Checking in from Tokyo

 Yes, we really are in Tokyo now. I'm still pinching myself. It's been another huge week! Here's a summary:

Friday (19th): this time last week we were at Brisbane domestic airport, hoping we could still travel to Melbourne for a wedding. However, as you'll recall, there was a global IT crisis that affected Jetstar. We didn't get even as far as checking our luggage in and eventually, at 8pm they told us that we could "go home" and we'd be eligible for vouchers we could use on another flight. We were sad that we couldn't go through with our plan to celebrate our friend's marriage, but in the end it turned out to be a better plan to stay home.

Saturday (20th): Saturday became a much needed rest day. I had a headache much of the morning and stomach ache after lunch. These are pretty common "major transition symptoms" for me.

Sunday (21st): This also turned into an unexpected blessing, but it was a long day! Because we'd already said goodbye to (almost) everyone at our home church, we decided to attend our sons' church. Our eldest is moving to Townsville (today) and so it was his last Sunday there after 6 ½ years. It was a moving service, with his farewell as well as a speaker from Open Doors. The last hymn was "Take my life and let it be":

The only reason I didn't cry while singing that is because I was already emotionally exhausted. 

It was very special to be there at our son's farewell to the church. It was a bookend event: I was there at his first service when he was 18. We've seen him grow as a person so much in that time. Our whole family was at the service. Our youngest has been going there regularly since he started uni in February. Our middle son, who is newly licenced and has his own car now, drove himself to meet us there. It was a special morning.

The afternoon was also special. After lunch the guys came over to the place where we'd been based for the week of our move. We hung out, as we usually do on a Sunday. Playing online board games, chatting, and eating. Our hosts joined us for some of the time, and provided us with dinner. 

Saying goodbye to the guys was hard. But we finished well, final hugs were given, and good things were spoken. God has blessed us greatly.

Then I had to pull myself together enough to finalise packing and settle down to try to sleep. The latter I didn't do very well, and ended up with only about four hours shut-eye before we had to get up again.

Monday (22nd): flying day. We left at 5.45 am, with the air temperature 2C. It was a very smooth day all round. Even at the other end, we were out of the plane and through customs and immigration at a record speed. It took longer to find the place to get our Japanese eSIM access and activate that on our phones!

We were at our organisation's guesthome by around 8.30. I showered and then went looking for cold water to drink. The temperature outside at 9.30 was still around 30C. No cold water was in evidence, so I solved it in a Japanese way. I walked a short distance down the road (in shorts and tank top) and bought a bottle of cold water from a vending machine. It was kinda surreal!

Our apartment has a very narrow hallway.
The first thing the removalists did when
they arrived was erect these protective
barriers and floor covering.

Tuesday (23rd): We were up early again and borrowed a van from the guesthome to drive us and our five suitcases 50 km across town. It took about 1 ½ hrs on the "expressway"! City traffic!

We met three colleagues/friends and the removalists/movers at the place our stuff was stored. Then followed a usual kind of moving day. The difference probably was friends who came and stayed to help start the unpacking, to stock our fridge, and host us for dinner. It was a warm welcome in more than one way (daytime maximum around 37C), and helped to soothe the sadness at the goodbyes we'd just said in Australia.

In a weird quirk of timing, we discovered the owners of our former house in this city started demolishing it this very day, the same day we moved into our new apartment 300 m down the road!

Wednesday (24th): It was hard to know where to start this morning in our small apartment full of suitcases and boxes. I felt very shaky, though, so I started slow. We unpacked suitcases and located all our clothes. David got a few remaining boxes that were stored with friends and washed clothes. We opened more boxes, shifted some furniture around and gradually started to get an idea of how we want to use this new space.

It's a small kitchen (but pretty typical for Japan).
The motorhome had more bench/counter
space! It's a challenge to figure out
how to best utilise the space.

That afternoon, while we still had a car, we went on a "vision trip" to a Japanese homeware store, thinking about how to best supplement what we had in the space we have available. Of particular concern is that we have a much smaller kitchen than we previously did, so we've needed to problem solve about what we want/need and what's actually possible. We did grocery shopping and dropped the car off to the lady who was going to drive it back across Tokyo for us.

Thursday (25th): We moved some more furniture around this morning and got things into a something looking more homelike, including putting a tablecloth on our new table. It's amazing what a small thing like that can do for the look of a place. After lunch we rode to a nearby hardware/home store looking at more options for storage and other things like earthquake braces for tall furniture. I cooked our first dinner in the kitchen (a simple spaghetti bolognaise) and went for our first walk along the river.

This cupboard didn't come with shelving,
so we bought some. Japan has amazing
options for storage.

Looking more home-like. We've got a temporary
pantry/storage thing going with the bookcase.
The boxes on the floor behind the table are where
we'll put a kitchen island/cupboard.

Ice coffee break, amidst the boxes.

Friday (26th, today): Today our mission was to register our presence with the city, including our new address. That took longer than expected, but is done. We then went on an adventure to buy a new car. Three trains there (and back) and a bit of a walk, but it was another hot day so the travel was draining. But we have put the processes into place to buy a car, though we can't finalise that for three weeks (mostly due to public holidays and paperwork). On the way home we stopped by a Japanese friend's shop to say hi. She gave me back one of my plants that she's been taking care of for the year. I was shocked at how healthy it looked!

Important paperwork at the city office. I'm so thankful
David can manage this for us both.

Our new secondhand car. The secondhand car
market is much cheaper here than Australia!
We're looking forward to zipping around in
a much smaller vehicle (half the number of 
seatbelts to what we've driven throughout our
19 years in Tokyo).

My first plant made its way home to us! Looking so healthy too.

We have two places for plants that like lots of sun: first is this small
balcony (also for clothes drying).

This is the second place that gets southerly sun,
our lounge room and that windowsill is crying out
for some plants!

It's been a huge week. I'm glad to say that my physical symptoms of transition are settling down a bit. This blog post has run a bit long and I've run out of time to reflect much more on this week, but suffice to say, that it hardly seems like we left. We no longer have culture shock when we come here. This is one of the places we call home and because we've basically moved back to the same location we know where everything is in the community. It's weird, this time, though, with no children. Earlier in the week I went into a shop I've used for nearly 20 years and I kept seeing items that I would have bought in the past for our sons. Their presence in our lives here is all over our memories and activities. It's good and right that we've all moved on as a family, but it will be a process of adjustment for us all.

Thank you for your prayers and good wishes. I'll be back soon with more reflective thoughts. It's been a very practical couple of weeks full of huge change and it will take a while for my soul to properly catch up!
 

The last days in Australia have been full

Yesterday we handed the keys back to the house we've been living in. It felt really anti-climactic. In fact this whole week I've felt a bit disembodied: just going through the motions, doing the next thing. And there have been a few "next things"!

A summary of our last nine days:

Tuesday (9th): my dental surgery. Wednesday and Thursday I rested at home.

Friday (12th): I went to my final ladies Bible study at church then had lunch with a close friend. My face was sore by the end of this (I had significant bruising that has made for fun social engagement!) Then we went to the bank to sort out something they couldn't manage for my online or on the phone.

Saturday: We met more close friends for an early lunch. Followed by some errands that I can no longer remember...

Sunday: re-commissioning service at church that my parents drove down for (they live 1½ hrs away). Some other friends also joined us that morning. It was kind of embarrassing to be put up on a pedestal as "our missionaries we're sending out", but also important for the church to be reminded of these things and for us to be encouraged by their support of us. After we'd said goodbye to what felt like every individual there, we finally made it home. All our boys came for a BBQ lunch that my parents brought everything for! They left mid afternoon and our sons stayed to help us with one more left-over clean up for dinner.

Monday evening

Monday: this dawned as the start of the real packing up and a significant contrast to the "spiritual" nature of the previous morning. This was the day we would stop living in the house. We packed all our clothes and other things that we thought we'd take to Japan. The kitchen was packed, the office, the bedding washed. Everything that could be was put into boxes in preparation for the next day. I spent a portion of the afternoon lying on the couch with a nasty headache. Thankfully David had things well in hand (and we'd been quietly sorting things for weeks). At the end of the day we put our suitcases and backpacks in the car and drove to the home of friends where we'd stay the rest of the week. We did a quick weigh-in of our luggage and to our dismay came out with eight kilos too much. Some rapid adjusting of what was in there didn't help as much as we hoped, so we left that problem for another day.

Tuesday: we moved our stuff to our storage container on the property of the friend of a friend. We also returned the furniture we'd borrowed from a friend for the year. I helped the four guys (David, one of our sons, and two guys from church) load the rented van and then after they left I started in on more cleaning in a very empty, echoey house. After all that we picked up our car which had had the back door straightened out after someone dinged the back of it. And then we had dinner with other friends who offered to help us with a meal this week.

Wednesday: full-on cleaning day. We finished by mid-afternoon after the carpet cleaner arrived. We dropped off some donations to a second-hand store and six dining chairs to a young guy from church. Then it was fun to have an evening "off" watching football, even if the result was not what these Queenslanders were hoping for.

Thursday (yesterday): we took our car to the mechanic early for the safety check it needed prior to transferring ownership to our son, then we picked up the final cleaning bits and pieces and closed up the house for one final time. We came back to our temporary lodgings and repacked our luggage and David took a package of the extra kilos to the post office. We got online and did address changes and I spent 45 minutes on the phone with our health insurer. Later in the day we found out that the car needs far more work than we have time (or money) for to make it ready for a transferring ownership this week, so we've had to do a rethink on that one. This car has had more problems in 12 months that either of us have ever experienced in a single car. We're regretting we ever bought it, but hindsight is not super helpful in this case!

Friday: today we've had a quiet morning by comparison! We washed clothes, I've washed my completed cross stitch before I store it (I'll get around to framing it one day in the future), David had an online school meeting, and I've spent time typing this blog post. David's just gone to do one last bit of paperwork that will hopefully help with the selling of the car some time in the future after we're no longer in the country.

This afternoon we're flying to Melbourne for a wedding tomorrow (old housemate of David's). We'll be back on Sunday in time to hang out with our guys for one more afternoon.

Monday morning (22nd) a friend is picking us and our luggage up at 5.45am to head to the airport and we should be in Tokyo by bedtime.

Yes, it's a lot. But we've thought it through and walked through this process many times now, so most of this wasn't a surprise. We also allowed time to do this at a moderate pace, rather than a frantic pace, which is something else we've learned in our years of doing international moves. I haven't slept well every night, so that's diminished my capacity each day. I've also been still using painkillers post-surgery, though that is diminishing significantly now.

I'll be glad when this is all over. I definitely have mixed feelings, as usual, about leaving Australia, but it reminds me a bit of some advice someone gave me once about getting married. When I had a moment of doubt about whether I was marrying the right guy, she said, "I think you've already made that decision." And she was right. This is the same: we decided this was the right thing some time ago, so in some ways I just have to live with the emotions and continue to put one foot in front of the other, trusting God through it all. I know from past "returns to Japan" that once we're there a significant amount of peace about it all generally settles on us.

I am reminded of this significant verse:

It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed (Deuteronomy 31: 8).

Update + what awaits in Japan

I'm feeling pretty weary today. Yesterday morning I had a molar removed and abscess cleaned out under general anaesthesia. It took less than an hour and was less traumatic than having three or four wisdom teeth removed (I still have a "good side" to chew on). I'm thankful that the numbness lasted all day yesterday, so pain management wasn't hard yesterday. Today it hurts more. Overnight I slept fitfully, probably only got around four hours. Thankfully my brief is to rest for best recovery; I'm hoping for a nap after lunch. Hopefully this is the end of this strange health journey. The surgeon thinks that there was never an involvement of my salivary gland and that it was this tooth the whole time! I'm thankful that it seems this has come to an end before we left Australia and pray that there will be no complications that need to be dealt with in Japan.

Last week I wrote and sent out our prayer letter and intended to share some of that with you here. The "lead article" was:

What awaits you in Japan?

We plan to move into our new Tokyo apartment on 24 July, just two days after leaving Australia. A removalist (US English is "mover") is booked to shift our stuff from storage and there are OMF and other friends available to help us there.

The living area of our new apartment

We’re excited that our new apartment has better cooling (and heating) than our previous place, especially with another extremely hot and humid summer forecast. It’s smaller than our previous house—around 60 m², the size of a squash court. We’ll be doing a fair bit of problem solving to sort out where things go and if more furniture is required (we got rid of a lot last year). Thankfully we both love problem solving.

One of the first things we’ll do is buy bicycles to help us get around the suburb easily. Later we’ll be looking for a small car to purchase with money we’ve saved up.We will have about two weeks to get settled and then we’ll both begin work in our various roles.

We hope to have more opportunities for hospitality in this new season. Two new OMF families have moved to the CAJ area, so it will be good to spend time with them. We also have a few friends in the area who we’re hoping to invite to an Open House in our new apartment before school begins in late August.

We’re excited to start this new season. Though it will be hard to say goodbye to our sons, it’s been great to have this year to walk alongside them in Australia. We’ve seen God provide in tremendous ways and look forward to see what he’s going to do in the future! 

A couple of hymn verses come to mind as we reflect and move forward:

I am trusting you to guide me;

you alone shall lead,

ev’ry day and hour supplying

all my need. 

(Frances Ridley Havergal)

Great is Thy faithfulness, 

O God my Father,

Morning by morning 

new mercies I see,

All I have needed 

Thy hand hath provided,

Great is Thy faithfulness, 

Lord, unto me. 

(Thomas O. Chisholm)

________________________

And of course, you'll hear about our settling in process in more detail than those who read our prayer letter (I'm excited that both WiFi and air con are already connected in the apartment). But let me know if you don't receive our monthly prayer/news letter and would like to.

Feeling off-balance, but okay

I started this week with some trepidation. We knew that on each of the first three days (Monday to Wednesday) we would hear news that was out of our control and each had the potential to change the plans we'd carefully made for the coming month. Of course, we try to hold our plans lightly, knowing we're not really in control, but it's still hard.

The three things were:

Car repair

Our car was in a minor accident when our middle son, practising for his driving test, was hit from behind on the approach to a roundabout. Not his fault and the offender didn't stop. On Monday the car was scheduled to go to the panel beater and be assessed for our insurance claim at to be fixed. Our main concern was: when would we get it back? With an already complex month, this was an unwanted extra complication. Thankfully the assessor thought we'd get our car back on the day that we start to move out of our house. No day was ideal, but that's not the worst it could be! Thankfully we'd bought a second car a few weeks ago, with the intention that it would become our middle son's car after he got his licence. So, we still have a car to get around in!

Driving test

For my non-Aussie readers,
this is the sign that you
get to put on your car in the
first year after you have your
driver's licence (then you
change to a green P for two
years). When learning you
have an L sign.

Our middle son had his second attempt at a driving test on Tuesday. Again, out of our control, though we'd done all we could to prepare him, including recruiting a number of prayer warriors to pray on Tuesday afternoon at 2.50! I vacuumed the house while waiting for news about how the test had gone: shouting out my prayers and frustration to God. It must have been a sight for any flies on the wall. (It's been a 2 ½ year journey from when he first got his Japanese learners, then was diagnosed with epilepsy and had to jump through medical and government hoops here to get his Australian learners, get his required hours, get credit for the hours he did in Japan, and then get a test date, fail, and get another test date.)

We're incredibly thankful and relieved that this time he passed. God has been so gracious to us this year in helping us achieve so many of the goals we set out to nail.

Ongoing medical saga of my jaw

The ongoing saga of the discomfort I've been experiencing on the left side of my jaw came to a head (this started in Canberra during our long service journey in mid March). By late-May I was unwilling to accept the GPs assurance that all was fine. So I went to a physio (thinking it might be muscular-skeletal). He suggested another go at a dentist, who took an x-ray and referred me to an oral pathologist, who referred me to an Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon who sent me for more scans, including an MRI. Amazingly, all that was achieved during June! 

It's been a ridiculous journey that I wanted to end asap, preferably before we went back to Japan, where accessing medical and dental services just becomes more complex for a non-fluent Japanese speaker. 

I had my post-scan appointment on Wednesday and the final assessment is that this is an abscess under a molar. The tooth needs extraction under General Anaesthesia. This is now planned for next Tuesday. Phew! And amazingly, I'm not in much pain, certainly nothing like I experienced at Easter time.

No one knows how this has escaped the attention of so many professionals (in three months I've had four dental x-rays, two ultrasounds, two CT scans, as well as an MRI). But perhaps it was just God keeping me off-balance, and part of his growth plan for me to trust him?

What now?

Well now that most of that is decided, we forge onwards. It's only 15 days until we hop on our first plane. Things are steadily getting done. Today so far I've made an enquiry about getting our carpets cleaned, I've finished our last prayer letter for this home assignment, written this blog post, and done (all?) the paperwork for my day surgery next week. Next on the agenda is a coffee and some more sorting of boxes of stuff that are lying around (much is memorabilia and correspondence from many years ago that has thus far been stored here).

On Saturday we are doing something new: holding an open day here at our house. So between 9 and 4.30 we could have a lot of people visiting (or maybe hardly any at all?). It's a chance for local people who may not have seen us to briefly do so.

Yep, I'm still feeling off-balance. I think that's where God likes me!