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).