Looking back at 2024

For a few years now I've been using this last week of the year to write a blog post that reflects on the year past. In particular, I've been using questions to help me focus my thoughts and keep me honest. I've done the same today.

One of the many beautiful things we saw on our long
road trip in 2024.

The questions and categories I've used are these (in case you'd like to copy and use them yourself):

1. What makes this year unforgettable?

2. What did I enjoy doing this year?

3. What/who is one thing/person I'm grateful for?

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

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

6. What is my biggest regret?

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

8. What surprised me most this year?

9. What Bible truths impacted me this year?

10. What meta-themes have I thought about this year? (in no particular order)

Highlights

Lowlights

Concluding thoughts.

1. What makes this year unforgettable?

Ah, so many things. I've just written our monthly prayer/newsletter and spent some space looking back at the many amazing things that happened in 2024. Here's a short list:

• Our youngest two sons moved out, leaving us without any children under our roof for the first time in almost 25 years.
• We took two months long service leave (an Australia institution that rewards long service with extended paid leave).
• We spent two months driving around south-east Australia in a motorhome, including a month in Tasmania
• Major changes for all our kids. Our youngest son started university. After a lengthy period of unemployment our middle son got his first job, a licence, and a car. Our eldest son (within a single month) moved 1,400 km north, took up a carpentry apprenticeship, and got engaged. Now we're contemplating a new daughter-in-law joining the family in the next fortnight.
• After 12 months away we moved back to Japan and into a new apartment, completing a downsize that's been ongoing for a few years. 
• Living for the first time in Japan with no children.
• I had a bad run with a tooth abscess that was misdiagnosed during our sojourn south (and repeatedly in the following months) which ended with dental surgery, and now have one less tooth than I started the year with, as well as my first fake body part in the form of a one-tooth denture. 

2. What did I enjoy doing this year?

• Our motorhome trip was definitely the biggest joy. We've never done such a massive journey (time-wise, this was only 500km shorter than our 16-day trip to Uluru in 2012, but obviously much longer at 58 days).
• There were many things tucked into that motorhome journey that were wonderful, like visiting the MCG for a day (large sports stadium in Melbourne where we did a tour, then enjoyed two museums) and the Bradman museum. Going to "end of the road" type places in Tasmania: e.g. most southerly point and to the north-eastern tip.
• I've enjoyed being just a couple again, setting up our new apartment together in July and August was satisfying.
• I did a one-night two-day retreat with close friends in February.
• Going on an unusual date to watch wheelchair rugby between our two countries.
• Helping run a wrestling tournament at CAJ also fits on this list!

...and yes, there's lots of sport there!

3. What/who is one thing/person I'm grateful for?

• As usual: my husband, but also that God allowed us to come back to Japan rather than a much more dramatic change of direction. 
• And my closest friends: how would I do life without them?

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

• A Call to Spiritual Reformation: Priorities from Paul and His Prayers, D.A. Carson
• Awe: Why it Matters for Everything We Think, Say, and Do by David Paul Tripp
• Bullies and Saints, John Dickson
• The Meaning of Marriage, Timothy Keller with Kathy Keller
• Continued to enjoy Undeceptions podcast.
• I also enjoyed Storytellers: Questions, Answers and the Craft of Journalism by Leigh Sales.

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

• Despite writing this (in my first blog post this year): "I think that giving up worrying is a worthy goal, not just for 2024, but for the rest of my life. I'm certain that I will fail again and again, but with God's help I surely can improve on what I've done up till now!" I worried about whether 2024 would be a major turn in the road for us. That is, whether we'd return to Japan and how our kids would cope without us nearby. Well it's turned out much better than I expected.

6. What is my biggest regret?

• I can't think of one, except for the first lowlight below: that our long trip was marred by my illness, which of course wasn't my fault, but I wish it hadn't happened.

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

• I think I'm trusting God more. It's been a long, hard road of learning that is by no means over, but I think I've made progress.

8. What surprised me most this year?

• A new (almost) daughter-in-law. I've had a quarter of a century of being a mum to boys, adding a girl to the family has been a pleasant surprise. And though we are far apart and have only met three times, I have been excited to get to know her a bit and start to forge a relationship with her that is unlike anything I've experienced before.

9. What Bible truths impacted me this year?

• It's hard to remember anything especially. But here are some Bible verses that I included on my blog through the year:
• Luke 12:23–26 (the folly of worry)
• Numbers 13 & 14 (story of 12 Israelite spies)
• Isaiah 55:8–9 (my thoughts are not yours declares the Lord)
• Psalm 91:2 (the Lord is my refuge and my fortress)
• Deuteronomy 31:8 (the Lord goes before you, he will not leave or forsake you)
• 2 Corinthians 4:18 (fix our eyes not on what is seen, but what is unseen–that is eternal)
• Psalm 145:4 (you are called to make the invisible glory of God visible)
• Various prayers of Paul (for example, see Ephesians 3, Colossians 1)

10. What meta-themes have I thought about this year? (in no particular order)

• Trusting God
• Letting go makes room for growth and new opportunities
• Downsizing
• Is "feeling useful" a good thing?
• What kind of mother-in-law do I want to be?
• Stepping back from my adult kids means I enable them to grow.
• Retirement planning!
• Belonging
• Who am I apart from my children?
• Aging
• Accepting again that I am who God made me to be: weaknesses included

Highlights

• Obviously our long service leave trip in a motorhome.
• Seeing our sons grow in character and skill, living independently, and making adult-level decisions.
• Retreat with close friends.
• Moving into our new apartment in Tokyo.
• Attending live sporting events: cricket, wheelchair rugby, wrestling.
• Many times with friends on both sides of the ocean.
• Finishing a long-term cross-stitch project.
• Successfully blogging my way through our two-month road trip.

Lowlights

• Our motorhome journey was marred by my battle with a misdiagnosed tooth abscess. Easter weekend was particularly low in that regard.
• As usual, goodbyes and an international move were hard, and saying goodbye to all our kids this time was extra difficult, but the flipside of that is (the second) highlight I've already mentioned.

Concluding thoughts

I'm really glad that 2024 is over. The past two years have been a lot of hard work and exhausting. I still feel the shadow of the exhaustion from it all. But I'm also glad for all the things we were able to achieve during the last two years, by God's grace! My next blog post is about looking forward to 2025...so I won't go there now.

I'm going to finish this year of blogging with a favourite Bible passage of mine, one I like to pray when I don't know what else to pray for someone. For sure God has done more than we could imagine in 2024!

I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3:16–21 NIV)

Christmas week

My husband, David, finished school two weeks ago for the Christmas-New Year holidays and since then life has slowed down a bit. We’ve been sleeping in and having more down-time than usual. For many years this is when we would go for a week away in the mountains with our family. This year, with no kids here, we decided not to do that, to instead make new memories. However then our eldest son got engaged and announced the wedding would be January 11, which for us means a trip back to Australia. So we decided to stay home during the days before Christmas: a decision that favours the budget as well as energy-conservation.

Christmas Day was a very quiet day: the quietest Christmas celebration we’ve ever had. The only other time we’ve celebrated that day without parents or kids was a crazy busy day in Indonesia on a short-term missions trip in 1993. (Noting that when we’re in Australia we often have two Christmas celebrations, one with each side of the family, and often not on the day itself.)

David “puzzling” next to the tree.

So what did we do? We chatted with family, ate Christmassy foods, participated in an online Christmas worship service, finished a jigsaw puzzle we’d been working on, played a game of Scrabble, exchanged a couple of gifts, and went for a mid-afternoon walk. We also watched a Christmas concert and then a Christmas movie. A quiet, but happy day.

A strangely fitting day for 2024—a year that has been full of many new and different things, along with big changes. But I won’t jump into a year-end reflection yet (that’s for next week).

We did invite a number of people to join us for Christmas dinner, but for various reasons none were able to come. The sentiment around Christmas is so family-orientated and so “going home” orientated. It’s strange to not do either. But we have been doing Christmas away from our birth families for a long time now. We are very used to a quiet time at home (though it never was that quiet for most of the years we had with three young boys). We're used to celebrating at home and connecting with our Australian family via video calls (or phone in the early days). So, though it was odd, it was not so bad as in those early years. Plus, fast forwarding to the days after Christmas: we had plenty of social interaction with close friends planned for the days following Christmas.

It’s probably more noteworthy that our two youngest sons had their first Christmas without us ever yesterday. They spent the day with my extended family and we were able to have a little bit of time with them via video too.

Twelve years ago I wrote on my blog that I’d had conversations with friends who had much older kids than mine and who wouldn’t see their children for Christmas. In that blog post I wrote about my first ever Christmas away from my birth family (good story, ended with a very late Christmas dinner of a whole fish, including eyes). I doubt my sons had as strange a day as that, but I’m sure it felt a little weird. I was reminded of that today when I spent time checking in with the short-term worker who I’m supervising. Christmas was also weird for her, being away from family, but thankfully she was able to experience the power of belonging to and celebrating with other believers.

This year has been full of change and new experiences for us, but (almost) all of this has been good change. So many Christmas songs are focused on family, they tap into the good feelings of belonging and earthly family. But both of these elements of life are subject to change and also to faults. Being away from family can give you the distance to remember more easily that as a Christian the most important thing in life is that we belong to the God’s family. Though that can be difficult here on earth, is also something that is foundational and though the members we physically live life with change (sometimes daily) the head of the family does not.

I started this blog post without any idea where it would end (as I often do), but I think I’ve found the end! May God bless you this Christmas week, with a greater joy of belonging than you’ve known before.

Joy with my new garden

I've been wanting to write about my little garden for a while now. What's been stopping me? I've concluded that it's because it is not perfect, several aren't doing that wel! But that's a terrible excuse. Not all the plants are at their best, but it is winter time here, getting down to zero at nighttime, not the best time for plants! And because most of them are new to me and the conditions in this new apartment are also new to me, so I've been making lots of little adjustments: to plant placement (light and temperature variation), how much I water them.

These last five months has been a rebuilding time for my little potted garden. I got back some of the plants that I gave to others to take care of for the year we were away. Not all the plants made it through the transition to different locations and caretakers, so there was a fair bit of natural attrition. But as I got back some "old friends", I also got some new plants from the ladies who were looking after my plants, which was a surprise. On top of that I bought some new plants too. So now I have 21 pots with plants in them. Some are enjoying the bay window in our living room, two are in the dining/multipurpose area, and the rest are out on our tiny balcony, sharing space with laundry some days.

Parlor Palm

I felt very happy when my new garden was largely assembled. Why? Apparently there are many benefits to having indoor plants in your life (see this Time article, which, amongst other things cites an experiment where people who spent five to ten minutes in a room with a few houseplants felt happier than those in a plant-free room!) They are generally good for your mental health, though obviously not if plants are dying on you, which is why I always advise people to start with easy plants like geraniums, which are super hard to kill in moderate climates (mine survived being snowed on in Tokyo but didn't survive a year in a higher altitude when temperatures are much lower than here)! 

I particularly enjoy plants that I can nurture and see grow, rather than those you can buy fully grown and just water. There is also a lot of satisfaction in making changes so that a plant starts to thrive again. The Parlor Palm we have started out as a tiny little thing I bought for 100 yen (about a dollar)! It's now quite tall.

My sick maidenhair. I moved it outside
because I was concerned the fungus 
might jump ship to other plants, so I 
guess it's in isolation!

The maidenhair fern also started quite small and the second one (pictured) is a baby of the larger one. They've both been through some rough times. I think I'll have to wait till the weather warms us to see how they go. The latest drama with the little one seems to be a fungus of some sort.

Miniature rose

My miniature rose was a gift from David five years ago and it also has survived a few different crises. When we got it back this year it was just sticks and very dry, thankfully regular watering has revived some of the "sticks" and I'm hoping for good things come spring.

On either side of the rose you can see my efforts at a little bit of vegetable growing, but haven't had much success yet: my lettuces are still sprouts and I'm really not sure about the plants I thought were spring onions.

Baby hydrangeas. I don't know why they still 
have leaves...but I hope they flower in June!

The plants with the best story, though, are the two hydrangeas. Last year when we were moving out of our house in Tokyo I posted a photo of the two large hydrangeas in our backyard just as they were in full bloom, noting that I'd miss them. My mum suggested I take a cutting and someone else suggested that I ask a friend to look after the cuttings. I thought it was quite a long shot, but also realised I had nothing to lose. I Googled the topic, did the deed, then gave the fragile little cuttings to a Japanese friend (who also takes care of her parents' farm) and she gave them back to me in September this year looking magnificent. I'm so glad for the suggestion from my mum and friend, and for my Japanese friend who nurtured them! The parent plants are no longer in existence because the whole house and garden was demolished the week we moved in to our new place. But I've still got these little reminders of the place where we lived for 13 years!

The chrysanthemum is flowering quite nicely, with
many more buds forming, the Gerbera will probably
not flower again till it gets warm, and the Japanese Grape Leaf
Anemone looks a bit ill, but again, hopefully it will limp
along until we get to spring.

One of the surprises: another kind of geranium,
but I don't think it is well, it's also in iso.

The beautiful geranium flowered just in time for Christmas.

On the edge here is my lavendar: first time
trying to grow this plant. It's also not
looking great, but I'm hopeful.

My Aluminum Plant. I've shifted it
around a few times trying to find 
the right light and temperature combos,
it seems to be thriving in this spot 
where it gets light for a short period most
mornings.

I'm so glad to be settled in a place where I can have a garden again. I enjoy watering it and tinkering with it. It's a very small hobby that takes little time and not much money, but brings joy and colour into our lives.

Another crazy week: but I'm thankful

I'm starting to realise that having a few less responsibilities means I'm more flexible! So I'm able to take up short-term opportunities more easily and have the space to recover from them.

This last week I've done a few not-usual things and it's been crazy busy. In fact this is the first time in seven days that I've actually sat at my desk.

David's office where we spent several hours on
Friday sorting wrestlers into weight classes,
recording their names, and setting up the
 initial bouts.

Friday and Saturday were crazy busy, but fun. David and I did the admin side of the school's wrestling tournament. We had 250 wrestlers on campus (a large number for our league). The gym was packed to the rafters. We held a middle school tournament, as well as a full raft of male and female weight brackets for the high schoolers. It's very hard to easily describe what we did because it included so many moving pieces and a lot of copying of names. As bouts happened we had to add those results to the tree diagram (called a bracket) and then create the scoring sheet for the new matches with the relevant wrestlers. We problem solved and answered many questions. One of the most satisfying things personally was solving problems by tracking down wrestlers whose bouts had slipped through the cracks somehow. We've benefited from others doing this for our sons over the last 13 years, so it was great to be able to serve others in this way. I'm thankful it was just those two days, though!

The busyness didn't stop after Saturday...but here are some photos to show you something of the weekend (see more about my week after the photos).

CAJ campus was stunning over the weekend...
but I spent most of my time inside!

No filter here (or in the one above)!

Wrestlers, coaches, and supporters everywhere!
The noise level was very loud...for 12 hours.

I got 20 minutes out of the gym
at lunchtime and I went for a short 
walk around campus. This
ginko tree was stunning.

This was admin central: where we spent about 12 hrs on
Saturday. We had several helpers, including the veteran
coach (Dan Rudd) who did announcements
until he ran out of energy mid afternoon. Coach Rudd
is the one who taught our eldest son in the earliest
days of his wrestling career (and answered so many
of our early questions).

I didn't see much wrestling...we didn't have the 
best seats in the house! Past all the people in
this photo is a CAJ wrestler getting his gold medal, he's
a former long-time teammate of our youngest son.

And the days moved onwards: Sunday morning was our usual time at church with lunch afterwards, then chatting to our sons over an hour or two. 

We had overnight guests on Sunday night, but due to their short stay (34 hrs) in Japan they had limited data on their phones to communicate with us as they travelled from the airport and a lack of on-hand cash meant they had difficulty buying train tickets. We live 1 ½ hrs from the airport, so it isn't an easy drop-in, but they were determined. We waited an hour for them at the train station. Thankfully we could pop into the cafe there for some warmth as the temperature was around 5C. It turned into a late night! The next day I showed them around the school and our neighbourhood and they treated us to lunch. We've had very few supporters visit us in recent years, so it was a delight to have this couple visit.

Another great Japan Harvest issue completed!

On Tuesday I went into the Japan Evangelical Missionary Association (JEMA) office to help pack magazines. A friend from CAJ-parent era met me there and we caught up while stuffing magazines into packets. That was an excellent use of time and I felt refreshed afterwards. I left a little early to get back to school for (you guessed it): more wrestling! Just an hour as a spectator, this time.

Yesterday I had another new thing going on: I'm hosting a short term worker and I met her for coffee and to talk about her involvement with social media, her weekly schedule, etc. I then took her to meet a Japanese friend of mine at the JEMA office, we ate lunch and packed more magazines. Another really good use of time because while doing a manual job like that there is much time for conversation.

It's been a lot. I ended up on my bed before dinner on both Monday and Wednesday. I'm really tired! Today is an office day (and a short grocery run). I'm grateful for the peace here at home and that while I've been gone things have been chugging along in the two teams I work with.

Thankfully it looks like the coming weeks aren't quite so hectic. It's just under three weeks till we travel to Australia for our son's wedding, so hopefully we'll be a bit more rested and able to enjoy that time.

A new layer of being settled

On Monday I went to our organisation's monthly regional gathering on the other side of Tokyo. It was, as usual, a huge day. But also a really good one. In particular I was able to have four longer conversations with old friends and new. I'm an extrovert with a strong introvert shadow (at least that's what I was told 25 years ago). I love time alone, as well as spending time with people, but most value deeper conversations. Random memory: no one told me that on your wedding day that you shouldn't expect to have deep conversations with anyone of these precious people who you invite to share your special day, it was very disappointing.

Some of the conversations on Monday included questions about how well we were setting back into life in Japan. It's over four months since we returned now, and you might think that is a long time, but in fact we've been in transition for much of the last two years, and some of those changes were massive, so it takes time to resettle and adjust.

I was surprised to realise that during November I'd hit another level of "settledness". And I think that is mostly related to connectedness. During November several things happened. 

We also had time to set up our
Christmas decorations and tree
on Saturday. Doing that for the first
time in a new house is always
significant. We're particularly
enjoying the fairy lights in the
lounge room.

School

I've been able to be a useful part of several events at school, a place where I no longer hold the role of "mother of student" and wondered if I'd find a way to be part of the community.

1. School bazaar where we rented a table and not just sold stuff to happy customers, but got to catch up with old (and new) friends.

2. Wrestling. It's been a few minutes since I mentioned this here! And no, we no longer have a wrestler at school, but it turns out that I can still participate. Our school team has had several matches "at home" over the last few weeks and it's been fun to wander down (just 5 minutes on my bike), to cheer, and also catch up with old and new friends in the bleachers. This Saturday CAJ is hosting several schools at an all day tournament. David's running the event for the first time and I'm his assistant! I'm looking forward to working with him again these next couple of days.

3. Christmas concert. Last Thursday we went to the Christmas instrumental concert at school (yep, they have a choral one too). I love orchestral music, it was fun being part of the audience. But I unexpectedly found myself getting sentimental as I sat in the school gym. It's a place where so many of our family's important events have happened. Sporting events, yes, but also three high school graduations, and various other events. So many memories (am I getting old?). I ended up sitting next to someone else who has many memories. She worked with our eldest son when he was in Grades 3 and 4, in a period of life when he definitely was struggling. She was so happy to hear how things are for him now.

Church

Since we came back to Japan we've also been searching for a new church home and during November we found one. It's so good to be settled, not just in that decision, but also week-to-week knowing where we'd be attending the next Sunday. 2024 has been very unsettled. We've worshipped in 16 different churches this year, five of those were churches we visited to speak about our work, seven were churches we've visited in Japan in the last four months, and we also spent two months early in the year travelling on long-service-leave and at different localities each weekend.

This new church includes a number of people from some of our Japan "circles": school, parents of kids who were classmates of our boys, and missionaries I've met via my magazine work and retreats I've been on. David has a couple of the youth under his care this year at school and one of them is also on the wrestling team, so we've been able to get to know them a little there. This church has a tradition (as many churches in Japan do) of eating lunch together after worship. It's a BYO situation and we've been enjoying "breaking bread" with church members and gradually meeting more people. Sundays are becoming a big blessing.

We've also been riding to church, which is potentially good for our health, as it's further than we usually ride each week: about 18 km round trip. But that's a story for another day (navigation in Tokyo isn't easy on a bike).

So, in answer to the question: How are you settling? I think we've hit another level and are feeling pretty settled. Something I read today reminded me of the "Maslow's hierarchy of needs", a psychological theory that organised human needs into five categories in a triangle figure. The base level is physical needs like food, shelter, and rest; after that is safety needs; then love and belonging needs; esteem needs (need for respect, recognition and status); and finally self-actualization needs (to achieve one's full potential and be creative).

There is some truth to this. The basic idea is that the "lower" needs need to be fulfilled before the higher one's can be, however it's also true that people are usually partially satisfied and unsatisfied at any one time. And of course it doesn't factor faith in there, although you could say that trusting God for all your needs changes all this. However, it did strike me that some of my unsettledness could be related to struggling with belonging as well as changes in "status". Just something to mull over.

We're flying to Australia again in a month, so that's probably going to destabilise me again, but it's just a short visit (for our son's wedding, but hopefully include many more opportunities for deeper conversations with those we meet than ours did), and then we'll come back to our new home.

The Psalmist says it well:

Lord, you alone are my portion and my cup;
    you make my lot secure.
6 The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
    surely I have a delightful inheritance.
7 I will praise the Lord, who counsels me;
    even at night my heart instructs me. (Psalm 16:5–7 NIV)