Day 17: Bega to Dalgety

I didn’t want to get up this day. It was the first day of Australia’s four-day national long weekend: Easter (Friday to Tuesday). This weekend is traditionally a time that many people go away, and often engage in outdoor activities like camping, so  many services are closed this weekend.

I'd gone to sleep the night before hoping that today might be when we could find somewhere to visit a dentist. The problem we encountered in searching using Google Maps was that most places either were marked as usual operating hours on Friday, or there was a note that there was uncertainty about the hours due to the public holidays. Because we didn't find out this was potentially a dental problem until after most clinics closed for the long weekend, we didn't even get the chance to call clinics to find out if they were open, or if they knew of somewhere that was. This morning I even called Canberra Hospital to see if they knew of somewhere...but they did exactly what we'd been doing—Googled it, and came up with possibilities, but none of them ended up being open. 

So we ended up getting exactly nowhere in terms of making a plan. In the end we just carried on with the plan we'd had before: to spend the next two nights on a farm in the highlands near Dalgety on the Snowy River, about 80 km by road from Australia's highest mountain (Mt Kosciuszko).*

I didn't want to get out of bed. I was in pain, had nausea, and had difficulty eating (chewing and opening my mouth were both painful). But checkout time approached and I just pushed myself into that vehicle. I was drowsy during that journey because I also hadn't been sleeping well. Thankfully I didn't need to drive.

The landscape was amazing, though. It changed from being usual "great dividing range" forest to a weird brown, barren land (see the photos). Turns out this is a naturally dry area in a rain shadow. It was weird.

Our hosts were very friendly, in fact, it was hard to stop them talking. I felt terrible and not at all like socialising, sadly! It was a strange place to stay, but also a peaceful one where we saw lots of sky and two beautiful sunsets. Nearby were two other sets of campers, but not so close that we needed to interact with them. Strangely here was a flush toilet sitting on top of a nearby hill. We were not connected to electricity, and basically self sufficient, so it was weird to have access to a flush toilet (though you had to manually fill the tank from a container).

I was thankful to have been able to make the journey there and then to rest, but was still concerned about what the "next steps" should be: should we go back to Canberra, press on to Melbourne, or something else? And was my condition getting worse (swelling in the neck area is always concerning). No answers were easily forthcoming and this overshadowed the two nights and one day we spent at this place.

*At least the highest mountain on the continent, there are others higher in the Australian territory of Antarctia.

My writing journey

And to demonstrate how fried my brain is, I'm also
sharing a photo that is completely unrelated to this
post. But it is my most favourite sunrise experience.
Photo taken when we were camping on the banks of
the largest lake in Japan several years ago. It was
an accidental sunrise sighting: I'd merely gotten up to
use the toilet facilities (at 4am) and found this outside
our tent!

This is the second week that I'm helping facilitate a workshop for our organisation. It helps workers prepare to go back to their home country to connect up with those who've supported them and, very often, report back about the work they've been doing. This week we're focusing on spoken communication, in particular, a modular system of putting a presentation together that involves telling two-minute stories. I've had the privilege of sharing some examples of stories from my own life with the participants. Here's one I shared today, and I thought you might be interested to read and a portion of my journey:

Do you enjoy hearing people’s stories? Most people do. I have the privilege of working with people to share their stories.

Early in 2007, I was questioning my calling as a missionary. I spent most of my days at home with three kids under 8. Not just that, but I barely knew anyone locally besides the Japanese mums at my son’s kindergarten. We’d moved to Tokyo less than 3 years earlier so that my husband could follow his calling to teach missionary kids. I was happy for him, but I found myself without the capacity to do much—not only was I busy with three young boys, but my Japanese was pretty terrible.

I asked God: why did you bring me to Japan and yet I can’t do anything like what I imagined a missionary could do? That was a turning point.

That year David gave me a CD from a guest speaker at the school, one of the songs called “Seize the Day”, spoke to my heart: I should be seeking what God had for me to do that was in line with my gifting, limitations, and life stage. A colleague volunteered to take care of our kids so I could go to a three-day missionary women’s retreat where the theme was writing your story. By mid-year I‘d started exploring the writing world. I’d joined a small international writing group, entered a writing competition, and wrote an article about one of our experiences in Japan. Later that same year I did a one-on-one online writing course with an experienced Christian writer.

Three years later, in 2010, I went to an OMF writing workshop in Hong Kong. There I realised that my heart’s desire was not to write a book, but to tell the stories of ordinary people who happen to be missionaries. Someone prayed at that time that God would bring people across my path whose stories I could tell. Forward twelve years to now, and I spend most of my time working on missionaries’ stories as an editor. As a magazine editor and OMF Japan’s social media manager I’ve helped get hundreds of stories out to thousands of people. I’m so thankful that God has led me to serve him in this unique way.

Memory lane

Yesterday I took a different destination for a long ride. I had a language exchange meeting at our usual spot, but instead of taking the train two stops, I rode my bike. A 5.5k ride that took 24 minutes. It was a chilly start, but a beautiful blue-sky day with little wind.

After we chatted in Japanese and English for two hours we parted. I bought some lunch at a local convenience store (truly convenient and cheap—I spent less than AU$5) and rode to a place I used to know well: our old neighbourhood. We lived only 1.6k from the station, but I remember it was a long trek with three little boys.

You see we lived here from 2005 for four years, our youngest spent his babyhood and toddler years here. Our eldest finished kindergarten, started Japanese school, and transitioned to CAJ when we lived here. Our middle son completed all three years of Japanese kindergarten while living here. 

You can see our old house in the centre of the photo, the first place we lived in Tokyo. 

When we first moved here all the newer houses in the foreground (and another 30+ besides) weren't there. This was all a mini forest that we loved looking out upon. All our five main rooms looked out on green and we couldn't believe that this was Tokyo.

That all changed within a year when the owner of the "forest" died and his family redeveloped the land to build many houses. It was very sad, and a story that remains dear to our hearts.

But yesterday I took time to sit in a tiny park created in the middle of that "new" development as I ate my lunch and pondered those years.

They were crazy years, we had a baby, 2 y.o. and 6 y.o. when we moved there. We knew almost no one in Tokyo and jumped straight into the Japanese schooling system without any foreigners nearby. CAJ, where my husband began working less than a month after we moved in, was a 6 km ride or 20 minutes drive away. We knew almost no one there too, and it took a long time for me to get to know people at CAJ because I got over there only infrequently.

As I mentioned above, our eldest son had a lot of change during those four years and it wasn't pretty. Getting to and from the kindergarten one kilometre away twice a day wasn't pretty, as I tried to walk at least once a day, but, well, I didn't have the most cooperative kids (and they were heavy, so I didn't try to ride or put them all in one stroller). Parenting wasn't pretty.

This is the place where I learned that I didn't really like teaching English, and none of us liked home schooling. It's where we battled through a singularly nasty gastro bug that took down not just all of us, but David's sister and new husband, all within 36 hours! Where I accepted the gift of a pack of toilet paper from a kindergarten mum who was concerned for us.

But there are many good memories from this time too. My best Japanese friend (who, incidentally, I'd just had coffee with that morning) I met at the kindergarten on our middle son's first day. She's been a gift from God!

During the four years of living here God took me from a place of not knowing why he called me to Japan, to seeing a light at the end of the tunnel (in the shape of writing and editing). This is the house where I started writing this blog.

And of course, we've got good memories of our kids from those four years. This is where two of them learned to ride bikes without trainer wheels. Where my eldest son said, "I love your costume," when I came down in a skirt after a long, cold winter. It's the place where we used to talk about "Guruguru Yama" (round and round mountain), a man-made hill in the nearby former leprosy colony where the local kids would play.

This is where we learnt so much about Japanese culture. And where I learnt more about depending on God when my human resources had petered out.

All these, and more, were the thoughts that I pondered yesterday as I sat and ate my lunch. It was a pleasant journey down memory lane. A thankful time. A time to remember what God has brought us through and how he shaped us for the next part of the journey.

This is a nearby baseball field. We used to go and play here when being inside
got to be too much. It is part of a much larger fenced-area that used to be a leprosy colony.
A few times we played cricket here, sometimes while baseball practise was going on at the
other end of the field, much to the bewilderment of the baseball players!

Social media workshop in Manila

Seven years ago this week I was in Hong Kong participating in a week-long writer's workshop. This is one thing I wrote on my blog:

Even better than reading our writing, we got to pray for one another and be prayed for. I confessed my struggle to find a way forward from here. My vision of what I'd like to do with my writing, but the difficulty of getting there. I long to tell the stories of ordinary women who happen to be missionaries. It was encouraging to have someone pray that God would bring people across my path whose stories I could tell. We'll see what becomes of this passion. 

Eleven months before that I was at a magazine editing workshop in Manila. It was still a year before I started working with Japan Harvest magazine. This is where I was at (from my blog):

My future with Japan Harvest is not totally clear. Probably it will be an evolving role. Mission work is different from a paid job; boundaries and responsibilities are often less clear and often it is up to you how much you pour into something. I am excited, however - magazine editing is something I definitely have an interest in and has much room for learning and growth. I can see the current editor needs help and we'll see how much I can do.

Both events were significant preparation for what was to come. I wrote a post in March about my journey of becoming a magazine editor and managing editor leading a team.

I'm not writing other people's stories, but I am helping a lot of people get their stories out there, as an editor. Interesting indeed!

Now my journey includes another curve that I didn't anticipate. As I wrote earlier this month, I've been tasked with starting a new blog for OMF Japan. It's well on its way. I'm also now an administrator for the OMF Japan Facebook page.

And in ten days I'll be winging my ways back to Manila, this time for a three-day Social Media and Web workshop, representing OMF Japan. The invitation said:

It will be an opportunity to learn about a range of different media and communication tools, how to use them together as a part of a cohesive mobilisation strategy and measure progress.

Learning more about social media! Sounds like fun, right? A couple of Japanese friends were shocked to hear about this. I explained that it is common for a mission like OMF to use social media to spread the word about what we do. The trick, apparently, is doing it with a cohesive strategy...

I'm not OMF Japan's mobilisation coordinator, nor am I overall responsible for media and communications, but I was the available party and have my toe enough in the water. Not unusual for me: it seems like I never really fit these workshops' "perfect audience". I'm usually on the edge:

2009 (Manila) Magazine editing: I wasn't yet a magazine editor, though planning to be. It was useful preparation, though.
2010 (Hong Kong) Writing: much of it was related to writing books, which I had no intention of doing and made me unusual among the participants. However it was a useful workshop.
2016 (Bangkok) Teams: most of the teams they envisaged were church planting teams that physically worked in the same place. Not what my teams are like, but still a useful workshop to think about leadership.

So, we shall see how a social media and web workshop goes. I'm sure that it will be helpful (for me as well as for OMF Japan). And if past experiences are anything to show by, God probably has things in mind that I don't know about yet.

In the meanwhile, I'll continue to hang out on the edge and see what comes next!