Moving our sons out (part one)

We're getting close to being able to tell you the "end of the story", the end that we've been working towards and praying about for many months. The story of how both of our boys move out of home. Here's part one.

Last Friday our 18 y.o. moved out into a house near his university that he will share with two other students (24 km from where we're living). The house was found through a real estate agent that goes to our eldest son's church. One of his housemates also goes to that church and so does our 18 y.o. son now! We're thankful that they did most of the work finding the place, sorting out paperwork, and finding a third housemate.

We did the move the cheap way using our car and a borrowed trailer, so it took longer than if we'd hired a big van. But it wasn't a simple move from one place to the other. We picked up stuff like a washing machine and microwave from several places close to his new house as well as a bed and bookshelf from the far east of Brisbane (nearly 50 km from our house). We got home for the final time at 10pm on Friday night after driving around all day. Then we hopped back in the car on Saturday morning and picked up another item, then (because he doesn’t have a licence yet) picked our son up to take him to the optometrist because his glasses frames had started to break the day before. On our way back to his place we picked up one final thing: a two-seater sofa. When we finally got home on Saturday at 3pm we were very tired, but also very satisfied.

Saturday was a very different day to
the rain we encountered on Friday.

Everything seemed to take twice or three times as long as it looked like it should on paper. We encountered heavy rain, bad traffic, an ATM that wouldn't give me a $80 (no $10 in the machine, presumably), a Saturday morning market, parking difficulties, communication delays, and bad directions from Google maps. We forgot things and had to go back again, had to buy a new tarp, and had to take detours to get food.

Along the way we met an Ecuadorian who hasn't seen her family for over five years, a Belgian who has a new baby and is returning "home" via New Zealand, and a lady who works for the RSL (Returned Services League) and is committed to not continue contributing to landfill by helping her adult kids pass on their unneeded stuff. We met people who stood by our sides 24 years ago as we left Australia the first time. And more recent acquaintances who, in 2022, housed members of our family three times (including one emergency stay when a plane got cancelled), picked us up from the airport that same year when it took us 35 hrs to get from Japan to here (usually it's an 8 hr flight), and drove two of us to the Gold Coast to catch our flight back to Japan. We had things thrust into our hands and left on the front step that would help our son set up his new place with his two new housemates. What a wonderful confluence!

It was quite a process, but we felt satisfied at the end. Not only had we achieved a major goal (raising our son to the point where he could live independently from us) but we were able to physically help him move out. So many times in the last 25 years we've been unable to help our loved ones by being physically present. 

We've missed many significant family celebrations, including our eldest son's 21st. And have never helped our parents, sons, or siblings move house. We’ve even missed moving into our own house several times (when we’ve asked people to help set up our newly rented house before we arrived back in the country, so that we could settle the boys into school as quickly as possible). It was a joy to be able to help this time. It was fun to scour second hand shops and Facebook Marketplace, and to make lists of household products to add to my grocery list, all of this to help him get started in this new life.

But I can't finish this post without telling of how we're praising God for his great provision. Queensland has been experiencing a housing shortage for some time now, and people have been very fond of telling us how hard it is to find places to rent (which hasn't been very encouraging). But God's purposes for us haven't been thwarted. At least that's how it looks from our perspective. In order for us to continue to serve God in Japan, we needed him to find places for our sons to move to, and it's happening! 

We've been praying about this for years and many others have been praying in recent months. At our church on Sunday the worship leader reminded the church they've been praying for our sons' accommodation for eight months! So we're praising God for his provision and his ongoing leading. Of course he could have led us out of ministry in Japan and that would have been hard, but hopefully we would have been able to praise him for that too.

We've been watching a season of The Chosen recently and one of Jesus's disciples said, after witnessing a miracle, "I don't know why I continue to be surprised." This is how I feel. And I feel chastened regarding my lack of faith and trust in God. But also just thankful for God's provision.

Psalm 68:19 Praise be to the Lord, to God our Saviour, who daily bears our burdens. (NIV)

Part 2 is planned for next week. It will look different, but you’ll have to wait to hear that story!

Much to be thankful for

Sometimes on a Monday it sometimes seems easier to write here than it is to do other things. . . I've got much to be thankful for today. David's been away at a conference in Malaysia since Wednesday and I've coped fine. That may seem a strange thing to say, but it's not always been true when he's been away from us. He's back with us today, but still recovering from the overnight flight and the usual over-full head that a conference will induce!

Field of cosmos.

In the meantime I've had a rather lighter schedule than usual. There has been a welcome lull in the magazine production process, so I've been able to spend more time away from my computer than is usually possible (or advisable). 

On Thursday I took most of the day off and rode to a favourite coffee shop via my favourite park. It had been a long time since I'd taken a long ride, and it was most refreshing. I didn't even take work to do at the cafe.

Not many flowers in the park at this time of year. I can't remember
what this is, but it was one of the last standing.

Lunch enjoyed in cozy spot in the "loft" of this coffee shop.
It's not that long ago that lasagne wasn't on many menus
in Japan, let alone a non-Italian coffee shop's. I had
to learn how to make it myself so that I could enjoy
it periodically.

A rare public telephone in a rare telephone box,
donated by Rotary. This I found on the edge of
a small, but leafy park that I'd never seen before.

On Friday my day was filled with a school prayer meeting, going to the gym, grocery shopping, and a much needed time of language exchange (two of the three of us have been so busy we haven't gotten together for two months), followed by an enjoyable evening watching rugby union.

This is a strange historical building, also found at this small newly-discovered park.
 My Japanese is not good enough to read the sign, but I'll put it
below for anyone who could enlighten us. Google Translate tells
 me it was built in 1781 and was a storage warehouse for ? firewood.
It is quite small, so I can't imagine that it stored much at all.

We are between sports seasons so the weekend was blessedly quiet. On Saturday afternoon the two boys and I went and got our flu injections. A point of praise that I managed to both schedule and complete this with almost no assistance from my husband and his superior language ability—"almost" being the important word because he did help with filling out the forms via a video call.

On Sunday I woke up with a Wry Neck (aka stiff neck) that turned ugly after church—I was gasping with pain at small adjustments in my posture for several hours. Thankfully I managed to see a physical therapist before they shut for 1½ days (today's a public holiday). Thankful too that I had few responsibilities for the rest of the day and the boys helped me out a little. My third point of thanks is for the prayer of friends and family. It's so helpful at times when you feel desperate and alone to have people you know you can call on to pray or help. There were other local friends I could have called on for both, but it didn't get that bad.

The other huge point of thanks really is a whole blog post or article all on its own. Twelve months ago I wrote this post about a friendship goal that a psychologist had given me. I will write a separate post about how this has been, suffice to say that yesterday I had a timely (pre-organised) video conversation with two of the friends who were part of that goal last year that not only fed my soul, but helped me through a rough afternoon of pain. 

I've woken up this morning after a good sleep and with just a stiff neck, not debilitating pain, so I am thankful for a timely answer to prayer.

So you see how much I have to be thankful for! It's been a quiet few days and I'm feeling a bit more rested than I usually am after David's been away. Indeed recently I've found myself flagging before 9pm at night, which is a bit unusual, but a good thing to take notice of.

Latest newsletter

I've started many blog posts in my head recently, but simply haven't had the time (or if I've had the time, haven't had the energy) to complete one. But I can share our very early January newsletter with you, shared this early so that we can let people know about our Commissioning service on the first Sunday of 2019.  What a great way to start the new year! But also let people know a bit more about our movements in the coming weeks. 

Here's a screenshot. If you want a better version, drop me an email or message. If you don't have an address for me, use this: wendymarshall04 at gmail dot com

Continuing to do the impossible

I'm freshly home from having an iron infusion at a doctor's clinic. 

I found out last week that I'm seriously deficient in iron and therefore anaemic. I didn't guess I was low in energy—the result came through a routine blood test required for our two-yearly OMF medical—I don't actually feel as whacked as everyone thinks I should be. This morning I sat in on the bed at the clinic while the nurse injected iron into my vein at 1ml a minute and had a doctor, nurse, and medical student exclaiming over my test results. It's hard to know how to react to that. 

I stopped very briefly at this park for a bite of lunch
on my way home. I just can't get enough of the
juxtaposition of Australian bush on the
amazing blue sky.

The thing is, I'm nowhere near as exhausted as I was throughout each of my three pregnancies. It's probable that my iron has been dropping slowly for some time and I no longer know what "normal" energy is. So I'm looking forward to seeing what that feels and looks like in a week or two. Or maybe it will be a little bit scary!

I'll also need to be making some adjustments to our diet, I"m not sure yet if I'll need to take supplements, though I'm guessing I will. I've got another blood test in a month to see how well today's infusion has lifted me out of the danger zone. And we'll see where we go from there.

I could milk this situation nicely! I don't need to feel guilty that I've been a bit slack recently: at both writing and editing. Truth is, it's not just my body that's made me a bit weary. An international move will do that too, especially with a teenager who is struggling to find his feet here.

Answered prayer

But I do have to give credit where credit is due. Lots of people are praying for us (though not specifically about anaemia, but in general) and God has enabled us through yet another tough period. I'm sure that without God's enabling I'd be in a much worse state.

I had an interesting encounter with a lady a couple of weeks ago that, I suspect, is having a lasting impact. She herself is a relatively new expat in Australia (from the UK). She came here with her family, primary-aged kids, for her husband's ministry. A major change for all. We only spoke twice, for a few minutes, but connected deeply on the various issues and challenges that such moves and a ministry-lifestyle produce. 

As we parted, she said she'd pray that I would be divinely guided to people who would ask great questions and be life-givers for me during this six-months. I think I can say I've seen that prayer already being answered. 

Here's a glimpse of some of the conversations I've had recently (as best I can remember...I should have written more down soon after they happened...that's what happens when I get slack about blogging).

Yesterday I had a conversation with an older lady in our home church about how God's built her "faith muscle" over the years, especially in regards to safety. I came away so encouraged!

Over the weekend we had no ministry engagements, we were therefore free to get involved in our local/home church's events, which included a working bee, a bring-and-share African night, and worship on Sunday morning. That in itself was encouraging. 

At the working bee I worked with a young lady who's interested in youth ministry. She asked some great questions, including, "What do you do during the week?", "Where does OMF work?" and "What sort of medical conditions would stop you from going back to Japan?"

We also were able to host a BBQ here with some friends. I fielded some interesting questions, including, "Where do you plan to retire? Do any Japanese houses have ensuites (bathroom attached to the main bedroom in a house)?" Even—what's it like to live in a snow?

I've had a lot of conversations about whether it's good to be back in Australia. Thankfully most times people have had the patience to listen to some of the joys and the challenges that we experience at such a time and have grown in their understanding that it isn't so simple as they might imagine.

I've had a number of people say they love this blog, love following my journey. One person I met only this year in Japan wrote: "You ... challenge and inspire me in what you write and your passion for God and others around you. I have found myself writing much much more lately and I know that is in part thanks to you ... and so I just wanted to say thank you!"

I was encouraged to hear about the faith of the physio treating my son on Friday (just a bit of re-tuning for this sporty kid). The physio was super excited about us being missionaries and told us about his short-term missions trip to Fiji when he was 18. 

People continue to observe that "I couldn't do what you do", that we look like we're doing the impossible. I've had conversations where I've been able to point out that though what we're doing looks impossibly difficult (especially moving cultures with teenagers), God has enabled us to do it without serious disaster. Indeed our eldest son endured a year here when he was 15/16. It wasn't a fun year, but I think that it helped set him up for a future of living here. The year didn't totally derail him (he settled back into Tokyo really quickly), and he's been successful at both graduating from high school as well as moving to Australia and settling here. All this undergirded with much prayer and God's enabling.

I hope that as we continue to "do the impossible" God will be glorified, for there seems no earthly explanation for why things might have gone so well in many cases. It's not that we're perfectly amazing parents with perfectly amazing kids. Things get ugly (often at home, out of the public's view). Our bodies give way (hence my infusion today). We struggle not to be self centred. Our boys criticise our choices, though we try very hard to be as fair to everyone as our work allows. Some days it feels as though I can do nothing right. There's no way that we're doing all this in our own strength. We're doing God's work with his resources. Praise him!

Isaiah 40:28-31 seems very appropriate:

Do you not know?
    Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
    the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
    and his understanding no one can fathom. 

He gives strength to the weary
    and increases the power of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary,
    and young men stumble and fall;
 but those who hope in the Lord
    will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
    they will run and not grow weary,
    they will walk and not be faint. (NIV)

Unexpected

Today I have "something I prepared earlier". I don't think I shared much here about what happened with my job in February, because that month was also somewhat dominated by taking our son to Australia. But I had some significant other stuff happening too.

So, I'm going to tell you a little now. One of my two main jobs is currently social media manager for OMF Japan. OMF is a world-wide organisation and at the moment the international communications team (based in the UK) is running monthly prayer foci (is that grammatically correct?). As in, each month they have a prayer focus that they post about throughout the month on social media. In February it was Japan, so obviously, though they had the lead on that, we had a big part to play. It was exciting to be working in a larger team on this and also to be using material that other people have had the time to create. It was also exciting to be able to re-use stories that I've worked on both on the OMF Japan blog and with Japan Harvest magazine. But on top of travelling and helping our son, it was also a pretty frantic month.

That's just background to say that this year I've been trying to dove-tail our OMF Japan social media with the international monthly focus, where appropriate (last month they had China, so that didn't work). This month, however, is "The Journey to Long-Term Missions", which we can totally work with. We've got blog posts coming up on those themes and I'll be working to create Facebook and Instagram posts that match the theme too.

The other day, to my surprise, I found that that the international team is using a series that originated on this blog. I wrote it as a series of answers for a friend I haven't seen since primary school. She was at Bible college and had an assignment to ask a missionary some hard questions. So I blogged my answers. That was 2012. Then last year I rewrote the posts to kick-start getting content up on our OMF Japan blog and new website (the first post of the series is here). Now, they are being shared this month on the OMF International social media channels. Their Facebook page is followed by more than 7,500 people and their Instagram page is followed by nearly 1,500 people. So that is a very much wider audience than this blog has!

It's always exciting to see things that I've written before being used again, and to reach a different and wider audience, especially if I've not had to write something new, or even edit the old! My husband faithfully prays every week that my writing and editing will be of help to others, something like this is a tangible answer to that prayer.

If you're interested in finding out more about OMF International's campaign this month about The Journey to Long-Term Missions, there is a succinct prayer guide here.

How to pray when life is hard

We prayed for nearly a year for our missionary colleague who died just over two weeks ago, as he struggled with the ups and downs of cancer. Our prayers strayed wildly between two possible outcomes of this: that God would heal him or that God would take him home to heaven. Of course our hearts were more in the first prayer than the second, but we prayed them both nonetheless, knowing that obedience was important.

Only a week or so before our colleague passed away I was reading a portion of Timothy Keller's book, Prayer. I mustn't have been near my computer, because I typed all of the below quotes on my iPhone. I think they're worth sharing now, for while that particular situation is now resolved (we know the answer to our prayer) and now we pray for his family and the witness he left behind, while we live on this aching earth we're going to continue to encounter people dying. More and more as we age.

A quick aside about the witness our colleague left behind. There were two parts to his funeral. The public part was all in Japanese and there were something like 60 Japanese teenagers there. They were friends and soccer team-mates of our colleague's two younger sons. The gospel was clearly proclaimed. We continue to pray for these seeds that were sown in a way that never would have been possible if God had answered our prayer for our colleague's healing here on this earth.

Nevertheless, it is good to know how to pray in these situations. Keller sheds some light on the situation by looking at Augustine's teaching on prayer:

Even the most godly Christian can't be sure what to ask for when we are enduring difficulties and suffering. "Tribulations . . . may do us good . . . and yet because they are hard and painful . . . we pray . . . that they may be removed from us." Should we pray, then, for a change in circumstances or just for strength to endure them? Augustine points to Jesus' own prayer in Gethsemane, which was perfectly balanced between honest desire . . . and submission to God" p. 87, 88.

And further on, he makes some startling statements about prayer: 

Augustine . . . "argues that not only can we grow in prayer in spite of these difficulties but because of them. He concludes his letter [to a young widow who'd lost almost everything in the sacking of Rome in 410AD] by asking his friend, "Now what makes this work [of prayer] specially suitable to widows but their bereaved and desolate condition?" Should a widow not, he asked, "commit her widowhood, so to speak, to her God as her shield in continual and most fervent prayer?" What a remarkable statement. Her sufferings were her "shield"—they defended her from the illusion of self-sufficiency and blindness that harden the heart, and they opened the way for the rich, passionate prayer life that could bring peace in any circumstance. He calls her to embrace the situation and learn to pray" p 88.

Most of us aren't widows, but shouldn't we too turn our griefs, our sufferings, into a shield, one that helps us pray all the more fervently and protects us from going astray in our own strength?

Food for thought

Usually I share my own words here, but I've come across some good words of others in the last 24 hours that I want to share.

First is musings from the hospital bed of our mission's Japan director. He's battling two kinds of blood cancer. The post is pretty self-explanatory and very insightful.

Life in Limbo by David Ferguson
Most of us probably live our lives with a reasonable degree of predictability. There is routine. We make plans and generally they come to pass. We might even set goals and seek to fulfil them. Tomorrow will come, next week will come and while we know that things can change suddenly, generally life moves on with some measure of certainty. 

What happens though when that certainty is taken away? What if you don't know what's going to happen? What if there are questions but no answers - or at least no answers that are very definitive? Not easy if you're the kind of person who likes certainty, who makes plans and who wants to know what's going to come next. For the last months we've lived with that uncertainty - life is in limbo!

My particular case is rare. I don't just have one blood cancer (and that type is unusual enough) but another more aggressive one too which makes my situation even more unique and more uncertain. It's hard even for the doctors to predict and sometimes the answer is ‘we don't know!’ One doctor friend back home said this which sums it up well : ‘humanly speaking there remains a lot of uncertainty about what may happen - it's a high stakes battle and there usually aren't any guarantees’. 

So how do you deal with that and live in limbo? Well, one way is just to let go and accept that however much we might like to be in control of our lives and know with some certainty what's going to happen, that will not be the case. You have to learn to live with uncertainty. You need to take a day at a time knowing tomorrow might bring different news which may even just add to the uncertainty! All of that is easier said than done. We can know times of peace as well as times of anxiety, fretting and simply wanting to know where it's all going!

There is something else though and that is learning more and more to trust the One who does know the beginning from the end and who knows exactly what is happening and what will happen. Maybe one of the purposes of this whole time is simply that as a family we might learn that valuable lesson even more. There is a great verse in Proverbs which says - ‘Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails’. Sometimes it is like opening both hands to God, one crying to him with our heart’s desires and the other saying ‘may your will be done’. And in the midst of it all trusting in our unchangeable and faithful God is the only place to go if we want real certainty. ‘Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see’. As a follower of Jesus, there may well be many things in our lives we don't understand or for which there don't seem to be answers but as we lift our eyes to our God and fix our eyes on the unseen things, we find a certainty which will never fail us.

Wise words from the depths of a really difficult situation. We've had situations of waiting and "limbo" before, but none that have been life-threatening. Our biggest time of limbo was when we were preparing to come to Japan. We spent a couple of years waiting for financial-clearance-green-light from our mission. We learnt much in that time of waiting that has stood us in good stead in the years since.

As the years go by, we've also prayed for many who have been in life-threatening situations. Some have had miraculous recoveries or rescues, others have instead had their lives on this earth ended. For those who were Christians, their miraculous healing didn't happen in front of us, but instead as they entered heaven. 

So, knowing that God heals and has the power to work in these situations can make it difficult to know how to pray. Here I found another couple of lengthy quotes as I read Prayer by Timothy Keller last night.

Augustine [a great theologian in the first millennia after Jesus] . . . argues that not only can we grow in prayer in spite of these difficulties but because of them. He concludes his letter [to a young widow friend who'd lost almost everything in the sacking of Rome in 410AD] by asking his friend, "Now what makes this work [of prayer] specially suitable to widows but their bereaved and desolate condition?" Should a widow not, he asked, "commit her widowhood, so to speak, to her God as her shield in continual and most fervent prayer?" What a remarkable statement. Her sufferings were her "shield"--they defended her from the illusion of self-sufficiency and blindness that harden the heart, and they opened the way for the rich, passionate prayer life that could bring peace in any circumstance. He calls her to embrace the situation and learn to pray." (p88)

These are again Augustine's thoughts on prayer:

Even the most godly Christian can't be sure what to ask for when we are enduring difficulties and suffering. "Tribulations...may do us good... and yet because they are hard and painful...we pray...that they may be removed from us." Should we pray, then, for a change in circumstances or just for strength to endure them? Augustine points to Jesus' own prayer in Gethsemane, which was perfectly balanced between honest desire ...and submission to God...He points also to Romans 8:26, which promises that the Spirit will guide our hearts and prayers when we are groaning and confused_and God will hear them even in their imperfect state. So, Augustine concludes, pour out your heart's desire, but remember the wisdom and goodness of God as you do so. (pp87-88)

Food for thought, all of it.

Energising meeting

I am not fond of meetings, in fact I avoid them if I can. I'm thinking general business-type meetings. However yesterday I chaired a day-long meeting and had a fabulous time. I was still buzzing at 10pm! 

Today I tried to explain to my 17 y.o. why I enjoyed it so much. He struggled to understand. I think it was a combination of factors:

• collaboration on a creative project that you are passionate about is energising, 
• everyone at the meeting was passionate about what we are doing and were there because they wanted to be,
• everyone is committed to doing a quality job and improving every issue we put out,
• so often I'm struggling on my own trying to make decisions for this magazine, it was wonderful to have a roomful of people to consult about decisions that are hard,
• we're a Virtual Team, as in we all work from our own locations and not at a central location, it was exciting to get everyone together at the same place at the same time, and



Simon, one of our editors.

• our team is made up of volunteers, many of whom are very pressed for time, so our interactions are usually very much about business, it was fun to have time to get to know one another aside from the urgent business at hand yesterday.

Oh, and it is a little bit fun being in charge of a meeting. You don't have to patiently wait for someone else to draw people into line, you can do it yourself (and I, being not fond of meetings, prefer to move things along fairly quickly.)

Another thing that was especially satisfying about yesterday's meeting was getting people together who had never met before, yet had been working "together" for months or even years on this magazine. Plus, people, who've experience friction because of communication issues, coming together and getting along. 

It was also an answer to prayer. I pray regularly for the magazine and my team, to see answers to prayer, especially about interpersonal relatioships, was very exciting. Now I'm praying that this will positively effect our work from now on. Not that I expect everything to be perfect, but perhaps a few less bumps along the way?

I'm so thankful at how it all worked out. I've been thinking and planning for this meeting for months. Just thankful.

More good questions about our support base

I have some fantastic friends. They are of varying nationalities, but I think one of the most outstanding characteristics of my closest friends are that they are good at asking questions. Superb at asking excellent questions.

One of my friends asked me these the other day:

"How do you get these churches to invite you? Why these particular churches? What about all these people you've been meeting individually, who are they?"

One of the churches we visited, a group praying for Japan.

How this journey all started
To answer this I really need to go back to when we started out on this missionary journey. Back in October 1998 while we waited for OMF to process our application to join them, we started to write a prayer/newsletter that we distributed to people we knew, asking them to pray. 

That really was the key, the people we knew. From there we asked people if we could visit the churches they were associated with. But some people also approached us. We also asked churches within our denomination if we could visit them. The most notable of these were the churches in Western Australia, with whom we had no personal connection but who welcomed us in 2000 for a visit. By the way, none of this involved asking for money. OMF does not allow solicitation of money. We were merely talking about Japan (a place we'd never been to) and what we were hoping to do there.

It took until October 2000 for us to get clearance to leave (that included medical, psychological, and financial clearance). It was the financial clearance that was the hardest, because of exchange rates and the different costs of living between the two countries at the time. 

At the end of 1999 David quit his teaching job so that we could focus on deputation (and staying sane, full-time work plus deputation was a huge stretch). That was a giant decision for us financially because I wasn't working either (our eldest was 6 months old).

During that 18 months to 2 years of deputation we developed a lot of new relationships and networks, and strengthened old relationships. Since then, every time we come back, we revisit many of those people and churches (at their invitation). We have found a laid-back response works best: we make sure people know that we're available, but we tend not to aggressively pursue getting together with people or seeking church invites.

Churches we've visited?
So the churches who invite us have usually seen us before or there are people in the church who know us and have advocated on our behalf for us to visit. Only four out of the 20 churches we visited this time we'd never been to before, those visits came from the advocacy of contacts or friends.

All the people we've met? 
Many are friends from the first 27 years of our lives. People we'd met in the course of life, in various churches we've been involved in, uni, family friends, former colleagues, and even someone I learnt piano with. Others are people we've met along the way, like our youngest's Prep teacher who has prayed for us ever since we left five years ago. And then there's the OMF network. People who have themselves had involvement with OMF, former missionaries especially. This time we've also met a few people we know from Japan, not Australia, but for varying reasons we've ended up in the same cities, so we've caught up. In Perth we also stayed with a family who'd visited us in Japan.

Then there's new friends. I feel a little like a snowball. Every time we come back we make new relationships. This time it's primarily been at our new home church. But I also met a new Japanese friend and a friend who I'd met online via my blog and Facebook.

One of the strange aspects of a missionary's life is that part of our job is to stay connected to people and groups of people we don't often see. I'm pretty sure we have a wider network of friends and people than many Australians. 

But what a blessing. Our prayer letter goes out to more than 200 units (Ed. I orginally published this as 300, but I should have fact checked and not relied on my memory) every month. I don't know how many pray, but I know that a lot do. That's a big support base. I'm scared to think of what life might be like without that. I'm pretty sure we wouldn't still be in Japan if we didn't have such a group of people behind us. 

So that's what we've been doing in Australia. We've been reconnecting with all these networks and relationships that we've built over the last 40+ years and cultivated over the last 17 years.

Puzzle Pieces

A few weeks ago I wrote about how transition is like a puzzle and that we had puzzle pieces that weren't yet in place. Since there more puzzle pieces have slotted into place.

The big piece that I wrote about last time was a place to stay while we finish packing up this house. We're so thankful that a couple from church has offered us accommodation for five nights at their house nearby. They are planning to cook for us too! I feel so loved.

Another small piece was getting our beautiful wooden bed to it's next abode. It is the only large piece of furniture that we are keeping, the only piece of furniture that we own that is "quality". There is some sentimental value about it as we bought it for our first bed after we got married. It was waiting for us when we returned from our honeymoon. 

It's next home is my parent's house (the bed is very familiar with that home, it's lived there for 12 out of the last 15 years). But that is more than 100km away, and we'd need a trailer and a car to pull the trailer. We had various half-formed ideas on how to manage that, but a friend who's taking his empty trailer to fetch some stuff from the town my parents live in has offered to pick the bed up and take it the day after we finish using it. Phew! Another piece of the puzzle in place, one that saves us several hours.

Cleaning isn't my favourite job. We manage to keep things fairly clean on a day-to-day basis, but deep cleaning. Nope. Several friends have offered to help with this in the last week. Grateful just seems too insignificant a word for how I feel about that.

So, the puzzle is looking more complete every day. And with only 16 full days left in Australia that's a good thing. I'm praising God for how, yet again, it is all coming together.

Transition: an unfinished jigsaw puzzle

Transition is like a jigsaw puzzle that isn't complete until the transition is over.

Coming back to Australia for home assignment these last two times we've not had a car until almost the last minute. Second time we came back we didn't have a house until days before we arrived.

This time we're doing quite well in this department, things are falling into place well. It helps a lot that we've had house-sitters in Japan (who've paid rent) and we'll be able to move back into the same house with only a little bit of furniture moving and sorting out. We also will have a car waiting for us as we lent our car to some new missionaries for the year. We're so thankful for these provisions!

The one biggish piece of the jigsaw that hasn't been discovered yet is a place to stay for three or four nights in our local area in Australia while we finish up at the house. We're praying and waiting.

This is part of the emotional rollercoaster of transition. The agony of waiting and the thrill of jigsaw pieces falling into place. The challenge of not being as in control as you'd like to be! It's hard not to feel anxious.

This article is where I borrowed the analogy from, you might like to have a read.

At times like these I'm glad I had prior experience in these big transitions. Not only do I continue to pray and remind myself of God's faithfulness, as he promises in his Word. But I remind myself of how he's specifically put pieces into place for us in the past. For example, those two cars that were provided for us for our times in Australia!

The other end of answered prayer

I periodically talk about answered prayer here. I certainly try to report on answered prayer when I write our monthly prayer/newsletter. But today, I'm thinking about earlier, the time when I don't yet have an answer to my prayer.

The story of this house's provision for us
in 2010 and continued provision for us
as of July this year is a story I need to keep
telling myself.

That is a hard place. It's a place where you lack control. You don't know what's going to happen with that particular need or desire. You are left with trust. Trust in prayer and trust in the God who provides.

I have to admit I haven't had to wait for really big answers, like healing from a terminal illness, or the protection of a loved one from violent death or even for a child to be given to me. 

But I have had to wait for jobs, cars, houses, a husband, for financial provision after quitting a job, for permission to do what we've been telling everyone we were going to do (become missionaries in Japan), and for the provision of shelter and furniture  for my family as we change countries every few years. I've had to wait for my children to go through difficulties at school and at home, wait to see the results of the parenting I try my best to do. Wait for smaller things like someone to take care of my kids at a key moment when I don't have any family in the country, or for someone to give me or my kids a lift school in the rain.

I have discovered that in the waiting is value. While I wait, I grow in my trust in my heavenly father. Because I've waited for God's financial provision, I'm less stressed next time such a situation occurs. Because I've seen God answer these prayers, I know that He can provide for me. When I retell myself the stories of the last time He answered my prayer, I relax a little. I relinquish my desire to control the outcome. And I put my eyes back on Him, waiting for his provision for me.

It still isn't easy, because like most people I like to think I am in control, and not knowing how something will work out means I have little control. It makes me anxious and frustrated.

But I try to cling to the knowledge that my God does care about me and He does provide all I need, even if it isn't in the way or with the timing that I imagine would be best.

Isaiah 55:8-9 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,    neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.“As the heavens are higher than the earth,    so are my ways higher than your ways    and my thoughts than your thoughts.

So, what I imagine and plan for this transition back to Japan, may or may not be the way it works out. 

Romans 8:25, 28, 31-32. "But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. . . . And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. . . What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

So, I'm here today to remind myself to: 

Psalm 27:14 "Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord."