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!

Trying to keep my eyes off the problem

Our daily prayers are full of "please God, we need certain things to be in place so that we can do what we perceive you want to us to do, but we're struggling to trust that you're going to come through on this. Please help us to trust, and forgive us for our lack of faith." 

Trusting God for our future is the overwhelming challenge I've got right now, and if you've been reading my blog you'll know that that tussle has been going on for some time. In fact I hesitate to write about it again, because it feels like I'm just a clanging gong, with only one topic.

I know that he's in control and that he loves me and will work out his purposes, that he will never leave us and that whatever happens is will work out for our good and his glory, but I struggle to stay in that posture of trust.

Prayer

Which brings me to the topic of prayer. The ladies at our home church (Grace Christian Church Redbank Plains) have started working through a book called A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World by Paul E. Miller. Someone lent me the book late last year and with all the free time I've had, I've managed to read it all before we began discussing it. Last week's gathering, though, made me uncomfortably aware that my experience of prayer and those of many Australian Christians, is vastly different. I'm not boasting here, in fact I hesitate to write about my prayer life because Jesus told us to be quiet about our prayers (Luke 18:9–14; Matthew 6:5–6). My purpose here is just to show you what being a missionary with a Christian missionary organisation can be like.

Prayer is everywhere in our work. It's part of almost every meeting: large or small. It's not uncommon to be in the middle of a gathering and be asked to "turn to the person next to you and pray about these matters". For a few years I used to attend up to several prayer meetings each month with other parents at school (CAJ).

Additionally, I write a prayer/newsletter each month and are often asked by several different geographical (Japan, Australia, Queensland) branches of our organisation for prayer points. We receive regular prayer letters and prayer documents from those same branches, as well as from several missionaries who we pray for in more detail.

It adds up to a lot and boils down to an overall expectation by our organisation that we'll be personally praying for a lot, including our 120+ colleagues with OMF Japan and 70+ colleagues at CAJ. Not to mention 100+ OMF Australian colleagues. David and I have a system that enables us to pray for a good number of these people (though not everyone every day) and we do this before breakfast most days.

In addition to all the above, I have three friends who I can shoot a quick request: "Please pray, this is happening..., or "Please pray, I feel..." I have a few others who I sometimes will ask for specific prayer. And they do the same to me.

Over the years, steeped in this prayer-full environment, one of my first reactions when something difficult happens, is to ask certain people to pray, to share the burden, even if I can't find the words or energy to pray for myself.

From what I've observed, I don't think the above is the experience is common. It makes me feel amazingly blessed. People sometimes say, I don't know how you do what you do. Well, I would say it's primarily because of all this prayer. Yes, we pray for others, but we also have hundreds of people (potentially) praying for us, many of whom we've never met.

Right now a lot of people are praying for our sons. The prayers for one of them has been answered: he's found a house in a good location and housemates, he's also got a short-term job that will bolster his bank account. But we're waiting on answers for the other son, the one who has had an especially rough road over the last few years. Our hearts ache, but we're being bolstered by many who pray for us. And wait . . . and wait . . . and wait . . . to tell you, and many others, the answers to those prayers.

Like a grasshopper

Image by Marc Pascual from Pixabay

This morning I was reminded of a Bible story that impacted me at a camp in my last year of high school. We spent time looking at Numbers 13 and 14, the story of the 12 Israelite spies that were sent to check out the land that God was taking them to. They came back bearing amazing fruit from the land, but also stories about how impossible it would be for the Israelites to invade the land (which is what they assumed they'd have to do). They emphasised how big and strong those living in the land were. They used this metaphor: "We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them."

Two of the 12 men, Caleb and Joshua, opposed the others, saying that if this was God's plan, he would do it: "The Lord is with us. Do not be afraid of them." They focused on God, not on the problem. So often I focus on the problem!

The story continues with all the Israelites latching onto the bad report and complaining, suggesting it would be better to go back to Egypt (and, one assumes, the captivity that awaited them there). The Bible records an interesting interaction between God and Moses. God complains to Moses about the Israelites, a cites a plan to destroy the whole nation and push on with Moses and his descendants. Moses pushes back and points out that the nations would see what's happened and assume that God couldn't do what he set out to do. He appeals to God's character and asks him to show his strength by forgiving the Israelites. God relents, but his new plan is that none of those 20 or older who were counted in the census earlier on their journey would enter the Promised Land, except Caleb and Joshua, and that it would be 40 more years of wandering in the wilderness.

When Moses reported this to the people, they mourned, said they'd sinned, and decided to go to invade the Promised Land anyway, the very next day. Much like when I was a kid and tried to get out of a punishment after being caught. And yep, they went and got beaten, because God wasn't with them.

It's an extraordinary story. I feel like a grasshopper just now. I did back in year 12 too, when I was facing the end of high school and all the unknowns of the following year. I rather think God prefers that we feel like grasshoppers and so rely on him for strength, rather than our own.

It's a story that shows us how serious God takes grumbling against him. But also shows how a plan won't succeed if it's going against God's plans. For sure there's a lot I don't know about God and his guidance and leading, I'm no expert at all, just a lay person reading my Bible. But also a person seeking to follow God's will. I'm prone to be impatient and to grumble about God's timing, yet I'm also trying to trust God in the midst of it all. Keeping my eyes focused on God instead of the problem is probably the key, just like it was in this story as well as the story of David and Goliath!

Are you facing a giant of a problem right now? How do you keep your eyes off the problem and fixed on God?

Culminating events

Before we came to the Christian Academy in Japan in 2005 I'm pretty certain I'd never heard the phrase "culminating events". I'm not even sure if we had a phrase when I was growing up that collectively described the various events that happen at the end of a school year.

In any case, last week we were in the middle of culminating events at school, and, of our last son graduating from high school. The week looked like:

Monday—last day of classes

Tuesday—final assessment in the form of a formal presentation about his year-long project about mental health and exercise in adolescents. The audience was a panel of two teachers, plus around 10 middle and high school students. We, his parents, were also invited.

Wednesday—parent-organised banquet for seniors and their parents (plus siblings in some cases).

Thursday—graduation rehearsal and farewell parade through the school in graduation gowns and caps.

Friday—graduation before a gathering of about 400 people in the school gym. 

Tuesday was full of emotion as we watched our youngest child finish his last assessment. It was all over by 9.30 a.m. and I came home, not quite ready to start work, so I made a cake. Emotional cooking? It was very satisfying to do, and we've all enjoyed the fruits of it.

Photo by Megumi Nakazawa

Wednesday night was the school's traditional banquet, organised by a small group of mums. We got dressed up and took the trains downtown to a Brazilian BBQ restaurant. The meal was spectacular: all-you-can-eat meat cooked in a rotisserie, plus an amazing salad and dessert buffet, plus soft drinks and juice. Of note for some were the whole pineapples, also cooked in the rotisserie. It was a late night, however. We travelled home on crowded trains between 10 and 11 (yes, Tokyo trains at that hour, mid-week, is a sight to be seen). I only got five hours sleep that night.

Thursday was quiet for parents, but the students spent the afternoon at school, rehearsing for graduation and doing a final walk-through of the school (dressed in graduation gowns and hats). Parents were left to their own devices, which for me meant making final decisions on the Summer issue of the magazine before it went to the printer, as well as editing work on the next one, the Autumn issue, plus work on social media posts for the upcoming weeks.

Friday was an emotional day. I tried to fill in the morning with tasks that needed doing but didn't need too much brain. We had significant rain all day and through the night, maybe as much as 200mm, so there were no lovely photo opportunities in the school's lovely courtyard. Also, because there is only a small car park, we walked to school (as usual). I'd already thrown away my rain boots, so I wore sneakers and socks, changing into my black flats when I got there. It was an emotional afternoon as we watched our last child walk across the stage, finishing high school.

The emotions are mixed, mostly happy, but also sad as our son says goodbye to good friends and a place that's been like a home-away-from-home all his life. 

I also think back to the last time we did this, two years ago. The differences are stark: last time was in the middle of the pandemic, so we were masked and sitting in little "islands" apart from one another, and the only people there were the graduating students and their parents, staff who didn't have a specific job stayed home. It had also been many many months since I'd been in a room with that many people, so it felt very odd. This time anyone could come (though the weather held back many, we suspect), so all the staff were there, as well as a number of other students and parents and community members. Though I felt there is another subtle difference that's resulted from the pandemic: there weren't actually many people I knew. I think that's a hole that's partly come from not having community events for a couple of years.

The other difference is much more personal and harder to write about in a public place like this. Our sons are very different in personalities and their journey through high school has been markedly different. Some of that is related to mental health and neurodivergence. Last time significant social anxiety was a very big unseen presence that came along to graduation with us and made just getting through the ceremony a big deal, and one that didn't garner any medals or plaques.

But now we're all quite tired, socially and emotionally. I've come down with a miserable cold and am struggling to get through the brain fog to continue working on my to-do list for this week.

Remembering God's compassion and grace

Early in the year, I wrote about focusing my thoughts on Psalm 103, particularly as we work our way through this crazy year. But almost immediately after I wrote that we galloped into three big wrestling tournaments over a period of just 18 days and the madness had begun. Now we're nearly into June, the sixth month of the year! 

This week a close friend reminded me of Psalm 103, so I want to lean into it today, just before we head deeper into the end-of-high-school-and-life-as-parents-of-school-aged-kids craziness that next week holds (and yes, I know that's a ridiculous phrase).

I have frequently felt frail in the last five months. Last week was a rough week for me physically and it took longer than a weekend to recover from it, and I'm still struggling with energy as we head into another weekend. It's been a comfort to remember that God doesn't expect me to be strong.

As a father has compassion on his children,
    so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him;
14 for he knows how we are formed,
    he remembers that we are dust.
15 The life of mortals is like grass,
    they flourish like a flower of the field;
16 the wind blows over it and it is gone,
    and its place remembers it no more. (Ps. 103:13–16, NIV)

This psalm is actually full of praise for God's compassion. It talks about his justice, forgiveness, healing, and redemption, that he's slow to anger and gracious. That he satisfies us and renews us. And most of all that he is "abounding in love." It's hard for us to grasp how much he loves us, so the psalmist writes "as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love" for us. In Ephesians, Paul prays that we might have the power "to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ." That’s a lot of love! Taking Paul's lead, I often pray this for people I know.

I was recently reminded of how quickly we humans jump to judgement, anger, and revenge. I was reminded of my tendency to be a law-keeper and how quickly I judge myself very harshly when I break rules (or get caught breaking rules), or even when I make mistakes that hurt others or don't measure up to my high standards. And how that grace-less attitude flows over into judging others. But God reminded me of Psalm 130, in particular vs. 3 and 4:

If you, Lord, kept a record of sins,
Lord, who could stand?
But with you there is forgiveness,
so that we can, with reverence, serve you.

Psalm 103 also reflects God's gracious heart. God:

• forgives all your sins (v. 3)
• is slow to anger (v. 8)
• will not always accuse (v. 9)
• will not harbour his anger forever (v. 9)
• does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities (v. 10) 
• has removed our transgressions from us, as far as the east is from the west (v. 12)

How comforting it is to know that I have a heavenly Father who is completely able to meet our needs and forgive our sins. Unlike an earthly king, the Lord God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and without limits in the love he has for me and all who he calls his.

As we move ever closer to leaving for our fifth home assignment my sleep is gradually getting more erratic. I find myself awake at random hours, with worry running through my head. My subconscious provides entertainment in the depths of the night: problems that need to be solved (but perhaps not by me and certainly not in bed at 2 a.m.) and even totally fictional problems that my subconscious has made up (like that exam I forgot to prepare for, or the plane that I nearly missed). This, in turn, is making my energy during the day more erratic. I hate this. But I can't escape who I am. All I can do is repeatedly turn my eyes to Jesus and remember his great compassion and love.

One night in the last week a problem that arose at work plagued my thoughts at an ugly hour, I couldn't let go of the circular thoughts running through my head. I just had to say to God: you need to solve this one, I can't do it now, I probably can't do it later either. In the days that followed that middle-of-the-night cry for help, the problem was solved. To God be the glory!

The other thing that can plague me at times of transition is seeking security in things that aren't really secure: like the promise of accommodation or a car to use in Australia. We've just given notice to our landlord on our house in Japan, after nearly 13 years! But we don't know where we'll next truly unpack our suitcases, nor what car we will drive. There are a lot of unknowns in the coming 12 months. But no amount of worry is going to solve those problems. Yesterday afternoon an email in my inbox from ThriveConnection.com reminded me of how easy it is at times of transition to put my hope in things that only provide a false sense of security. When I do that I forget the only true security is in God, who cannot be shaken.

And . . . I’m back to the lesson God’s been teaching me over these last few years: trust him. No matter what the present or future looks like, trust him.

This song grabbed my attention this morning, and drove me to tears. Maybe it’ll be a comfort to you today too: Desert Road by Casting Crowns

Mt Coot-Tha botanical gardens meander

This week we've had beautiful weather here in Brisbane. And it's turned into a "week of parks". On Monday three of us spent a couple of hours at Mt Coot-Tha botanical gardens, a place we've driven past many, many times, but not gone in. It was spectacular. I've shared some photos at the end of this post.

On Friday we met my parents at Queens Park in Ipswich for a BBQ lunch, also a really lovely park, but one that's much older (159 years, according to a plaque I saw). The park also houses a free Australian native animal zoo that we enjoyed. It's the first time we've gone to a zoo in many years. It was a fun experience with these Aussie boys who've not spent much of their lives in Australia.

Today David and I spent several hours at a much newer park: Rocks Riverside Park. We were joined by two couples who have known us for many years. Great conversations.

The temperatures here have been around 20C in the middle of the day. Very comfortable. Alas David and our youngest son are about to return to Tokyo, where the temperatures are hot and humid day and night. I'm sad to see them go, but happy that I don't have to brace for that.

The next month is going to be weird. David and I have rarely been apart for so long, and in this case we'll both be single parents. I'm staying here and "telecommuting" to Japan from my desk. My middle son and I are also moving to our sixth bed for this trip on Monday. For the next four weeks we'll be staying with a family from our eldest son's church, incidentally, the same family he lived with for a few years. Later in the month we'll move one more time: this time to two separate places. Our son will stay with his brother for a couple of weeks and I'll stay with a friend and her family.

It's a very different look to our usual routine, so will take some adjusting to. On top of starting work again, I will have a few more appointments to attend with our middle son. These extra two weeks will also give me more time to hang out with my two older sons. Plus I plan to catch up with a few more friends that I haven't been able to see thus far. 

We'll see how it all works. The main idea is to give our anxious middle son a bit more time to experience Australian life, experience that we hope will help fuel his thoughts about the future. 

I am a little anxious about my return in September, because in addition to the uncertainty about international travel at this time, our visas expire only two days after we're planning to fly back. Worst-case scenarios are playing on my mind, especially if I awaken at 3 or 4am!

Trust in the Lord, that's what my close friends are reminding me to do. God who goes before us! 

    It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed (Deut. 31:8 ESV)

Early this morning I was also silently repeating as much as I could remember of Psalm 23 to myself:

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures.

He leads me beside still waters.

He restores my soul.

He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

    I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;

you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,

and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

But look at these photos from the Mt Coot-Tha botanical gardens. I've used a free app, PictureThis, on my phone to identify them accurately.

Japanese camellia

New Zealand cabbage tree

Hairpin banksia (native Australian)

Aloe vera

Coral tree (native to Brazil)

My companions in this two-hour stroll

Butterfly agave

Close up of the hairpin banksia flower

Crimson bottlebrush (native to Australia)

Cockatoos

Parrot's beak

Just my little phone camera: so I couldn't Zoom
in to the two kookaburras who were entertaining
us from the top of this sign. We've driven past
this sign so many times! It was odd to be on the other side of the wall.

Endemic to this part of Australia: bush turkey.

Grevillea (Red silky oak, a species of spider flowers, an Australian native)

Huge fern: silver tree (from New Zealand)

Transition-itis

We've entered the last few days before we transition for a time to Australia. It's the seventh time we've done this as a family in the last 21 years, so we're not unfamiliar with "transitionitis" as I recently saw it called on Instagram @takingrouteblog. I've been a little bit in denial about this actually being a transition, because:

1. We're not going on home assignment, so in that regard it's like a longer holiday

2. It's a relatively short time to be away (two us will be back in six weeks) compared to the most of the longer trips we've made to Australia as a whole family. Only twice before have we travelled there as a family for less than six months, yep, we're not big travellers.

3. We're not changing jobs like we usually do for a home assignment, just pausing (or at least I am, a school teacher does this every year, so it's nothing strange for my husband).

4. We're not moving out of our house either (though that's only happened twice in 21 years prior to moving to Australia). So there's been no packing of boxes, limited sorting of stuff and cleaning, and minimal work to clear out the pantry. Yep, my image of a transition is pretty major!

But when I saw this Insta post yesterday, I realised that we do have some significant transition going on. The definition that they author somewhat tongue-in-cheek gave was: "Transitionitis is a very common ailment affecting hundreds of travelers each year. it is caused by the change in routine brought on by transition, and anxieties (often underlying) relating to the unknowns of a new location and losses associated with leaving the current location."

Several points come to mind out of this:

* Though we're not permanently transitioning to a new location, we'll be in a number of new locations in the coming weeks. My middle son and I will be in seven different houses in the next three months, none of them are familiar to us (even staying with our parents: they've all moved in the last couple of years). We're also thinking about the future on this trip: how will it look to transition both our youngest two out of our household in the next couple of years.

* There's always lots of anxiety surrounding international travel, even for people who aren't living with anxiety as a daily pathological reality. Things like: how will we cope travelling the busy trains with heavy suitcases, will there be unexpected bureaucratic barriers to be met when checking in at the airport, will we be able to sleep on the overnight flight? Though things have settled down a lot with regards to COVID, there are still extra hurdles in place (even just the thought of wearing a mask for 24 hrs is on my mind). I'm really glad we didn't have to travel earlier in this pandemic! We've also been going through a long saga all year with a passport renewal and visa renewal (which has a surprising number of flow-on effects, like when your health insurance expires and when you can apply for an international vaccination passport). We have reached a final hurdle this month that is yet to be completed: we haven't been able to collect our new residence cards with our new visas. It's out of our hands as we're waiting on notification that they're ready for us to collect. [Please pray!]

* And of course change in routine. Some people find that stimulating, but in our family, maintaining a fairly routine life is a way of managing overall stress and anxiety. Travel throws that all to the wind, of course. But the advantage we have here is that our kids are older. They understand what's going on and they have prior experience to help them anticipate what's about to happen.

I'm glad that we don't have many losses this time around, so we haven't had to make a lot of farewells, which only compounds the stress.

This is beside my bed. A good verse to
remember as I drift off to sleep each night.

The author listed a dozen symptoms of "transitionitis". I can recognise some of them from the past. Not so many this time as it's not such a major transition, but recently I've had:

• mushy brain
• inability to think straight—affecting my ability to edit this morning)
• fatigue
• turbulent emotions
• a little bit of sleep deprivation—usually in the form of waking in the middle of the night and being unable to quickly drop back again. This happened at 4am today. My cure is to pick up my Kindle and read my fiction book. I dropped off quickly this morning with this strategy, only to wake again later when I rolled over and knocked my Kindle on the floor!
• stomach issues—I've seen my body in much worse shape, but transition for me usually comes with feelings of hunger, at times I shouldn't be hungry; indigestion/reflux; and often an upset tummy on the day of travel.
• often daily headaches: the result of muscle tension, loss of sleep, and later on, unfamiliar beds.

The only way to "fix" this is to move through the transition to the other side. So I'm getting to the point where I just want to go. But I am trying to be kind to myself, in part, by working hard to prepare beforehand, so there isn't a last-minute push to finish things. We've also been exercising and eating pretty well, and "chilling" in the evenings.

As I've said before, it's been three years since we've seen our eldest son in person. Because just before the pandemic, we let his dependent visa go and Japan hasn't been letting people on tourist visas in. To compound matters, getting to Australia has been very expensive for they had compulsory hotel quarantine for ever so long.

But in the last 18 months we've had weekly family video calls with him. It's been precious time, often two or three hours, of rambling conversation and online board games. And on Saturday we were able to sign off with the sweetest words: We'll hug you next Saturday at the airport!

The Lord himself goes before you

The workshop I've written about in recent posts has finished. I'm so happy to be at the other end of it. It's been lovely to get back to work at my usual tasks and really enjoy the largely uninterrupted time! Yes, I've had no meetings this week, tonnes of work, but no meetings. I've got several meetings tomorrow, and next week have the equivalent of two days of meetings, so we'll just count up till now.

I'm just not sure what to write here today. The bigger picture of our lives is that our personal future has become more uncertain over the last year. Of course we never know what the future holds, but our plan has always been, for 21 years, to stay in Japan until we retired, unless the Lord called us to something different. We're not so sure now, but maybe God will call us to return to Australia for a period? It relates to our responsibilities as parents. I can't divulge more than that on this public platform, which means it's hard to write about. It's not the most comfortable of positions because we're both feeling very settled and happy in our various roles. But it is a question we will carry into the rest of this year and probably through next year also. 

So, we learn more about patience and waiting on the Lord. He called us to this life in Japan, he's sustained us thus far, and he will continue to do the same, whatever the next chapter of our lives looks like. 

I just keep coming back to a beautiful card that arrived in mid January. It came from an elderly lady I can't remember ever meeting. She knew my mum when my mum was a nurse-in-training 50 years ago! This elderly lady send us this verse, along with her letter and reassurance of her prayers. She doesn't know the specifics of our situation, but her gift was definitely on point.

Come, follow me

I've started three blog posts in the last week or so, and they're all circling around the same theme: letting go and trusting God, not just at a head level, but at a heart level. So, I've decided the best thing is to do the work to combine them.

It's been a challenge to trust God with everything in recent weeks and months. Wow, what a confession to make! To trust him with everything we hold dear, though we don't know what he's doing and why; to trust him, though we can't make the plans we wish we could make. I guess that's always a challenge for us humans. And this pandemic hasn't helped. 

This post I wrote only ten weeks ago shows me that our plans, that I admitted were foggy, have become even foggier.

The struggles I've had this year have been mostly circling my kids, my nearly-grown boys. Who thought that parenting could be so hard? (I've been saying that for over 20 years now!) They are no longer my little boys, who were "relatively" easy to keep corralled; whose pain was easier to fix.

If you've got younger kids, you probably don't want to hear me say that the problems get bigger and harder to "fix" as they get older. I'm under no illusions that parenting my little boys was easy. No, I found that really challenging too. So this isn't a "better-worse" thing here. Just saying that parenting older kids has been throwing us some major "googlies" recently (this is a cricket metaphor, others would say "curve ball"). But the problems are such that I can't reveal them to you in the public space of my blog. So I have to settle for metaphors and generalisations, so read between the lines, if you dare!

Mark records Jesus meeting a rich man who had run up to him and asked what he must "do to inherit eternal life?" (10:17 ESV). "And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, '. . . come, follow me'" (v. 21). The story shows the man to be someone who would have been considered good: a rule-keeper. But he gave up his quest for eternal life when Jesus said he should sell everything he had (and give it to the poor) in order to follow Jesus.

One thing it seems we can plan 
is a camping trip...so bring it on 
(in 10 days time)!

In her book Come Closer, Jane Rubietta wrote: "To be really rich, we unclench our fists, open our hands, and reach for Jesus. He promised us life, abundant life, and we create room for that life when we let go. Whatever is in your grip, recognize it. Notice why you hold that person, that role, that ambition, so tightly . . . let [Christ] have you, all of you—your hopes for the future, your pain from the past, your roles and rules and relationships" (p.44).

I certainly recognise some of these things in my own life. My desire to hold onto plans for the future, to keep control over how things pan out. To hold onto how I'd like my sons to live their lives. I like to be in control of some things. Most of us do.

It's not a bad thing to control when you go to bed, or when you get up. Or to seek to control whether you are a responsible employee or student. It's not a bad thing to be passionate about your job. Neither is it a bad thing to strive for a balance of work and rest, or to make plans for when you'll next see your family. But sometimes these things can trip us up, and can hinder us from following Jesus. Sometimes you simply can't control the things you want to, what then? Jesus' statement was to one man, but is also to us. Will we "follow him" wherever he leads us? Though whatever he brings our way?

Last week I read this in Joshua 10: "And the LORD said to Joshua, 'Do not fear them, for I have given them into your hands" (v. 8). Note the verb: "given". It's already happened and they hadn't even gone into battle yet!

"We trust in his future plans and purposes through Christ because we know that he has already achieved them, eternally". (A Time to Hope, Naomi Reed)

During prayer and conversations with my husband in the last month, we've pretty much given over to God a number of things that I couldn't have imagined only a few months ago. It's like God has drilled down on us, hemming us in, and been teaching us—"You can't assume anything about the future."

So I'm really fighting to stay in the here-and-now, and as one who likes to plan and dream about the future, it's tough. But I know that the God who already knew the outcome of Joshua's battle with the kings of the Amorites, is the same God who knows the outcome of the various battles we're facing today. What a comfort that it!

If I'm going to be hemmed in, then the safest place to be is with the Lord, after all "The name of the LORD is a strong tower; the righteous man runs into it and is safe" (Prov. 18:10 ESV).

This is part three of my series based "15 invitations by Jesus to come" as written about in Jane Rubietta's book Come Closer.

Looking at 2021

Each year I start with a blog post about the coming year. Most years we have some idea of what is coming up. We humans like predictability, we like to plan and to organise (or most of us do, to varying degrees). The missionary life seems to have more than the average amount of planning attached to it. We often tend to think in larger blocks of time. We have to answer questions like: When are we next going on home assignment? When does your visa expire? When will you next visit your family? Which country will your children go to school/university?

These are not small decisions and require planning ahead and often painfully detailed levels of negotiation and organisation, much more than just an ordinary family holiday a couple of hours drive away. Not to mention doing this on a small budget, so careful financial planning is also needed.

However, as we face up to 2021, we find ourselves with more questions than answers. In our case we've got a normal life-change (son graduating from high school) that is complicated by the fact that we don't live and work in our passport country and that he's not our youngest son. And that's even before you consider that it's an understatement to say that international travel is not easy at the moment. (Australia is reluctant, not just to let people in, but to let nationals out!)

We'd hoped to take a family trip to Australia mid-year to visit family and close friends, but that may not happen. What will probably happen in the coming 13 months is that I'll travel with our middle son to Australia and spend time getting him settled there. We're anticipating that will be sometime between July this year and January next year. High school finishes for him in early June. What happens after that for him is a big unknown. If he goes on to university in Australia, that won't start until Feb 2022, so he's got some time there to fill. How? We don't know. Like many young men his age, he has no idea what he wants to do next. Like not so many young men his age, he has extra challenges, including the challenge of moving to a country he's rarely lived in, yet is a citizen of.

Our youngest son is currently in Year 10 and wants to graduate from his current school. We want that too. So the plan is that David and I, with our youngest son will continue to live and work in Japan until June 2023. After that, home assignment and probably returning to Japan just as a couple a year later!

Those are the big rocks of 2021. Many smaller things that make up the year are also hard to see. Although, I think I can fairly safely say that work-wise I will:

• continue as the managing editor of Japan Harvest magazine
• continue as the social media manager for OMF Japan (after January)
• in January I'm focussing on a new role: facilitator for an OMF workshop called Pre Home Assignment Workshop
• I've been invited to teach a session in March at an online writing workshop for OMF missionaries (first time to do this at an OMF International-run workshop, I've run and taught at several writing retreats here in Japan)

What else the year will hold for work, I have no idea! Though I do know that, for us, there are no OMF Japan conferences planned and no in-person international meetings/conferences/trainings. We've learnt from this year that these need to go online, or on hold! One of our international leaders, who's also a talented writer, wrote about 2020 here. He's dubbed it the year of the eraser! I would concur. Anything for this year is going on my physical calendars in pencil.

On the personal front, we're planning to camp in the last week of March with friends again. Details yet to be sorted out. As for mid-year holidays, that depends on whether we can get to Australia as a family or not. We'd really love to see our eldest son again (by then, it will be two years since we have), but at the moment, with compulsory hotel quarantine stay paid by us, that would cost us a lot more than we've got budgeted, and there's no guarantee we'd be able to get back to Japan in good time. That's not so much a problem for me (I can do my work from anywhere), but for a teacher and a Yr 11 student, that's a definite problem.  But who knows how things are going to change. Hotel quarantine might change, vaccines might change things, and goodness knows what else might change.

Of course we don't know what the future holds, we've never known that. Things could get much worse or another disaster land on top of us (but catastrophizing isn't a good path to take). But at this point it seems like our daily life in suburban Tokyo will not change much, even though the number of new cases of COVID-19 are increasing daily. We're personally living a pretty quiet life already, with limited time with other people, limited travel, and we're wearing masks whenever we are in close contact with others. The government has no powers to make us adhere to curfew-type rules like they did in Melbourne and other places around the world. It seems that CAJ will probably continue to meet in person unless the government tells them not to, but I think the government figured out last year that even in schools that are set up fairly well for distance learning, kids suffer (and most Japanese-based schools are not well set up for distance learning).

But of course, as we saw from 2020, things can change vastly from what we'd imagined, though negotiating our way through this particular pandemic is getting slightly easier in terms of what we know. The big changes that happened last year were largely because we didn't know much about the new disease (back in February we didn't know much about it all, like, "How long is its incubation period?" "Are masks effective in preventing it?" and "How easily is it passed on via things we touch?"). And, for example, school administrators also didn't know much about how to run a school in a pandemic. 

We've since learned a lot, globally, about what things can be done online and what is harder to do in that fashion. We've learned a lot about thinking outside the box, about finding different ways to do things, ways that seemed too hard because we'd never done them before. These are good things. 

But the huge move to being online has marginalised even more people. Those who can't afford "unlimited" internet access, those who can't afford electronic devices at all, and those who have intellectual limitations that don't allow them to function well online. Not to mention those who are functionally illiterate. All these people have even less of a voice now than they once did. That's a great tragedy. It's also a tragedy that millions have lost their jobs or their source of steady income, not to mention the millions who have lost their lives (yes, the current number who've died worldwide is creeping close to two million) and the many millions who have lost loved ones. Pausing a moment to remember this...

But I digress from my stated theme.

So, what are my plans for 2021? I plan to continue doing much of what I have been:

• looking after myself and my household as best I can,
• taking care to look out for others who are within my circle of influence—keeping my eyes open for opportunities to serve them and others further afield, and
• working to the best of my ability in all the tasks that are mine to do.

Always keeping this in mind: "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters" (Colossians, 3:23 NIV).

University for our son

This is another couple of questions that we're repeatedly answering:

"What is your eldest son going to do after he finishes school?" "If he goes to uni, will it be in Japan?"

I took this at our alma mater back in August
at their Open Day, when we spent time
investigating the answers to some of the
questions about "what next" for our boys.

So glad you asked. Our working plan is as follows:

• 28 June 2015 Return to Japan
• August 2015 School (Christian Academy in Japan or CAJ) starts for everyone, barring me :-)
• June 2017 Our eldest son graduates from CAJ
• July 2017-Jan 2018 He gets some kind of employment in Japan
• Feb 2018 Our eldest son starts uni in Brisbane (he's interested in engineering and maths), probably boarding with someone.
• June 2018 The rest of us return to Brisbane for a year. Our son may or may not live with us at this time.
• June 2019 We return to Japan and repeat a similar pattern, with our middle son graduating two years later and then our youngest graduating in 2023. (All the boys want to graduate from CAJ.)

I hesitate to write this out in black and white like this because it makes it seem all set in concrete. Of course anything could change, but we've found that it helps us (and others who ask about these things), if we can at least have a sketch of a plan in our heads to work with. It especially helps our boys' stability if they know the general plan of what's likely to be coming up in the longer term.

So people who are shocked that we're already talking to them about dates in May this year might be floored by such long-term thinking. But it really is just a part of life for us now. We've been encouraged from early on by our organisation to think ahead, especially with regards to schooling.

We regularly pray about our future, about all the above and more. Our future is in God's hands and we pray we'll be submissive to whatever He calls us to do, whether it fits the above or not. At the same time we're mindful of being wise and planning ahead.

Where?

The chief confusion for people is about the location of further education for our boys. Yes, we intend to send our boys back to Australia for higher education. 

Reason one is that it is the cheapest option. Anywhere else in the world and they are considered International Students. Here they will be Australians and can benefit from lower fees. Not to mention that they won't have visa problems here.

Reason two is that we have networks here. Finding accommodation will be easier. They have some knowledge of the area. They'll even have a home church, if they wish to worship there, where they won't have to start from Ground Zero in terms of making relationships.

The inevitable question following that is about how difficult it will be for non-Australian educated children to apply to uni. We've investigated this too, and as far as we can see it will not be too challenging an issue. Queensland universities have lots of students coming from other educational systems. They will take the marks of our boys, along with their SAT scores (standardised test scores, something like OPs) and come up with an equivalent value that will allow them to apply. A little bit more complex than if they'd grown up here, but not too bad. Much easier than applying to US colleges, that each require individual applications including essays!

This conversation, which we've had multiple times, is getting a little tired. But that is part of the job too. We have a lot of conversations multiple times during our year of home assignment. By the end we'll be very glad to return to doing the work we've spent a year talking about.

If I can just keep remembering that it's great that people are interested in our lives and the lives of our boys, I can keep a positive attitude towards answering the same questions over and over. But I do treasure the times when we get a unique question, or one that makes me think harder than usual.

Waiting

I'm feeling a bit at sea again today. I think I'm in a bit of a trough between peaks of excitement. There's wrestling, of course, the next meet is tomorrow night. But also coming up is: 

• the changing of bedrooms on the weekend (see yesterday's post), 
  
• an entertaining night on Friday to look forward to (the Seniors put on their annual Talent Show fundraiser for their March trip to Thailand), 
• and a fun Australia Day gathering on Sunday evening.

Plus I'm waiting. I've got someone interested in taking on the Managing Editor's position. Yay! But she and her husband are taking some time to consider it. I'm waiting.

I'm also waiting for a number of other things: people to get back to me on various questions related to the publication projects I'm working on, and waiting for the next round of submissions to come in for the magazine (due next Friday).

Then there's longer-term waiting to 

• begin packing up,
• know what will happen with this house, and our car,
• find out where we'll be living in Australia and what car we'll be driving, 
• find out how our boys fit into life there, and
• know what this next phase of our lives will look like.

I tend to thrive a little on excitement and the adrenaline of wrestling is clearly messing with my brain, but obviously our upcoming transition is beginning to work havoc as well.

There are things I could be or should be working on, but I'm really having trouble working up the enthusiasm to do so. Grrr. It's time to head to the gym and have lunch. Perhaps after that I'll feel more motivated.