Lily pads

In May last year I wrote about Lily Pads, a concept that a psychologist I've seen in Australia introduced me and two of my close friends to. It often comes up in conversations with them, we ask one another: what lily pads do you have coming up? That is, what things have you got coming up that you are looking forward to and will rejuvenate you?

Last year I discovered that even tiny lily pads were helpful: the joy of deciding what I was going to bake on the weekend, watching a TV series after a long day of work, taking the time to appreciate the season, or a simple quiet breakfast with my husband. My current lily pads include editing the novel of a friend in my spare time: I look forward to doing that on Saturdays, and during other pockets of spare time.

The value in a lily pad is having something to look forward to, big or small. I've found that that illusive concept of "looking forward to" very important in getting through rough days. Of course the lily pad itself has value, it's a place where you can rest a little. What lily pads have you got coming up? What lily pads have been helpful in the last year?

On Sunday, though, we have a bigger lily pad: a camping trip. We've been looking forward to this since we last packed up our tent in October! As the weather got colder, we longed for the warmer weather that would make camping more attractive. (Yes, I know people do camp in winter, and in the snow, but we've discovered the hard way that takes a lot more effort than warmer-weather camping.) 

We haven't had many other large lily pads since Christmas, but instead a lot of hard work, compounded with some very challenging family situations. So it's time to take a break.

We're venturing into a new prefecture, one we've never camped or stayed in before: Ibaraki, only a couple of hours drive north-east of here, about 10km inland from the Pacific coast. The weather looks pretty good, temperatures especially. David and I, and our youngest son are going, with our camping friends and their two kids, plus some extra teenage friends. We're looking forward to some great fun as well as kicking back and relaxing.

This lily pad was threatened by the recently-ended state of emergency (SOE). When David first rang to book a few weeks ago, they were a bit leery because the campsite is in a different prefecture and we were coming from Tokyo where there is a higher infection rate. We were very thankful that the state of emergency was ended last weekend, because the campsite now is happy to have us for the full three nights we wanted.

With plans continuing to be difficult to make, it seems easier to not plan anything that means travel. But getting out of Tokyo into the countryside and away from our usual routines is so refreshing for us, that this is important for staying healthy and is worth the effort (our camping lists make it fairly low-stress, as does the fact that David and I have our specialities: he does the gear and I do the menu and food). Oh, and the boy who isn't going camping with us: he's looking forward to having the house all to himself for four days!

So, all you vicarious campers out there: get ready for a camping blog post late next week.

Come, follow me

I've started three blog posts in the last week or so, and they're all circling around the same theme: letting go and trusting God, not just at a head level, but at a heart level. So, I've decided the best thing is to do the work to combine them.

It's been a challenge to trust God with everything in recent weeks and months. Wow, what a confession to make! To trust him with everything we hold dear, though we don't know what he's doing and why; to trust him, though we can't make the plans we wish we could make. I guess that's always a challenge for us humans. And this pandemic hasn't helped. 

This post I wrote only ten weeks ago shows me that our plans, that I admitted were foggy, have become even foggier.

The struggles I've had this year have been mostly circling my kids, my nearly-grown boys. Who thought that parenting could be so hard? (I've been saying that for over 20 years now!) They are no longer my little boys, who were "relatively" easy to keep corralled; whose pain was easier to fix.

If you've got younger kids, you probably don't want to hear me say that the problems get bigger and harder to "fix" as they get older. I'm under no illusions that parenting my little boys was easy. No, I found that really challenging too. So this isn't a "better-worse" thing here. Just saying that parenting older kids has been throwing us some major "googlies" recently (this is a cricket metaphor, others would say "curve ball"). But the problems are such that I can't reveal them to you in the public space of my blog. So I have to settle for metaphors and generalisations, so read between the lines, if you dare!

Mark records Jesus meeting a rich man who had run up to him and asked what he must "do to inherit eternal life?" (10:17 ESV). "And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, '. . . come, follow me'" (v. 21). The story shows the man to be someone who would have been considered good: a rule-keeper. But he gave up his quest for eternal life when Jesus said he should sell everything he had (and give it to the poor) in order to follow Jesus.

One thing it seems we can plan 
is a camping trip...so bring it on 
(in 10 days time)!

In her book Come Closer, Jane Rubietta wrote: "To be really rich, we unclench our fists, open our hands, and reach for Jesus. He promised us life, abundant life, and we create room for that life when we let go. Whatever is in your grip, recognize it. Notice why you hold that person, that role, that ambition, so tightly . . . let [Christ] have you, all of you—your hopes for the future, your pain from the past, your roles and rules and relationships" (p.44).

I certainly recognise some of these things in my own life. My desire to hold onto plans for the future, to keep control over how things pan out. To hold onto how I'd like my sons to live their lives. I like to be in control of some things. Most of us do.

It's not a bad thing to control when you go to bed, or when you get up. Or to seek to control whether you are a responsible employee or student. It's not a bad thing to be passionate about your job. Neither is it a bad thing to strive for a balance of work and rest, or to make plans for when you'll next see your family. But sometimes these things can trip us up, and can hinder us from following Jesus. Sometimes you simply can't control the things you want to, what then? Jesus' statement was to one man, but is also to us. Will we "follow him" wherever he leads us? Though whatever he brings our way?

Last week I read this in Joshua 10: "And the LORD said to Joshua, 'Do not fear them, for I have given them into your hands" (v. 8). Note the verb: "given". It's already happened and they hadn't even gone into battle yet!

"We trust in his future plans and purposes through Christ because we know that he has already achieved them, eternally". (A Time to Hope, Naomi Reed)

During prayer and conversations with my husband in the last month, we've pretty much given over to God a number of things that I couldn't have imagined only a few months ago. It's like God has drilled down on us, hemming us in, and been teaching us—"You can't assume anything about the future."

So I'm really fighting to stay in the here-and-now, and as one who likes to plan and dream about the future, it's tough. But I know that the God who already knew the outcome of Joshua's battle with the kings of the Amorites, is the same God who knows the outcome of the various battles we're facing today. What a comfort that it!

If I'm going to be hemmed in, then the safest place to be is with the Lord, after all "The name of the LORD is a strong tower; the righteous man runs into it and is safe" (Prov. 18:10 ESV).

This is part three of my series based "15 invitations by Jesus to come" as written about in Jane Rubietta's book Come Closer.

International perspective on life in the pandemic

Quick summary of our current pandemic situation*

In early January the Japanese government called a state of emergency for Tokyo and ten other prefectures. This was to March 7, but has been extended for Tokyo and some other prefectures until the 21st.

On 3 March, the 7-day average of new cases/day: 

• Japan 1,030

• UK 7,173

• US 64,409

• Australia 8 

(It's interesting to note that both the UK and US numbers are falling but Japan and Australia—though admittedly the numbers are tiny in Australia, so it's a poor comparison—are holding steady at present, possibly related to the roll-out of vaccines?) 

New visas for Japan aren’t being processed, so this is holding up a number of short-term and new, long-term workers from joining us here in Japan.

CAJ has continued to start an hour later to enable most students to commute at a less-crowded time. This will shift back to a normal time as soon as the state of emergency is lifted.

Our Japanese church has been online since early January.

Our personal international perspective

As we talk with people in Australia, we realise that we have an interesting international perspective. It’s amazing how this global disaster is being experienced in vastly different ways around the world. In February, Wendy chatted with a missionary who is in the UK on home assignment. The restrictions they are living under there are very tight and quite depressing.

By contrast, talking with Australian friends, there is almost an unreality about it all now, with little threat being felt in much of the country. We realised with a shock recently that Queenslanders have made it through the majority of the last 12 months without needing to wear masks!

But the border restrictions are strict in Australia. As a result it would be challenging for us to go there right now. Yet we have American friends who have gone to their country and back, and had to quarantine only when they returned to Japan (with minimal restrictions in their own home).

Japan has many less infections than the US or UK, but more than Australia and the experience is different again. Though we’ve been in the midst of a state of emergency in Tokyo since the start of the year, the rules are vague and nowhere near as strict as Melbourne has experienced. That is partly due to the constitution that limits the powers of the government. However, 99.99% of people over five are wearing masks in public. Many churches are meeting online, even though regulations don’t insist that they do. But schools are still open.

Where the limits are strict in Japan are with allowing new people into the country. That has an impact on organisations like OMF and potentially CAJ, if they want to employ new, overseas staff in August. It also means that many meetings, workshops, and consultations that were previously held in person are being held online these days.

Vaccines are going to change things again, and we wait to see how that pans out. They’ve started vaccinating medical workers here, we wait to hear how the next stage will roll out.

*We sent this out in our prayer letter on the weekend and I thought it might be something useful to put on here too. Cross-cultural workers tend to be more aware of international matters than people living in their own countries, it's just a fact of life when we're brushing shoulders with people from a variety of cultures.