Ordinary deeds are not so ordinary?

Many people don't think of missionaries as ordinary. I've blogged here for many years in an effort to show that I really am just quite ordinary. Somehow we put big titles on people that makes them seems greater than ordinary. It's not just us. If you say someone is an actor, or a rocket scientist, or an Olympian, or _____. There are plenty of other titles that you could put into that space that makes us go "Wow, that person is pretty special" and quietly to ourselves say, "compared to my very ordinary life".

Image by Thomas Mühl from Pixabay    

Somehow we attach great significance to these things and little significance to the more usual things. I read an article by Tim Challies this week about this, about how some dream of being rich, of being convinced they could do big things if they just had a lot of money. The author suggested we've got it all wrong. He suggests thinking on Galatians 6:2 "Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfil the law of Christ" (NIV). 

Challies quotes John Stott's commentary on that verse: "To love one another as Christ loved us may lead us not to some heroic, spectacular deed of self-sacrifice, but to the much more mundane and unspectacular ministry of burden-bearing."

What does bearing one another's burdens look like in my life this week?

I had two single ladies at church separately tell me of their burning desire to be married. I listened and promised to pray for them. (And followed through on that promise.)

I had a friend confess that she's sad. She's had many goodbyes recently. I shared some of my own goodbyes and sadnesses with her and we commiserated with one another.

Another good friend told me and a mutual friend over a text-chat about some choices she has about how she spends her time, about her heart for a specific group of ladies at her church, and wondered if God was calling her to do something practical for them. We listened and promised to pray.

I had an unexpected opportunity to have dinner alone with a new-ish friend on Monday. She asked about my boys and kept asking and listening...I told her more than she expected to hear from that simple enquiry. I was blessed by being able to tell some of our story and to be amazed again at what's happened for us in the last few years.

Also on Monday (it was a huge day!) I had coffee with a colleague who told me he felt flat as a result of various events that are happening to others in his life. I listened, and prayed for him.

I simply hugged several people this week. This isn't usual in Japan, most of those happened at a mission event where I caught up with a few people I haven't seen in a while. I've also discovered a Japanese lady at church loves hugs and so I'm leaning into that.

These are just a few small examples of bearing one another's burdens. They aren't worth bragging about and I certainly don't deserve any accolades or applause. These are things that any of us can do wherever we are. What have you done this week that will go unnoticed and perhaps be forgotten by even yourself by the end of next month? (And no, you don't have to tell us, just think about it!)

Early home assignment plans for 2026

In the last few weeks we've been working on putting a new-to-us plan into action. We've spent 4 ½ years of the last 25 years on home assignment in Australia. It's a requirement of our organisation to periodically spend time in our passport country visiting supporters and supporting churches. Yep, we did that in 2004/2005, 2009/20010, 2014/2015, 2018, and 2023/2024. Three of those five times we packed up and moved out of our place in Japan. That adds up to a total of ten international moves.

The bookmark we gave people before we
left the first time for Japan

I've written here a lot about the strange institution of home assignment. If you've seen some of that you'll know that it's an exhausting, stressful, all consuming thing. The purpose behind it includes you getting rest in your passport country, but an awful lot of work goes into getting there to get that rest.

But I'm at risk here of not toeing the party line . . . Home assignments have numerous good things about them, including staying connected with family and friends. After our only six-month home assignment in 2018, I wrote a post pondering: Was it worth it? It was a difficult home assignment (we had two teenagers still at home, just for starters). The blog post was pretty brutally honest, but I did come up with some really good things that happened because we took the time to go to Australia.

The world is changing, though, and short home assignments these days are far more common than six- or twelve-month ones. And we're feeling quite jaded about these huge international moves. Now that we are in a season where we don't have to consider the schooling (or mental health) of our kids and it's just two of us moving around, we've decided to try out a short home assignment, one that will last 76 days, or just short of 11 weeks.

This has numerous benefits:

• we don't have to move out of our beautiful apartment in Tokyo (massive benefit, I hate moving)
• we don't have to find somewhere to rent in Australia or find a car (also massive benefit)
• the above two points means that moving between countries will be smoother with far less exhaustion and practical details needing to be arranged
• we have minimal handover to others for our jobs in Japan (also a huge benefit)

One of the downsides is that we'll be moving faster in Australia and have less rest there. We'll also have less time to spend with our home church, family, and friends.

So, I've been contacting our main supporting churches and getting some 'big rocks' in place. David's bought plane tickets and we've been communicating with key people. It's actually been amazing—since the start of the year the following things have fallen into place quite easily:

• dates to visit eight churches in Queensland and Western Australia
• places to stay throughout our visit
• cars to drive
• a place to have a holiday and a motorhome
• time to visit both sides of the family (and hope to see our granddaughter)

We're arriving in Brisbane on May 21 and then fly to Perth on July 24. Then onto Tokyo, arriving in the hottest, most humid part of the year on August 4.

Closer to the time we'll decide on some "open day" type events where people who live in SEQ and Toowoomba can meet up with us, rather than us racing around to see many people in such a short time.

But for now, we need to put our heads down and live here and now. This morning I've set aside for writing, especially putting time into a first draft of this book project I'm working on. So I'd best move onto that now...but I'm looking forward to seeing some of you who live in Queensland and Perth in a few months time.

Okinawan adventure

Last week we had a pretty unusual week. Okay, some things were familiar, but many things were not.

The girls posing on the beach

David and I flew to Okinawa (a group of Japanese islands closer to Taiwan than Tokyo). We travelled with two teenage girls from CAJ. It was our first visit and when we arrived I realised I'd never been on such a remote island. 

This part of Japan is also distinctly different to what they call "mainland". I was surprised when talking to my dad when he referenced a sad wartime Australian folk song by Ted Egan called "Sayonara Nakamura" about a pearl diver from Okinawa. The region has a sad wartime history. There are still a lot of US military on the islands (about 30,000 troops and a population of around 80,000 from the US). We didn't get much time to ourselves to explore, but maybe one day we'll be able to go back.

We were the support crew for CAJ's high school girl's wrestling team at a two-day tournament called "Far East". This is the same type of tournament that we've been to several times before, notably, two of our sons were crowned "Far East champions" in their last year of high school when they won the final in their weight classes at this event. Across the world the US military run regional tournaments for various events such as wrestling, track and field, basketball, etc. Our region is "far east" and includes Korea and Japan.

It's way out in the ocean!

This was the first ever girls-only Far East tournament ever held in our region and the first one we'd ever been to. Most tournaments we've been part of have been male-dominated and this one looked quite different in some ways. Some notable things:

• most wrestlers had long hair and most of it was braided
• lots of them had mascara
• emotion was close to the surface: tears were common and winners often were crying, boys react quite differently to winning
• many more hugs going round, most of the girls genuinely loved hanging out with their competitors
• it took a while to figure this out, but the cheering/screaming was higher pitched and it really jangled in our heads after a while
• girls don't sweat as much as guys and the gym didn't quite smell as bad as quickly as with a gym full of male wrestlers

But in other ways, it was just a wrestling meet. The rules were the same, the outfits (almost) the same. These were athletes doing their best at a sport they'd worked hard at and there were some great matches.

Because we were such a small team it almost felt family-like. It was also quite different travelling with two teenage girls, as opposed to boys. David was impressed that when we told them we were meeting in the foyer of the hotel at 7 am to catch the US school bus they'd sent for us, the girls were there, on time, with all their gear! I was honoured to be asked by the girls to pray for them at the start of each day of competition.

Yummy Okinawan Zebra bread
(peanut butter flavoured)

On the last afternoon we were freed from the base in time to see the sun set and explore the local shops a little. We noted that the girls were looking for scenic spots to pose and take photos...something that we've found boys not interested in at all!

I was so glad I had the opportunity to do this. It really was a historical occasion. For years I've watched girls struggle on the edge of this sport. Having to wrestle guys is not at all ideal and we've longed to see the sport grow so that girls will have other girls to compete against. It was very special being part of this inaugural event! I do wonder why I'm so passionate about this...I think it's in part that, as a short girl I'm excited about a sport where short, strong girls can succeed. So many sports that were open to girls when I was younger were biased towards taller girls. We watched tiny, strong girls competing last week, and it was fun.

The girls were sad that the rest of their team and their usual coaches weren't with them. We were a poor substitute to the guys they'd been training with all season. We've heard rumours that it will be a combined meet next year and we're hopeful. We talked with the girls over meals about recruiting more girls and even dreamed about having a female coach sometime in the future. I wish I had the skills to coach them, but I'm content to support from the sidelines and hope I'll continue to have that opportunity in the future.

Another Okinawan treat: peanut butter filled biscuit/cookie.

Not all beautiful.

Braiding was a real theme...I'm not sure
I'll ever say yes to braiding someone's hair
at a meet again: my lack of skills was very 
obvious when one of the girls did this after my poor
attempt the day before. Japanese hair is
fine and slippery!

We got cute t-shirts!