy's names or our address). Let me know if you'd like the full version, complete with family news.