Exciting and scary

I think I'm pleased to report that we booked more plane tickets on Saturday. I have to say that after our journeys last year, I wasn't keen, but I'm also glad that it's done. At least this time there are no passport or visa dramas, and no Covid regulations either! I've also booked accommodation in three different locations (one in Japan and two in Australia) that will help us have places to lay our heads between July 10 and August 2. After that, only God knows!

This transition represents the next stage in our journey: the start of our 5th (!) home assignment. It's also a significant journey as we take our sons back to Australia for good. As I keep saying, we're not bringing them back to Japan next year.

I'm also pleased to say that this week I was able to submit the 4,500-word project I'd been working on since November last year. That felt both very good, but also nerve-racking even though it was something that I'd been commissioned to write. I'm glad to have gotten it to this point and to shove it into someone else's hands for the time being. I think all editors should periodically take a turn at being writers whose work is submitted to editors, I think it would help us all to have a good deal of insight into what writers feel.

Then on Wednesday, I found enough free space in my schedule to ride to the park—my usual haunt—to spend time with the blooming sakura (alongside hundreds of others). Last Friday we sent the latest magazine to the printer, and this week I only had one meeting on my calendar and no out-of-the-office responsibilities during work hours. So, from several years of experience, I knew that this week I'd have a little extra time and that a ride to the park was viable. It was a shock to realise I haven't done that in five months! It was definitely time and yesterday everything lined up: time to spare, beautiful weather, and sakura blooming. Ah, it was a blessed couple of hours. I relaxed enough to even lie down and read a book under one of the pink trees!

This week it's been delightful to have more time to think about home assignment preparation . . . though I need to stop writing now! I've probably already got sufficient "story modules" written for our rounds of speaking. Noting that we're often only given 10 minutes between us to talk about Japan and our ministry over the last 4 ½ years, and we rarely speak to the same audience, it's not too hard. Because I love to write and "stories" are my hobby horse, it's the easier part of HA preparation for me. The hard work of upending our lives and moving will be much worse.

So, now, I think, a story is warranted. Smile! Writing for publication can be a scary thing, but it's also an exciting thing. For the same reason: you never know where your words are going to end up. Editing and publishing are the same. I feel a little like a midwife, sometimes, in the various publishing that I'm involved in. 

A couple of weeks ago at the women's retreat I went to I saw one of my "babies" on a table. I think it was for sale. "Beneath the Surface" is a prayer guide I spent several months working on in 2019 and 2020. I wasn't a writer, but I laboured over the editing! Oh, I did write the initial draft of the "From the editors" at the beginning, but it was heavily worked over in one of the most intense "team editing" sessions I've ever been part of.

I've just done some intense searching, and I can't believe that I never wrote here about this big "baby". It was a huge project (that involved a lot of collaboration across organisations) to undertake on top of the other day-to-day responsibilities I have at work. Probably one reason that I never wrote here about it was that it happened in the middle of the pandemic, at least the end part did. We had planned a post-publication party for the three of us editors who conceived and worked together on the project, but we never ended up being able to do anything. In the end, in November 2020, the only thing that marked this going out into the world was an online launch party for the contributors. 

In any case, I'm still very happy with this amazing booklet and feel a little possessive whenever I see it around somewhere. I'm unsure how many copies have been sold around the world, but it's many thousand. And it's been translated into a few other languages as well. The Japanese version is currently being worked on.

I think the unique thing about the booklet is not only that it is not about the work of any one mission, but also that it delves into some really deep and difficult topics, but makes them accessible to many people because as much as we could we tried to utilise stories. Oh, and you can buy it here.

But that actually wasn't the story I was planning to tell you. I've got another one. I received an email early in March from someone in the UK. He's a Christian student worker (IFES), and specifically, he works with music students. One of the authors in the Winter issue of the magazine that I manage Japan Harvest happened to be in the UK and gave a copy of the magazine to this man. (This issue was themed "Arts in Ministry.") This man in the UK read the whole thing and wrote: 

"I found [it] fascinating—I've known for quite a while that using the arts in mission is something that is done to particularly good effect in Japan, and so it was eye-opening, encouraging, and inspiring to read so many articles documenting the thought and practice of so many missionaries in Japan."

He was particularly taken by one of the articles and wanted to reprint it on this website. https://musicnetwork.uk/.

The website is the "chief online resource for equipping music students here in the UK to live for Christ in the world of music. We are always trying to give them deep theological foundations for their musical practice, as well as actively trying to encourage them to think globally and missionally, and the article certainly did both of those things I feel."

You can check out the article that's now been republished here.

I was so encouraged by this little exchange. The magazine is primarily for people ministering to Japanese people, so to think that this went halfway around the world into the hands of someone working with quite a different audience is pretty cool.

I like my job. It is indeed both scary and exciting. Who knows what God's going to do with my words or the words I help into publication?

I'm also excited because we've got a camping trip planned for next week! So my next blog post might be a camping one!

Where have you been?

Phew. I've been so busy! I predicted in my first blog post of the year that it would be a crazy year, but I don't think I expected so much crazy so fast. Looking back at the last two and a half months, there's been little let-up. It's been three weeks since I felt I could take time to write here. During those weeks I've been to a retreat, a full-day workshop, an annual general meeting, a full day of OMF meetings on the other side of the city, a meeting strategising how to hand all my work over for home assignment, and two long Saturdays at athletics (AmEng = track and field) meets. 

Ironically, the workshop and nearly 3-day retreat were each ways to help me be more resilient, but both increased pressure on me as I took time away from my regular work to attend them. And all the while, waiting at my desk were two magazine issues both requiring my attention, as well as the usual social media work for OMF, and a variety of people who had to be patient and wait for me to be available to them, or to simply get something done for them. On top of all that, it's like a bunch of people have woken up to the fact that we're going on home assignment in just over 100 days and the amount of work I've been doing related to that has been steadily increasing.

This cross is part of the back wall
of the room we had meetings in at
the retreat. A good reminder to keep
my eyes fixed on Jesus.

Today I've struggled to focus on the work in front of me—I think I simply need a quiet weekend to rest. Thankfully that's pretty much looking like what tomorrow and Sunday are. Our athlete has flown to Thailand today with his class, so we won't spend all day tomorrow watching him throw stuff (he does shot put and discus). We do, however, have to spend some time nailing down dates so that we can buy plane tickets for that aforementioned home assignment. Though I really don't want to think about flying again . . . I'm still feeling scarred by our experiences last year!

The reality is: I'm smack-bang in the midst of transition. Another irony is that one of the things put on the back burner in recent weeks has been a writing project of a series of short articles about the experience of going on home assignment! Though I simply haven't had time to write about it, I'm increasingly "doing" it: talking about how to hand my job onto others, talking about HA plans, slotting dates in the calendar, talking to people about handing over our house and car on this end and getting a house and car on that end, etc. 

It's a lot and looks a bit like a big muddle because I'm basically taking on more work before I can give any away. I commented to a couple of friends earlier this week that it felt like people kept lobbing balls at me that I had to juggle on top of the usual fairly large number of balls-to-juggle that are part of my everyday job.

For the first time in decades, I joined a choir
(just for a day). We rehearsed and sang a
gospel song at the retreat.

Thankfully I have learned not to carry this all with me 24-7. At least I try. I'm still sleeping well and mostly am able to relax after work in the evenings without too much difficulty (although that is also the only time that I can talk with my husband about various decisions and plans). At the retreat I was able to leave most of these
responsibilities at my desk. I really enjoyed the worship, time to connect deeply with friends, and reflect on God's Word. It was the first time in three years that I've been able to fellowship within a group and sing without a mask on (in Japan). Many times in these last three years I've stuffed emotion deep and gotten on with the job at hand. But a retreat like this has a way of taking the lid off and there was plenty of emotion (from me at least).

Here's a great quote one of the speakers gave us:

On a daily basis we're faced with two simple choices. We can either listen to ourselves and our constantly changing feelings about our circumstances, or we can talk to ourselves about the unchanging truth of who God is and what He's accomplished for us at the cross through His Son Jesus. (C.J. Mahaney in The Christ Centered Life: Keeping the Gospel the Main Thing")

This song made a deep impression on me at the retreat and I've been listening to it often (which is one way of "talking to myself", another way is writing this blog post):

The chorus is special:

"From everlasting, you are God

And all our days are held within your hands

Your perfect love and favor have no end

We rest within the wisdom of your plan

Everlasting God

We rest within your plan."

My prayer is that as we continue through this messy and stressful time of transition, that I would be able to remember to rest in the wisdom of God's plan. And to truly trust him with all things!