Pondering our uncommon "walking around life"

Before we went on home assignment in 2023 I was reading a book called Uncommon Ground, a collection of essays brought together by Tim Keller and John Inazu with perspectives from people thinking deeply and working daily to live with these times. Here are some of my reflections on that in light of our upcoming time in Australia:

Home assignment means meeting
up with people for various reasons.
On Saturday we met up with a 
member of our church in Tokyo,
someone we'd never met before.
We got to walk for the first time on
this cool bridge across the Brisbane
river.

In the case of a missionary on home assignment, we have to "translate" overseas mission and Japan to Australians. In general people we encounter there don't clearly understand what we do or where we do it. If you've followed my blog for a long time, you'll know that our work in Australia is composed of answering a lot of questions.

Much patience and diligence is required in translation. Much attention to detail as well as sensitivity to the wider picture. My work as an editor is also translation to some degree. I have to ensure that the writer's intent is accurately and appealingly translated into words that the audience will understand and not stumble over. And of course, as a writer who writes about cross-cultural life, I am translating my experience, life in Japan, and missionary life, into words so that others can understand. Pretty similar, in a way, to what we do on HA, except that as a writer and editor, I can hide behind my screen, rather than have to engage people face to face, or stand up in front of an audience with no time to edit my answers. (from here)

In the midst of another home assignment, one that is far more fast paced, the thoughts about still resonates with me. I'd definitely rather be working behind the scenes, but alas, God has given us this thing to do and we're getting on with doing it.

These last few weeks, when I have some free time and energy, I've been gradually making my way through A Long Obedience in the Same Direction by Eugene H. Peterson, the author of the Bible paraphrase: The Message. A Long Obedience. It is a book that I heard about early in our time in Japan but have only now gotten my hands on a copy. I didn't realise that it was a book on discipleship based on the Songs of Ascent, Psalms 120–134. It's a good read!

The chapter I read on Tuesday was based on Psalm 123 and in it Peterson connects it with Romans 12:1–2:

So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. (The Message)

Below is how I more commonly recognise this passage: 

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12:1-2 NIV).

The Message version of the passage stands out to me because the intro that I'm giving to our formal presentations includes a series of statements about what our ordinary lives in Japan looks like. Our "walking around life". We tend to think of service to God as the extraordinary stuff, not the stuff of ordinary life. As we talk from the front of churches and other gatherings I'm deliberately framing our stories as being from the place where God has set us down. (From the quote that Alistair Begg uses from his mentor Eric Alexander: "There's no ideal place to serve God, except the place he sets you down.")

And of course the other thing that stands out is the observation about culture. As we move between our two "home" cultures, we see things that people who are immersed in them don't necessarily see so clearly. It doesn't make us experts in either culture, but it does give us a unique perspective. Perhaps not fitting so well into either culture is an advantage, helping us to focus our attention on God as Paul instructs us to do?

I'll continue to ponder this and other thoughts in this book while I go about my "walking around life", which, this afternoon includes the joy of hanging out in an Australian library :-) and even borrowing some physical books!

Living in Japan is very different to visiting during cherry blossom season

Recently I saw an article about a former Australian model, Anton, who has gotten into real estate in Japan. We're periodically seeing news about really cheap (or free) properties for sale. I don't know how much they are promoting them overseas, but certainly for young Australians who are a little bit obsessed by Japan and also facing crazy real estate prices in their home country and also high costs of living, it's a temptation.

As an aside, David and I ate a light dinner last night for a combined total of 1,250 yen or AU$11, we could never do that in Australia. Yes, the exchange rate yen to Australian dollar is good at present, but it is definitely much more possible to eat out affordably in Japan than it is in Australia.

This is where we formerly lived for 13 years.
They knocked the house down a year after we
moved out of it and built a new one.

But where am I going with this blog post? No, I am not looking to invest in property in Japan (or Australia). I'm sharing because Anton had some insightful things to say about Japan:

“Japan has an ageing workforce and historically a 'scrap and rebuild' culture rather than a renovation culture. Houses built before 1981 are often considered outdated due to seismic code changes, which affects financing. Banks are less willing to lend on older homes, which is part of why they’re cheap.”

We'd long noted that renovation is much less common here, although perhaps that's changing. 

He said the biggest risk was the misconception that cheap equals opportunity.

It's important to understand why the houses are cheap: 

“Many of these homes are cheap because towns are shrinking, demand is weak, demolition costs exceed structure value.” He said in many cases, the land has value but the house itself may have negative value.

A house can also be cheap if someone has died in it. 

“If someone thinks they can renovate and flip like in Sydney or Melbourne, they will likely be disappointed. Appreciation works very differently in Japan. You must buy for lifestyle or long-term strategy, not quick resale profit.”

Then he says more about life in Japan: 

“Ownership is easy,” he said, but “living here long term requires planning”.

"Living in Japan is very different from visiting during cherry blossom season. Japan rewards patience, cultural respect and long-term thinking.”

Living in another country is very different to being a tourist. I think this is where I run into difficulty talking with people who have only ever travelled overseas as a tourist. It is harder, but in many ways also easier to live in a country rather than be a tourist. When you live somewhere you get insider knowledge. You learn how (some) things work, you start to understand the unspoken rules. You start to operate in ways that create less waves around you. You find a dentist and a hairdresser, you have a source for regular medication. You know where to go to find what groceries you want to buy.

In any case, I read many things during my week and I take notice of the ones that my mind returns to. This was one that had some great wisdom, though admittedly it was buried way down at the bottom of the article where many would never see it.

See the full story here.

Living with the not-knowing

I have had a fairly quiet start to the year. Truth be told, I'm still getting used to the quietness that has settled on our lives now that our kids no longer live at home. It's been nearly two years since our last offspring left home, but the ripple effects of that are still making themselves felt. I'm not sad—it's a joy, after all those years of parenting them, to see them making their own way in the world. And, most of the time, I also enjoy our quieter household.

These were my tiny broccoli
seedlings back in October. Now
they are more than 40 cm tall and,
I'm hoping, going to produce some
edible broccoli soon.
Small things shouldn't
be overlooked.

I have been thinking a little bit about "ripple effect" and also the euphemistic phrase "God's economy". Both of these touch on the idea that we really don't know how God is working behind the scenes of what we see and do. "God's economy" is sometimes used to flag that he works in mysterious ways that don't at all equate to how businesses are run in this world. We don't know how our actions affect others or what future results will be of the small (or larger) things we do today.

I see people writing about "creating core memories" for their kids...but I think that we probably can't know what memories our kids will take away from their childhoods. Usually we remember things differently from our parents and often the things that become deeply meaningful to us later don't seem like much at the time. We try our best as parents, but we simply don't know what our kids will take away from any interaction we have with them.

Likewise, I really can't pinpoint which (if any) of the following things I said or did yesterday had an impact on those around me:

I walked with a Chinese neighbour to the train station and back, at the train we met a friend from our church, another missionary (a prearranged meeting) and we travelled together to a gathering of missionary women. And of course we talked throughout the journey. I know how better to pray for these ladies after we've spent this time together. One of them had never been to one of these gatherings before and I was glad to be a friend by her side as she met a bunch of new people (and some she already knew).

I prayed for some of the women in small groups. Here are some things I prayed about for others: 

• an Iranian brother-in-law who is concerned about his family, 
• a young mum who was tired and wondering how best to use her time and how not to worry about the future,
• an elderly mum in another country with dementia-like symptoms, and
• a mum-of-teens who is seeking God's wisdom about future ministry.

I had wide, varied conversations throughout the morning and through lunch—some deep concerns on people's hearts, as well as about a trending chocolate brand and chocolate-coated strawberries and the showing off of some granddaughter photos!

I said "see you sometime" to a friend who is leaving Japan, and might not be back.

One lady, who I have shared deeply with in the past about some of our struggles with parenting a neurodiverse child, asked me for one piece of advice as she looks towards launching her own child to independent living in the coming year.

Then, after dinner, we logged into our church's online prayer meeting last night, as we usually do on Wednesday nights. It's a mid-week check-in to our church family and I usually come away feeling more connected and blessed by it all. Last night we prayed for some of these things:

• a daughter who is concerned for her aging parents overseas,
• a lost work key,
• an online English class for not-yet-believers that started in Sydney,
• people we know who aren't yet Christians, or who we long to see grow in their faith
• a couple of visas people are waiting on, and
• a family who have a loved one in a coma.

During the day I did lots of other "little" things like wish my mum and happy birthday, communicate with friends about their visit to our place for dinner on Saturday, and answered a question about a writers meeting next week. Not to mention the everyday things that I did for my husband like wash dishes and prepare dinner.

Not really much of anything that you'd "write home about".

Only God knows what the meaning of all this is. Only God knows what the women I interacted with yesterday at our meeting took away from the meeting, if any of my interactions with any of them were an encouragement or help. Only God know how he'll answer our prayers, though hopefully they were an encouragement to those who were prayed for. For my sanity I have to leave that with God. I have to live my daily life trusting that God will guide me and enable me to serve him in the big things and the small. And that he will take my small offerings to use for his purposes in other people's lives.

It's still messy, but I think I am growing

I took time out of the house yesterday, mostly with the intention of making more progress in reading the book Awe and intentionally following up on thinking about some of things I wrote about in this blog post in September "It's messier than I like to admit". In that post I wrote that I was planning a followup...I've not managed that till now (and I'm just pondering where the last seven weeks have gone!).

Autumn colours in the park

I've been trying to come to terms with a less busy life. A life without boys at home is less busy. Both the ministry roles I've returned to this year are less intense now. A lot of what I've done in the past has been spread out amongst others, which is a good thing, but leaves me with wondering how to best use my time. But I'm also aware that, though I am not "old" yet, I am "less young" than I was 25 years ago when I started having the responsibility of children, and the reality of that is that I have less energy and take longer to recover.

So yesterday I rode to my favourite large park, but was very distracted by how chilly it was (around 18C). I'd neglected to put on appropriately warm clothing as the day before had been quite warm (25C inside). The weather and the seasons are messing with me! Last Friday I had a conversation with some American friends and it became clear how messed up I was. 

This calendar year started with a Queensland summer. We accelerated our descent into winter by heading south in mid-March and our month (April) in Tasmania in an unheated motorhome was quite chilly. Then we drove back north to a more moderate Queensland winter! In July we accelerated into summer by flying north, going from around 2 degrees Celsius to 30 C in just one day. The next two months were full-on summer and since mid September we've gradually been descending into winter again. 

Add to that that we're just still figuring out how to weather the seasons in our new apartment, which has both more sunlight and more insulation than our previous abode. So we often have difficulty accurately judging how outside will feel before we get there. This is made worse by the structure of a Japanese home: in that, to properly go outside, you have to put shoes on, at which point the inside of the house (and clothing) is no longer accessible to you...unless you take your shoes off (or take other measures, that you might have seen illustrated in OMF Japan's social media post a few weeks back, if not, then I recommend checking it out here). 

But I digress. The problem with my conversation was that if I started using seasons to anchor my story, I was instantly in trouble. For example, "We came back [to Tokyo] in the summer, but will be heading back [to Australia] to a summer wedding in January." followed by "We're also planning to go back to Australia next summer (but it will be winter there)." Americans tend to call the middle of the year "the summer" as an overall term for "long school holidays", whereas Australias call our long summer holiday period "Christmas" or "Chrissy holidays" or "Christmas and New Year" or "End of the year." And so it's all a confused mess. So, in the conversation, I started using calendar anchors, rather than seasons!

Anyway, back to trying to read my book in the park: I spent ages trying to make up my mind about what I'd do about feeling too cold. I ended up eating lunch and riding to a coffee shop in a familiar shopping centre on my way back home. It wasn't ideal as it was much noisier than the park, but at least it wasn't home where there are so many other distractions.

I tend to process things better when I write (or talk), but I didn't take my computer or any people with me. Only the book, my phone, and a pencil and notebook. So I'm going to do some processing here.

The book is full of thought provoking stuff. It's key point is that human beings are hardwired for "awe". The problem is we were created to be in awe of God, but because of sin find it impossible, and the awe of God is very quickly replaced by awe of self. He's saying that "awe lies at the bottom of a whole range of human struggles". Nothing else satisfies our awe-wired existence, and thus we end up angry, lonely, disappointed, addicted, bitter, etc. We are self-centred, feel entitled, or experience relational dysfunction, seek to control people, live in fear or envy or drivenness or exhaustion. Tripp traces all these things back to our "awe problem".

In relation to the purpose of my ministry now that life is running at a slower pace, I was struck (in September) by: "Ministry is meant to be something bigger than completing a list of tasks" (p. 49. Ouch. He continues, "You have been called to the high position of making the invisible glory of God visible to people who quickly lose sight of God's glory and begin to look for glories elsewhere (Psalm 145:4).

In many ways he's writing to himself, but also to us all. All Christians are "in ministry" whether paid or not. We are all called to point others to God's glory. If we were all doing this for each other, we would be a more effective community.

It's easy to get very discouraged by all of this, because Tripp goes to great lengths to tell us that we can't help ourselves. On our own we can't fix this. However, God can.

Only when the awe of God rules your heart will you have joy even when people disappoint you and life gets hard. Awe means your heart will be filled more with a sense of blessing than with a sense of want. . . remember that he [God] is so rich in grace that he will never turn a deaf ear to your cries (p 105-106).

We all question God's character, and, despite the theology that we say we believe, we struggle to live that way "at street level". We wonder if God is good, if he is in control, does he have the power to help us, does he even care? Yep, I have these thoughts too (witness it in this blog post from this time last year). Therefore it was reassuring to read this:

God alone will never leave you...he never sends you without going with you. He is your protector, guide, defender, teacher, savior, and healer. He never mocks your weakness but gives you strength...His care is so awesome and so complete that nothing in your life's experience in any way compares." p 105

None of this is new to me. But I keep forgetting, so it is good to be reading a book that reminds me (and of course the Bible is riddled with such reassurances). Not remembering these things leads to discontent and complaints. And it's so easy for complaints to slip into our thoughts and conversation.

You can't do that work of awe reclamation on your own. You desperately need grace—but you and I are called to treasure that work and to pursue and participate in it any way we can. And we are called to humbly admit our need and again and again run to the grace that stands as our only hope of personal growth and change. (p. 129)

So I guess yesterday was partly about me running back to my saviour and admitting my need for his help. Help to grow, to know how to walk with him in this new season, and to fix eyes on him so that my awe is directed towards him again, instead of my own "kingdom of one".

God sent me to Japan again in July. He came with me and he has a purpose for me here in this new season, with all my weaknesses and foibles. I need to trust him . . . still and again! Possibly I'll look back at some time in the future and know what that purpose is (though I suspect it won't be one simple thing). Right now my job is to do my best each day, with God's grace, to point others towards his glory, however that looks in my life and with the strengths and skills that he gave me.

I hope this makes sense to you. I am not sure I can make it any better at this time! I am planning to finish the last three chapters of the book before the end of the year. Maybe I'll write again after I read those, maybe I won't. Perhaps you'll see the outworking of God in my life and writing without me consciously trying to pry it out of my head?

We've had an awful lot of "life" going on

We went back to our home church last weekend for the second Sunday in a row. It was a relief to feel a lot less fragile this time.

Almost the sum total of books we own in
Australia. Not many at all! And many of them
are photo albums or school yearbooks. But
it's good to have them up on a shelf and
out of boxes!

In one conversation I had with an older lady, she comment frankly: “What you’re dealing with is just life.”

My gentle retort was, “Our problem is that we’ve had an awful lot of 'life' all at once." 

For example, most people help their older teens adjust to adult life over months or years. In the short 20 days we've been here we’ve been doing things like teaching them about banking, getting a learners licence, getting a MyGov online account (for various official purposes like tax, medical insurance), etc.

On top of that we're introducing them to life in Australia, as almost-newbies. How to access a doctor in Australia, how medical insurance works, what's the best place to buy a certain product, how to get a haircut, public transport, etc.

It also happens to be university-open-
day season at the moment, so on Sunday
we hoisted ourselves off to the University
of Queensland (UQ), David's and my
alma mater.

We've also moved houses into a suburb we've never lived in before, so we don't know the answers to all the questions that are related to locality. And it's not all about our sons—David and I have started new jobs and we've also just bought a car in Australia for the first time in over 25 years.

It's no wonder that I'm routinely feeling like we're much further into August than we actually are (it's not helping that we haven't gotten around to putting up more than one calendar yet, nor that the season doesn't feel at all like winter, except in the middle of the night and early morning).

We're trying to get on top of daily life things so that we can pay attention to what we're going to say in our upcoming speaking appointments. This Saturday we're running a 50 minute elective at the state conference for our organisation. The blurb we gave them was:

Title: Working together to share the good news about Christ in Japan

Blurb: Why do a school teacher and editor/writer work with OMF in Japan? Mission work involves more than just church planting and evangelism. Our work in Japan contributes to supporting the wider community of missionaries. Join us to consider how missionaries work as a team to spread the good news in a nation where less than 1% of the population are Christians.

I've actually written on this topic in the past (see this) and I'm married to a teacher, so things like this don't faze him much. We have a general idea of where we're headed, but just need to nail down some details.

This morning, though, I'm taking a break from everyone and have walked to our local library. That's right: we're walking distance from an English library!!! If I hadn't been an ardent e-book borrower over the last four years from this exact library, I'd be even more excited, But I am keen to see if there are some hard copies of books that I haven't been able to find electronic versions of.

But the main reason I've come to the library is to write. And to hopefully start something of a Tuesday morning tradition for this home assignment. Hence this blog post has been written, but I'm planning to write other things too, I'm just not sure what they all are yet!

Waiting with grace?

I started this blog post a couple of weeks, just after I sent out our latest prayer letter. Writing (mostly) monthly prayer letters is something I've been doing for over 23 years now. It's a useful time to reflect on the month past and look toward the month ahead. It would be a normal month when we look back at the calendar and say: "Wow, that only happened this month!" Of course at the end of the calendar year it's traditional to look back also, so I included this brief paragraph at the start of our letter:

For many, including us, this has been a hard year. There are many things that have happened differently to what we’d hoped or planned for. How are you coping? We’ve found comfort in doing the daily things that God’s given us to do and leaning hard on him in prayer about the things that we wish were different. As we come to the end of this year we know that God’s been with us the whole way, holding us and helping us. Let’s acknowledge the hard things, but also be quick to thank God for all he’s done and the hope he continues to give us.

This has been a year of disappointments and angst. Also waiting. That theme has continued to pop up for me in various places. How do we wait and do it with grace? Recently, a friend asked: How do we Christians do it with our hearts right with God, resting in his Sovereignty?

Waiting isn't new to me. I guess we all know about waiting, but somehow missionary life brings a different angle, maybe even a greater challenge to waiting. Just getting to Japan meant disappointment and waiting (we were turned down two, nearly three times for a lack of financial support in 2000). Every time we go on home assignment we wait to find accomodation and wheels, last time we left Japan without an address to go to in Australia. The last two times we've been on home assignment, we've waited for house sitters for this place in Tokyo too. With limited financial resources, we're thrown on the generosity of others more than perhaps we would have been if we had remained in Australia in higher paying jobs.

In some ways it's easier to describe what waiting badly looks like. A lot of times it's due to attitude. Waiting badly can look like complaining, it can look like frantic activity to fill the blank left or to distract ourselves. It can also look like scheming to "fix" the problem and manipulate the situation so that it "works". It can look like worry and even physical sickness that's induced by worry. It can look like insomnia or tears. And yes, I know this because I've got personal experience in waiting badly!

But of course you can't look at someone and easily determine if they are waiting well or badly! However, by talking to them, you might get a glimpse.

Good waiting, in my experience, is much more peaceful. There's a quiet trust in God that this too is in his plan. Waiting well doesn't mean inactivity, but rather seeking what is the right thing to do now. That's been a big challenge for us this year as we've waited, especially, to see how God would guide us for the next steps for our nearly-adult kids.

One key to waiting well is to find pleasure in the now. Find ways to enjoy your current situation. Don't forgo celebration, instead seek out reasons to celebrate, reasons to give thanks. Another key is to find ways to serve others, within our limits, of course. When you're waiting it's easy to turn inwards, to be selfish and self absorbed. But when we turn our thoughts upwards to God and outwards to others we gain a better perspective on our situation.

Some lights we often walk past at night. This
is a little unusual in Japan.

We're about to go away for our traditional pre-Christmas holiday. I've been waiting for this break for too long. I'm thankful God's given me the strength to make it through to now and that I'm not a messy heap on the floor. But I'm also glad he's given me things to do while I waited that kept my eyes off myself (most of the time).

I don't know what you're waiting for, but I do know the Lord who can help. Don't miss him in the midst of the wait.

If you're interested, here are three other blog posts I've written on waiting:

I told our waiting-to-come-to-Japan story is here (a summary, really).

The value of waiting for your prayers to be answered: http://mmuser.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-other-end-of-answered-prayer.html

Waiting expectantly, but like a jellyfish: https://mmuser.blogspot.com/2021/04/waiting-expectantly.html

Lining up ducks

I haven’t written a blog post yet this week, mostly because it’s been a busy week away from my desk. Actually a very different looking week to what most of the year has looked like. I spent a lot of the week with other people! All day Monday I spent at a prayer meeting with other OMF missionaries. And travelling across the city in peak hour on trains to get there and back (total about three hours travel and six trains). It was something I hadn’t been looking forward to. Last year when I did this long day I ended up with a nasty headache and actually fairly distressed at wearing a mask (the pressure on my nose and ears when I have a headache is close to unbearable). However I’m more used to wearing masks now and I didn’t end up with the worst of headaches, so it wasn’t so bad.

Tuesday morning I did a quick couple of hours catching up on urgent computer tasks and email before replenishing the larder with a grocery shop and then shooting off downtown again. This time I spent the afternoon packing the latest issue of the magazine that I play a significant part in publishing.

Wednesday was a cold, rainy day, so I was glad I got to stay home and work at my desk. I made good progress that I was able to continue into Thursday morning. Then Thursday afternoon was consumed with online work meetings, specifically about planning for the weeks ahead, which are less-than-straightforward weeks. More about that later.

Friday morning I spent at a school prayer meeting and then a couple of hours with small fellowship group in a restaurant. Friday afternoon was another shopping trip and then seeing what I could salvage from the rest of the day at my desk, but a headache caught up with me and I didn’t last too long there.

In the middle of that has been a few other things:

• 
  Fudge making: last year I raised some money for the school by making and selling fudge to staff and local friends. I’m doing it again this year. I’ve made it a little easier by using a silicon mold, which means that the size of the pieces is much more consistent. So in between other things, I’ve been making fudge this week.

• Wrestling: our youngest (16 y.o.) has rejoined the wrestling team this year. Last week they had their first meet, a small affair between two schools. It was weird to be back in person at a sporting event, but also great. Unfortunately he got injured in his first match and hasn’t been able to get back into training this week while he recovers. But we did watch the rest of the team via a live video link on Thursday night.
• 
  Cricket: cricket fans that we are, we’ve been enjoying live cricket this week for the first time in several months. The English team is in Australia at the moment. The two countries are playing the famous Ashes series. We’ve been able to subscribe to the series (that has rarely been possible in the years we’ve been overseas) and it’s fun. Alas, most of the play happened during our work hours this week so we haven’t seen much, but it’s been fun, another interest David and I share.

• I also passed 100 books read for the year (I also started more than 20 more, but for one reason or another they ended up in the "I don't want to finish reading" list). I've got more than a dozen lined up for the next few weeks, I wonder how many of those I'll get read?

Monday and Friday would have looked quite different during most of 2021. I’m so grateful that, for the moment at least, we’re not living under so many restrictions. It’s weird to look at the cricket and see crowds of people without masks on, though. Masks are still being worn by 99.9% of people in public here.

The coming weeks are a mixture of relaxation and business. This time next week we’ll be up in the mountains taking a week’s holiday. Our traditional pre-Christmas holiday. With school on a three-week break, I anticipate that I’ll be taking things a little slower after Christmas also. Certainly we won’t be getting up at 6am.

In January I’m helping facilitate the same OMF course I helped with last year. This year it’s still online, but we’ve changed a few things so that hopefully it will be a little less arduous. However, I haven’t completely stepped away from my social media job, so I’ll be juggling a few more balls than I did last year. Plus, there's a variety of wrestling events on in January and February. We'll see how well I come out of that busy season. I didn't cope very well in January/February this year, but part of that was an unexpected and traumatic loss in mid-February.

Meanwhile, I prepare as best I can for what's to come. First of all is getting my "ducks lined up" so I can go away and not check email or open my computer for a week. Ah...the bliss. I've got fruit mince pies to make and books to read!

How's your December looked so far?

How are you going/doing?

I've got some spare minutes and want to write here, but don't have any strong topic in mind. That's not good!

I had a writing friend ask me in an email if I'd been doing lots of writing. And I really haven't, although I have been writing, although much of it has been editing other people's writing. In recent days I've:

• written a prayer letter
• rewritten some elements of the Japan Prayer booklet (which is deep editing, basically)
• researched and written some Facebook and Instagram posts for OMF Japan
• written an email calling for articles for our Autumn issue of Japan Harvest.
• edited various short articles, from blog posts to magazine articles

So it really does feel like I've been writing, but nothing much longer than a few hundred words. 

At times it's been hard to stay focused and motivated. I know I'm not the only one,  that many people are struggling with staying motivated. I'm one that thrives on the next big thing. I like having things to look forward to on the calendar and whatever is there has steadily been scrubbed out. My emotions have been unusually turbulant, and that's been unsettling.

During a Zoom training meeting this week I unexpectedly found
my way back to this beautiful wallpaper (a photo I took during a
camping trip in Australia a few years ago). It was really lovely to
gaze at this image while listening to the speaker.

This week the school leadership decided that school wouldn't return to on-campus learning this school year. That means it's 17 more weeks until school begins again, Lord willing. I think the day they announced that I'd been feeling particularly frustrated with my "housemates." I was in trouble for walking too loudly, for saying the wrong things at the wrong times, for breathing while I eat. I tried to start conversations around the table and got shot down by teens. I couldn't find things to talk about that other people were interested in. And then school not starting again was like a nail in the coffin of my confinement. 

It's time to name losses and also lift my eyes heavenward. It's time to find some creative solutions.

So, here are some losses, in no particular order:

• face-to-face time with friends
• freedom to go out without concern about my health
• a haircut
• watching my boys run and throw at track and field meets
• the house to myself during the day, and the freedom that comes with that
• boys who are well-exercised, socialised, and are motivated by the usual rhythms of a class schedule
• a trip to Singapore for professional development and training with our mission
• a visit by our eldest this summer
• the opportunity to go to the Olympics and Paralympics this year
• mail that hasn't arrived from my family

Here are just some things that have comforted me:

• friends checking in that I'm doing okay
• randomly running into people (at appropriate distances)
• a small opportunity to serve other staff families
• opportunities to use my social media skills to encourage
• remembering that God is a solid rock that I can rely on
• the hymn "Great is Thy Faithfulness"
• opportunities to exercise in safe places
• books to read (loving my Kindle and the opportunity to borrow ebooks from the library, something I couldn't even do last year)
• remembering that many of those great writers of history were isolated or imprisoned at the time of writing (think Paul, John writing Revelation, 

OMF sent us a self-care assessment this week. It's taken me a while to look at it and I wondered if the topic headings might be good for you to see also:

Physical: food and drink, exercise, time out. I think I rate okay on most of these. Lacking on the "time out" front. I'm getting a lot less time on my own these days and that it tiring. 

Spiritual: personal devotional life and Christian fellowship. The first is about the same as usual. Second lacking a bit.

Emotional: this has been a bit of a struggle. It identified three different areas: healthy thought/feeling life, stress management, and leisure & fun. Probably it's healthy thought/feelings that I slip most on, not quite sure what to do with that. Mostly I've been trying to name what's going on inside and then reminding myself that that's okay, then try to apply scripture to that. Reminding myself that God is unchanging and nothing can separate me from him. Also trying to not pressure myself to be busy all the time. To understand that now, more than ever, I need to be content to be a little less busy and less focused on what I achieve.

Relationships/social: well I've already admitted this has been a bit of challenge. I've had some joy on that front this week and am planning more interaction with others this weekend online. A friend suggested that reading some girly books might not be a bad idea. Escaping into some female dialogue and stories might just be helpful. I love this creative idea and I'm giving it a go!

Ministry: appropriate use of time, and relationship with colleagues. This hasn't changed much for me. Much of my ministry was already done online and from home, so in that sense I'm very fortunate as I've had years to set up boundaries that allow me to stay healthy and balanced. This season has even allowed us more opportunities to connect with supporters in Australia. We've had one Zoom meeting with a prayer group and made two videos for supporting churches this month.

Areas of temptation/struggle: Hmm. Have I avoided difficult tasks? Probably. But perhaps not more than usual. 

Overall I'm probably not doing too badly. How are you? Is there anything you can change? Is there anything I can help you with? And if there's something you'd like me to write about, please let me know and I'll see what I can do!

My kitchen

Inspired by a month of posts by expats about their kitchens by Taking Route Blog #thisglobalkitchen, I'm going to tell you about mine.

My kitchen is not glamorous, but it is functional and I love it. It's bigger than a usual Japanese kitchen, but nowhere near as large as a kitchen would be in the usual three-bedroom house in Australia.

Looking back to the dining room and my corner office from the kitchen sink.

When we first came to Japan, one of the biggest challenges at home was the kitchen. We were in a much smaller place (we were a smaller family then, just one boy less than two-years-old). What drove me crazy was no bench space (i.e. "counter"). It is pretty typical, we've discovered, for a Japanese kitchen to have little food preparation space. The only place we could prepare food in our first Japanese kitchen, was on the sink-drainage area. 

Thankfully this kitchen (and house) is much larger, though I'm not sure if I would have appreciated it as much if I hadn't had had to work in a much smaller space (that first kitchen shared a tiny room with the laundry and shower ante-room).

When visitors who know Japan come to visit, one of the first things they usually comment on is our kitchen. It has an unusual amount of storage room. These built-in floor-to-ceiling cupboards are unusual, what's more, a crafty previous resident has added tasteful internal curtains to these glass-doors. But there are other unusual elements that we've added.

This house has had numerous missionaries live in it previously. It is not owned by a Christian and was not purpose-built for foreigners. However, when we moved in the kitchen had a most unusual element: an ancient American gas oven/stove. It didn't fit, being far deeper than these cabinets were. In our small attic we found the original under-stove cabinet that was removed to put the oven in. A former missionary had brought an oven with them from the US!

I loved that dinosaur of an oven, even though we had to practically lie on the floor to light it. Its large four-burner top provided pseudo-bench space that was so valuable. Ovens are not usual in a Japanese kitchen. Most people use toaster ovens and microwave ovens with convection functions, which are obviously much smaller.

Alas, four years ago that oven started leaking gas. You can read about that drama here. The Japanese repairmen who came to look at it had never seen the likes of it! There was much sucking in of breath over the teeth (a clear sign in Japan that there is a major problem).

The end result of that drama was that we lost that old oven and bought this Japanese oven and three-burner stovetop to replace the dinosaur—that was not a cheap decision. We reasoned that we'd be living here for some years yet with our three growing boys (they were aged 10, 13, and 16 at that time). One of the things I love to do is cook and bake, I really struggled with the idea of going back to just two burners and only using my microwave/convection oven (even though it was the biggest you can buy here). 

This Japanese oven is the most spectacular oven I've ever used. It heats up quickly and cooks very reliably. I'm still holding out hope that when we move from here we can take the oven/stove with us to a new place, but know that that might not be a reasonable expectation as we'd like to move into a smaller place after all our boys move out.

We have underfloor storage. This is a cool thing about Japanese houses (not sure if they exist in apartments). A place to put food and stores under the floor is very cool.

Underfloor storage.

Oil, potatoes, and cereal in this side.

Breadmaker with rubbish "drawers" underneath.

Other elements of the kitchen that I love are the breadmaker (we make our own sliced bread), the chest freezer, and a large fridge with lots of compartmentalised drawers. All these make providing food for my family much easier.

You'll see under the breadmaker the plastic drawers that help us sort rubbish as we dispose of it. The top drawer is glass and tin, then "unburnable" (i.e. doesn't fit any other category), and the bottom is paper and cardboard. The rest is in the bin on the other side of the kitchen next to the stove: burnable (raw food, scraps, etc.) and recyclable plastics.

Look closely and you will see that the lino is torn in places. The mat in front of the sink helps to hide that. Also, there is a gas-outlet in the floor that we don't use, but it dangerous for foot traffic, so it's covered with a carpet tile! The wall tiles are an ugly green, and the trim on all the doors are hard to clean.

It's not a shiny, new kitchen with fancy appliances. It's not particularly space-efficient and it's challenging for two people to work in, but it works for us and I'm very thankful for God's provision. Not just of this kitchen, but this house. Next year it will be ten years since we moved in here. It's an old house that has it's flaws and quirks, but we've done the majority of our child-raising here and we're thankful for the stability and convenience it affords (it's close to school, church, shops, and the train station).

Japan is not an easy place to live and work as a missionary, but we have many things to be thankful for in terms of ease of living and stability of society. Indeed "The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places" (Ps 16:6 NIV).

What do you cook for dinner?

So I've resolved this school year to blog at least once a week. But every now and then in my job I run into a quiet patch and have more time to do things like write here. It's an interesting phenomenon as I deal with many deadlines every week. I'm in the interesting position that many of these deadlines are set by me, so I do my best to keep things relatively manageable.

It helps, just now, that I'm not trying to "get ahead" due to any upcoming holiday time. Preparing for and recovering from holidays can be significantly stressful! These last two months have been busy with preparing for holidays and dealing with different family needs while they're all home here. Until this week I've also been going slower in the mornings and getting up at least an hour later. All of which means that I've been cramming more into less time.

Menu list
One of my summer goals was small: for reference when menu writing, to make a list of all the meals that I regularly make for dinner here. I had a list I wrote in pen many years ago, before I had teenagers. But it's a bit outdated and, as it lives on the side of our fridge, it is fading. 

Earlier this week I wrote up the list. I was surprised to find that I could think of 47 meals that I make at least once every few months. If you consider that I only usually cook five times a week (the other nights are usually left-overs), that's quite a lot of variety. I eat the same breakfast six days a week and that's the way I like it, but I prefer to have a lot of variety at dinner!

A favourite meal: wraps. Usually chicken
with simple salad. People make their own
(which I suspect is part of the fun).

Perhaps you'll be interested in the list, so I've posted it below. I don't actually make much Japanese food, there are only four or five below, though there are others I occasionally cook. I find many Japanese meals are time-consuming to make from scratch (which is how I prefer to do most of my cooking). But perhaps some of you could give me some helpful hints? And of course, living in Japan, when we eat out we often have Japanese! Eating out in Japan is relatively cheap (especially if you don't take teenagers with you!). 

My criteria for cooking dinner is that it can't take much longer than an hour and that most people in the family like it. For keeping a lid on the budget, my weekly menu usually consists of only three big "meat" meals and, for the sake of variety, those are usually each different meats (i.e. not two chicken meals in the one week). Other meals often include smaller portions of protein like bacon or eggs or both.

There's probably a number of things on the list that you don't know, either. I'm happy to explain or even share recipes! The notes in brackets are recipe book nicknames.

Looking after the customers

A notable characteristic in Japan is looking after the customers. We've seen a great improvement in this in Australia over the years, but I think it's mostly done there out of fear of being abused by the customer (or sued). But Japan goes way beyond Australia's version of customer service, it seems to be embedded in their culture, not a product of fear.

Last week I rode to a newly opened grocery store in our neighbourhood. I was amused to find three "guard men" in the car park looking after customers.

In the photo, you can see half of the car park and about an eighth of the bike park. It is not large! But three men were helping people park their cars and bikes. The bike park was pretty full when I arrived and one of them directed me to an empty slot.

I bought a full-load of stuff, and it took a while to load it all into my baskets, so I got to hear them interacting with customers. The man closest to me in the photo was thanking people as they left to store as well as helping with bikes. The two at the entrance were greeting people. I got an extra blessing of "Be careful" as I rode out with my well-loaded bike!

I shared this experience with a couple of Japanese friends the next day. One of them later shared a video with me that includes a hilarious section about these "guards" that I include here for your enjoyment (it's a 17-minute video, the "guard" part is 30 sec at the 4-minute mark).

Though it may seem a bit over the top, you really do feel looked after and I have to admit that there are times I miss that in Australia. A classic time was trying to find my way through complex roadwork on my bike in Brisbane a few years ago. There were no signs, no people to direct or even to ask. I had a moment of homesickness for Japan right there.