Opportunity to tell about a lifetime of learning to trust God

I "gave my testimony" at church a couple of weeks ago. That phrase is generally associated with telling how you came to Christ. But for some people like me, that is not an especially enthralling story because we came to Christ as a young child with no drama. I can't even remember a time I didn't believe in God, so there really isn't much to tell.

These are the gorgeous flowers
that stood in front of the lectern are
a type of protea, native to South 
Africa. But they are a close relative
to the Australian native plants:
banksias, grevilleas, and macadamias.

 But "testimony" also means "an open acknowledgment" or "a public profession of religious experience" according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary. So, I called it "A lifetime of learning to trust God" and told a bigger story about my life. I said a bit about my childhood, a bit about how I came to meet David and came to Japan, a bit about how I came to be an editor and writer. The last third of my story was about struggling to trust God as I walked alongside our kids, as they finished high school and moved into adult life. Much of this is stuff I've written about here at various times, though it was a challenge to squeeze the details out so that I could present it in under 15 minutes.

I have stood up in front of churches and other gatherings many times to tell stories about life and ministry in Japan, it's part of our job when we're on home assignment (which we've done for a total of 4 ½ years during the last 25 years). I can't remember having an opportunity like this before. I did have to give my testimony in Japanese at language school, but doing that in (my poor) Japanese was a very different experience to speaking in my heart language.

This one turned out to be a pretty teary experience, even bits that were from a very long time ago! I know that public speaking makes me nervous, which in turn makes me more likely to be emotional when I speak, so I had tissues with me, but I didn't expect be this tearful! 

But I was very encouraged by the opportunity to be heard by the whole church. An experience like that often means an emotional connection with the audience and I've had numerous conversations since then confirming that. I pray that it was helpful for some to hear that this very ordinary person, who happens to have the label "missionary", struggles in her faith, just like they do.

We've been camping again

For only the second time in 2025 we've gone camping. There has literally been no other time where the weather, vacation time, and our personal location have all matched up. We struck a pretty awesome week for it too. It wasn't too hot or too cold. The main snag wasn't too big: it rained for several hours on our second day, the first and third days were magnificent. The fourth day, our pack-up-and-return-home day, rain threatened, and so we got up earlier than planned and were putting our last things in the cars a bit after 8 am when the rain started.

First day:

I was really looking forward to driving away from Tokyo. It's always amazing as the city fades away and the mountains get closer. That's different to Australia (the mountains bit).

Japan is really quite a thin country! It took us only about four hours to drive to the west coast, about 270 km. Also a massive contrast from Australia (it's about 20 times as far to drive across our vast nation).

Getting close to our campsite on the west coast.

We were set up not too long before the sun went down around 5 pm and look at the show we got! It's not common that we've had a good view of the sun setting while camping in Japan, so this was a real treat. We had no neighbours and an uninterrupted view of the sunset.

We enjoyed American chilli and corn chips with "choc banana boats" for dessert that were cooked over the coals. I slept really well that night.

This little guy watched up set up.

Day two:

The sky was grey and rain threatened, so we went for a walk after breakfast while the weather was still okay.

It was a good thing we did, because the rain came down after lunch and remained until well into the evening. We enjoyed quiet reading time and then played card games in the "common" area. I completely whipped everyone in Uno Flip, a game that is 95% luck and so my kids will tell me I don't get much credit for that!

Dinner was chicken kebabs on sticks and s'mores for dessert. I was awake for a couple of hours in the middle of the night—it was very peaceful, but more sleep would have been welcome!

Day three:

We awoke to a gorgeous blue sky and warm sun . . . in fact most of the day it was too hot to stay in the tent. We went walking along the beach (two of our friends went for a 20k bike ride), and whiled away the rest of the day by reading and talking.

Somehow we when we're relaxing, we end up using more Australian words and continue, after nearly 10 years, to find more Australian words our US friends don't know. One I used this was was "skerrick". It is in the Merriam-Webster dictionary (a key US dictionary), but labelled as "Australian".

Large spider!

That night we enjoyed another gorgeous sunset.

Day four: we moved fairly steadily from getting up to leaving, so I didn't take any more photos, but on the journey home I did grab a short video of the entrance to one of Japan's longest mountain road tunnels: Kan-etsu Tunnel. It's just over 11 km long. On a previous camping trip we've driven under Tokyo Bay in that long tunnel, despite feeling longer, it's just under 10 km.

I've come home feeling relaxed, but tired. It was good to relax, but not a long enough break to be very refreshed. I was back at my desk today—it was amazing how many emails came in during the six days since I last looked at my computer!

Now, typically, we're looking forward to our next camping trip. If it comes off next spring, it will be our 10-year anniversary trip with our camping friends!

Bits and pieces from this week

Much of the year our weeks are shaped by school...yes, still. That's what happens when one or both of you work at one! So David is usually at school from 8 till 5 most days, Monday to Friday. Sometimes it's more than that, but it's been his habit since we got married to leave work at school. These days he's sometimes doing email or other school-related things in the evening at home, but he tries not to. He's also an occasional school bus driver and has other tasks out of school hours like supervising SAT exams and occasionally other extra curricular events on the campus.

I try to work between those hours also, it's quite different to the kind of ministry work that many of our colleagues are doing which often involves evenings and weekends.

This week, however, David is working longer hours, and not in Tokyo. He's gone with the year 12s to Nagasaki, a city about 15 hours drive (1,200 km) south west of here. So he's gone for four days. During that time I'll have had two office-based days and two out-and-about days. Both the latter are occasional gatherings of a wide variety of English-speaking Christian women for mutual encouragement and prayer.

On Wednesday I spent most of the day in far western Tokyo. It was tantalising—close to being out of the city, but not quite. But next week we're going camping! I'm so looking forward to walking away from my work for a few days to relax.

I went walking with four ladies after lunch. 
We longed to get down to the river
but unfortunately the bank is steep here. 

Today I spent several hours with a few local Christian mums who have kids with various disabilities. We gather every few months and it’s always a special time. There are aspects to my life that they just “get”.

Tonight I’m doing something very unusual: going to a Scottish dance that a friend is holding as a fundraiser for homeless ministry. It’s kinda like an Australian bush dance. I’m looking forward to a fun night. It’s on the other side of Tokyo so I’m staying the night and will return home In the morning. Weirdly David’s just arrived back in town and is catching trains the opposite direction across Tokyo!

Something that's been weighing on my mind has been this Sunday. Our church has a tradition of having "testimony Sunday" periodically. This is a time when we hear a couple of people's testimonies during the worship service instead of a sermon. This tradition arose during periods when the church had no pastor and has continued to this day. I knew this was coming as David gave his last year. I'd kinda been looking forward to the opportunity, but have been feeling less that way as the time has gotten closer. But I think I'll leave writing about that until after I've done it and I can reflect on the whole thing. 

I’m reduced to finishing this on my phone’s tiny keyboard as I ride the trains across town. It’s time to go! See you next time. 

Podcast episodes about neurodivergence and the Christian life

I recently listened to a three-episode podcast series about "Neurodivergence and the Christian Life". You can find them here: https://ccl.moore.edu.au/podcasts/

I am not a big podcast listener, but this subject matter is close to my heart, so I gave it a go. Actually, I found it a little academic and stiff, especially at the start of the first one, but it was worth sticking with. It's a huge topic and what they've done only barely touches some of it. But there were also sparkly moments, especially when they talked directly to neurodivergent adults and parents of neurodivergent kids.

Us and church and neurodivergence

Our family has managed fairly well over the years to be present and somewhat involved in church, but sometimes at a cost. 

Most of the church services I've been part of in the last 25 years have been in Japanese, and the truth is that my Japanese comprehension is not great, certainly not for a lengthy monologue that is a sermon. Add on to that the neurodivergence that our family carried with us, and I can't say that church has been a place that I got much nourishment for my soul. Our kids are not so disordered that they couldn't sit in through most services, but I was always on alert to help them stay settled or, in latter years, encourage one of them to leave the service when he was too disturbed by the sounds coming through the loudspeaker. 

We visited a lot of churches whenever we were in Australia, often as guest speakers. Getting our family seated in places so that everyone was content was hard, and (often at the same time) fending off offers for the kids to join the Sunday School as visitors. Our kids put up with a lot as we were often one of the last to leave after these visits because we were there for "work" and spent a lot of time talking to people afterwards. I have to say that the last two home assignments we have done ('18 and '23/'24) have been easier because we haven't had to take our kids around with us.

Back to the podcast

But back to the podcast, the third one includes a section about dealing with meltdowns and discipline that triggered in me a bunch of emotions:

"And if you can notice—as a parent, if we can notice these things in our child and identify some ways to comfort them, then sometimes you can actually release the pressure without a meltdown. And so a loving thing to do as a parent is actually to be on the lookout for these and to be on the lookout for ways to help them." (From the transcript here.)

This type of proactive parenting is exhausting. I clearly remember being at a small New Years Eve party at a friends house with our teenage sons and being unable to enjoy the evening. It was a familiar place with familiar people and we had all chosen to be there, but I was on edge much of the evening as I watched one of our sons struggle with the social gathering. Church is more predictable, yet a worship service has very little latitude for behaviour deviation and none for noise. Years and years of this wears on you. In some weird way I'm grateful for the pandemic because we had fewer social gatherings to deal with in those years!

Overall, the podcast was both encouraging and frustrating. I heard neurodivergent adults talking about their struggles and also about ways they've been helped and encouraged in their faith. I'm glad it's being talked about, but also longing for change to already have happened! I don't know what part I can play in that, but can at least continue to pray for the neurodivergent people in my life who are struggling and, when opportunity arises, to talk about our experience. This month I have been asked to give my testimony at our English-speaking service. I'm planning to share just a little bit of our walk with neurodivergence and the challenges I've had trusting God through it all.