Settling into Australia again

It's amazing to me to recognise that it's already a week since we left Japan! 

What has re-entry been like this time?

Very smooth. We have, in fact, been in Australia quite recently: three times in the last 18 months! Once for a wedding, once for a new granddaughter, and once for a holiday. So it doesn't feel much like we've been away since our last home assignment two years ago. When I remember what a stressful thing home assignments have been in the past, this seems very easy. 

We haven't had to buy new phones or sign up for internet, we haven't had to find and furnish a new house, we haven't had to enrol our kids in a new school or settle them into a land that they hardly know, and we haven't had to find a new car. We're very blessed, for about half of these 11 weeks, to be able to occupy part of the bottom floor of our friends' house and share the use of one of their cars.

Any shocks?

Not really, not yet...re-entry shocks mostly happen when you've been away a longer period. They usually comprise of: 

incremental changes within society and friends that add up over the years + 

incremental changes within ourselves while we're away that we don't notice +

big life changes (e.g. health changes, lifestyle changes, family changes).

Because we've been in Australia four times in the last three years, most of the changes are still incremental, not shocking. And none of our immediate family or closest friends have endured large changes since we saw them last.

Starting (and finishing) faster

The biggest difference is that we've had to charge into other home assignment jobs at a faster rate. We finished work on Tuesday and left on Wednesday. In the last three days we've already had our eyes checked and started on other medical checks. We've got our first speaking engagement this Sunday and an open "day" on Saturday. We had done some work on the former before we finished work in Japan and have been finessing that presentation these last couple of days. Which is a good thing, because June contains at least 12 more official or casual engagements.

Possibly the biggest challenge of this home assignment is making sure we take time to rest, especially because we don't have much transition time at the other end either: within 24 hours of our last speaking engagement we'll be on a plane and within a couple of days we'll both be back at work in Japan. 

It's definitely not what I would advise a younger colleague to do. 

While I'm in Australia I'm still carrying some responsibilities from Japan. This morning I was emailing with our magazine team and this afternoon I have a 90-minute meeting with a new OMF team in Japan and David's keeping his eye on school and OMF emails also, hoping that nothing major arises. 

We're used to a fairly regular 8–5, Monday to Friday routine. Home assignment always challenges that, with weekends and evenings being the most common time we're officially "on the job".

Thankfully we have two weeks of holiday organised in the middle of all this craziness, much needed breaks!

Meanwhile, I'm enjoying slower mornings (not up at 6 am most mornings like we are in Japan), more time with my husband, and more flexible time to spend with friends and family. And time to absorb the Australian ambiance on a front verandah!

Identity: shifting and changing

It's been a great joy to be able to come back to Australia this month and interact with our kids in a different way, to start laying different memories and also to see them coping with day-to-day life as independent adults (one of the long-term goals, in the end, of parenting). Next week we'll also spend a few days with our eldest son and his wife, and we're really looking forward to that too.

Throw back to me in Singapore:
discovering I could do
tourism in a foreign country
on my own.

On Sunday I was talking to someone about these last 12 months and realised that kids leaving home is part of an ever changing journey with our identity. My friend has been a grandma almost as long as I've been a mum and related a story from just the previous week about her journey as a grandma. Her youngest grandchild is 10 and my friend realised that this young lady doesn't need her grandma in the same way as she used to, this realisation made her sad. Her role is changing again. 

My role is changing too, the years of having kids under my roof all the time has gone and it's been time to think again about who am I in this new season.

Change in roles is disorientating. Change of a role as intimate and lengthy as a mother is potentially even more so. I am not only my children's mother, but being a mum 24/7 for so many years (nearly half my life) means that my identity has somewhat become entwined with my kids. I expect that that's similar for anyone who cares for someone long-term. 

Last year I was talking with a single lady in her 60s and blurted out something like, "It's not as if I wasn't a person before I had kids." She thought that was a preposterous statement, but was kind enough not to point out who I was talking to (a non-person, if having kids makes you a person!). But sometimes it does feel that way, because that's how intertwined in your children's lives you become while raising them, even when the relationship is fairly healthy.

While pondering this topic I found this interesting article called "When caring changes or ends". It covers things like the feelings you might have at such a juncture, also reflecting, adjusting to new routines, and being gentle with yourself. Helpful stuff, even if it isn't especially about kids leaving home!

I really didn't expect to still be adjusting to this, more than a year after our children left home, but it seems I am. It's a new season, but not as simple as just turning a page into a new chapter, the stuff that's gone before is not forgotten.

Eight years ago, a year before my first born left home, I wrote this in a blog post:

For a time you may feel as though you've lost touch with who you were. But in the end you'll discover that actually, your old self is being changed into something new. If you're a Christian you can be sure that God will use this experience to make you more like him, if you're willing. (from here)

It's a good reminder that it's just another segment of our journey, I've gone through many changes thus far in my life that have changed me, and there are more to come. I've been changed by the journey and I can embrace that.

We're grateful for international travel, even though it's discombobulating

Massive leaves in Singapore

It's been two weeks since I last wrote here, but it feels like a lot longer because of all the things that I've done in that time. July will also be a strange month, but I don't think it will be as hectic...for starters, we have no plane tickets booked for the month!

But we're glad to be in Australia for a bit now (till early August). We've already enjoyed spending in-person time with our younger two sons, with some close friends, and with our home church. We're not here because of any particular crisis or event, but rather, because we've "showed up" because we can. David's got a long summer break, and I work from home so I can be mobile. So we've seized the opportunity to be in Australia this month.

Singapore: tall buildings

Since I last wrote, we've had adventures in multiple airports and three countries, so it's hard to know what to write about all that. We've enjoyed the people we met and opportunities we've had. It's been several years since I've had the chance to go to other countries (other than Australia) and meet with colleagues serving in other places, so that was a good opportunity.

In Singapore we had a couple of days rest before coming back to Australia. We tried to do a bit of tourist stuff, but had failed to plan ahead and purchase a SIM card that would give us local rates, so it was challenging trying to get around. But we did get to see a bit, and got our heads around their trains (if not their buses). David had a cold—which I also got, but not until after we got to Australia—so that clipped our wings a little.

View from our hotel room in Singapore

One of the many stunning flowers 
in Singapore's botanical gardens:
the Showy medinilla or Rose grape.

Butterfly orchid

In some ways we feel at home in both Japan and Australia and south-east Asia isn't as strange to us as it was in the mid-90s when we both encountered it for the first time. Additionally, this visit to Australia hasn't been preceded by months of packing up and saying goodbyes, but it's still come with it's own "transition" stress. 

Last week we were very tired, yet still trying to "do stuff" like medical and optical appointments, and seeing our kids. And making mistakes. The biggest one was me determining, last Wednesday, that we could get together with our two younger sons to watch a locally famous footy match at one of their houses. Except I got the date wrong! The match isn't happening until tomorrow night...but no one questioned my wisdom (I had most of the details right and apparently am usually pretty reliable on facts). It wasn't until just before the usual starting time of the match that someone messaged to say I'd gotten the date wrong! Nonetheless it was a "happy mistake" and we enjoyed hanging out together for several hours—a new thing as we figure out how to visit our adult sons.

Moon orchid!

A good measure of how settled I am is my ability to manage menu planning and grocery shopping. As we're staying with friends, I'm not in charge of very much, but have planned to make or contribute to several meals or events in the coming days and today went shopping for some of that. It was messy, not at all efficient. The grocery store was my local for the year we last lived here and wasn't too overwhelming, but getting my head around planning has been a bit more challenging than I'd like to admit. Especially when you consider that I'm supposed to be back at work (working remotely this month), making various responsible editing and writing decisions!

This week, in addition to catching up on work that I haven't been able to attend to in the last fortnight, we have various appointments and times to catch up with family and a few others. We're enjoying this opportunity to spend the month here and looking forward to what else it brings.

Our pizza party (fake State of Origin party)

Loving Australia's gum trees and soft
end-of-winter-day light.

Neurodivergence and transition

This week I've seen a couple of articles from A Life Overseas website about neurodiverse missionary kids. It's a journey we've walked and I‘ve written about (here), so I was interested to see what these articles had to say about it. And it wasn't too much different to what I'd written, though obviously not in first person and thinking in more detail of a broader audience that will encounter many different cultures.

A photo from 2017 with our three guys

I didn't find the first article all that helpful, though someone who knows nothing about neurodivergence would probably find it a good entry point into thinking about their kid (or someone else's) who just don't seem to fit or find things difficult that the rest of us take in our stride. First article: How to Notice Neurodiversity in Third Culture Kids

The second article "How to Help Neurodiverse TCKs in Transition" came out today and it hit very close to home. Transition is one of the big issues that our kids struggled with. It's shaped how we've raised our children and the decisions we've made about moves, holidays, home assignments, how we've used our home, how much hospitality and travel we engaged in, etc.

One particular story comes to mind. In June 2018, we moved to Australia for six months home assignment. We knew that one of our teenage sons needed to see a psychologist, so tried to work ahead to make that happen, because in the end six months isn't that long and could easily be taken up with a waiting list. Our habit has been to find a mid-way place to stop between Japan and Brisbane as we move back—that gives us a short time to breathe, after finishing everything in Japan before diving into all that's required for settling a family in Australia. It never feels like enough time, it also usually feels chaotic and the "when can we get settled" feelings come over us.

Anyway, that year we decided to stop in Sydney for a few days. I found low-cost accommodation for a few days with a mission and we were making the best of it. No one was in a good condition, however. We were all tired, unsettled, and not at all comfortable with our unfamiliar surroundings. The boys were facing six months without their friends or classmates, familiar surroundings or belongings, and without their usual routines. Everything, except each other, was different.

In the midst of this especially messy time, I got a phone call from the psychologist's office. I was literally standing in the midst of open suitcases in a hotel-type room in Sydney. It was the kind of routine admission phone call that they make. The admissions officer asked me a bunch of standard questions and I remember laughing out loud at one that read something like "Between 1 and 10, 1 being in good place and 10 being really not good, how would you say your child's mental wellbeing is today?" I tried to explain why I was laughing, and she brushed it off, asking just to answer anyway...of course he wasn't in a good way that day!

I have many, many stories. In the blog post I wrote two years ago (first link in today's post), I wrote these words:

We've got many sad memories of the difficulty of getting our kids seated in a crowded [unknown] church, of awkward whispered conversations with people who assumed our kids would join the Sunday School, or even a child who refused to get out of the car and come into church at all. And then the difficulties of staying in other people's homes: relatives, friends, and strangers. So many unspoken expectations surround situations like that, including conversation, politeness, and even that two children will share a room willingly. And all the while, feeling like our kids and observations of our parenting are somehow part of a report card on our fitness as missionaries. That's a lot of uncomfortable pressure.

Overall, though, we've been blessed with being able to provide a lot of stability and minimal transition through most of our sons' growing up years, though, and for that, I'm very grateful.

I think that one reason that we are especially happy in our new season with our boys living independent of us, is that we no longer have to drag them through the sorts of transition that litter a missionaries career. They have much more control over their lives now they don't live with us. And we are free to make decisions without the complication of deciding how these decisions would work for the whole family, how well our kids would cope with whatever transition our decision/s would inflict on them.

All that being, said, probably our kids have ended up more flexible just because they had no choice about it. It was painful at time, for all of us, but probably it has helped them grow as individuals and hopefully they are more resilient because we haven't surrounded them with cotton wool. Like most things, too much is bad, but so is too little. Hopefully we've landed somewhere in the middle, by God's grace.

Please reach out to me directly if you'd like to talk more on this subject. I find it's easier to be more open about our personal experiences in a private conversation than it is on this public forum.

What's my purpose now?

Tomorrow is the one-year anniversary since our role as parents-with-kids-living-in-our-house ended. Yes, "empty nesting" began. It's kinda hard to believe it's been a whole year, but then I look back at what we (and they) have done in those 52 weeks, and it's easier to believe :D 

It turns out that 24 years and 9 months is a long time. That's how long we had children living with us. And changing to not having any children at home anymore takes time to adjust to. Physically we've adjusted well to it—we like our little apartment and I've even managed to adjust my shopping and cooking to more appropriate quantities. But mentally and emotionally, it takes longer. Part of that is asking: What's my purpose now?

In quieter moments I find myself circling back to this question, like a dog with a bone. So, I searched my blog, as I often do, to see what I've written in the past. This one floored me a bit: 

Eight years ago I wrote this:

Because, as a mum, children take up so much of your time over so many years, it is easy to fall into the trap of feeling that that it is your purpose, your main reason for being on this earth, and that there is nothing else worth doing. Yet, it is not so. I had a life before I had kids. (They're always surprised to hear that.) It's going to take some rediscovering, but I'll have it again—a life without kids in it on a daily basis. After 24 years of parenting it will take some getting used to, but I'm already dreaming about the possibilities. (from here)

Good to know I had a little bit of foresight.

And I also wrote this:

Someone else who has written about slowing down recently is our Japan Field Director. He's been battling two types of blood cancer for about a year now. He's currently recuperating at home after a particularly rigorous round of chemo and a stem-cell transplant. He's a high achieving fellow, who, by his own words, used to "whizz...around like a hare". These days life for him is more like the famous tortoise. Here are some of the words from a Facebook post of his earlier in the month:

All of this has got me thinking about what it means to slow down. And it has got me thinking about what the Bible has to say about the pace of life. Certainly when you ponder the Bible generally, there are many examples of ‘waiting’ and ‘perseverance’, topics I've explored in earlier musings. The word ‘patience’ or ‘patiently’ comes up not a few times. But when I thought of the word ‘slow’ I couldn't think of many specific examples apart from a few well-known verses. So, the Lord is slow to anger. In the same way, we should be slow to anger and slow to speak (but quick to listen!) Peter speaks about slowness towards the end of his second letter in the context of time - with the Lord a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like a day. 

As I considered this more, I came across this translation of Jeremiah 2:25. It's from The Message, so a paraphrase but nonetheless it makes the point very graphically - “Slow down. Take a deep breath. What's the hurry? Why wear yourself out? Just what are you after anyway? But you say, 'I can't help it. I'm addicted to alien gods. I can't quit.'” We may not be addicted to ‘alien gods’ but could we simply be addicted to activity and busyness? And all of that could just be a ‘chasing after the wind’ as one of the Bible’s wisdom books puts it. Or as one of the Psalms says - ‘in vain you rise early and stay up late’. There are quite a few ‘ouch’ passages in the Bible when we measure them against what our daily lives are actually like.

Many of us these days seem to live life simply moving from one thing to the next with little time in between to catch our breath, far less having time to reflect, meditate or even spend some unrushed time with God. And that can creep into family life, church life, corporate life, organisational life. There is so much to keep up with. But that begs some questions. Why do we need to keep up with the things we feel we need to keep up with? And are the things that we strive to keep up with the things we really need to be keeping up with at all? One valuable lesson that can be learned in the slow lane is simply to be able to take stock, reassess and consider what the priorities in life really ought to be. 

None of this is to say we should be lazy or live a life of constant leisure. There is plenty the Bible can teach us about that. But for a follower of Jesus, what should mark us out as different, what are the things that day by day should be core to our lives? Certainly we would want to serve him wholeheartedly and live our lives in a way that brings glory to his name. But while we might desire to be ‘about the Lord’s work’ to use an older phrase, that does not seem to me to mean that we should simply be dashing around in a constant blur of activity. As I have this time in the slow lane, I sometimes wonder whether as Christians, as churches, as mission organisations, we can easily get off track because we are so busy and active that we can actually no longer see the wood for the trees. And I know that as I say that, I am gradually needing to remove the plank from my own eye (if a tortoise can have a plank in its eye). Being forced to slow down is teaching me many things. I just hope I can apply these lessons well if I ever reach the point once again when I am healthy, energy-filled and able to be active. Help me God even then to be still and know that you are God.

The colleague who wrote that sadly never reached the point of being healthy and energy-filled, he transitioned to heaven about six weeks later.

A book on my shelf that I've picked up again recently, Heading Home by Naomi Reed, has some interesting thoughts about purpose too. The book is about the period in her family's life after they returned from several years of serving in Nepal as missionaries and were trying to figure out "what next". 

Lord, there are times in our lives when we feel purposeless. The dream is over. We don't even know what to do any more, or why. We keep coming up with new ideas but they don't really compare with the dream we used to have, or the life we used to live. . . But Lord, when we feel like this—lost and directionless and lonely—please remind us that we find our living in you; we find our focus in you. Remind us that being in you is enough and that you are our focus no matter what country we live in . . . for you discern our going out and our lying down, you hem us in behind and before. You're the reason we get out of bed. You're the reason  we make breakfast and stir the porridge . . . and every single day, as we settle here on the far side of the sea, your right hand will hold us fast. (p. 20)

A related question to "what is my purpose" is "what is my worth". I recently encountered this song by Keith and Kristyn Getty:

My Worth is Not In What I Own

My worth is not in what I own

Not in the strength of flesh and bone

But in the costly wounds of love

At the cross

My worth is not in skill or name

In win or lose, in pride or shame

But in the blood of Christ that flowed

At the cross

I rejoice in my Redeemer

Greatest treasure, wellspring of my soul

I will trust in Him, no other

My soul is satisfied in Him alone

As summer flowers, we fade and die

Fame, youth, and beauty hurry by

But life eternal calls to us

At the cross

I will not boast in wealth or might

Or human wisdom’s fleeting light

But I will boast in knowing Christ

At the cross

Two wonders here that I confess

My worth and my unworthiness

My value fixed, my ransom paid

At the cross

This stands out here: my value is fixed, therefore it won't be changed by whether not I am busy, whether or not I have people in my life who need me on a daily basis, by whether I am sick or energetic, by whether I think I'm doing something worthwhile, or by what other people think, whether I am youthful or old. My worth is in knowing Christ. I am unworthy of such an honour, but it secures my worth, and nothing changes that.

And so, my job is to remind myself of these truths regularly, and especially when I start feeling wobbly. To ask God to help me keep my eyes fixed on eternity, to find my confidence and refuge in Christ.

 

 

Coming "home"

The day after our son's wedding we farewelled our two younger sons as they flew back to Brisbane and then worshipped with my parents and two close friends at the church of our son and new daughter-in-law. They, of course, weren't there. 

We briefly farewelled my parents after church. When I say bye to someone I often mentioned something about when I'll see them again; this time we were able to say: see you later this year. Our plan is to visit for a short time in south-east Queensland during July. Mum asked if we had dates and I laughed. Despite the blog post I'd shared the week before about looking forward to 2025, we'd barely thought beyond that weekend!

Home, with a new tablecloth!

Then had lunch with our friends and farewelled them. I wasn't ready for the farewells, but they happened anyway. We then gathered our stuff and left town, heading four hours north to Cairns. Australia is a huge place with long spaces inbetween many places (Tasmania being the exception to that). If you've been to our native land and haven't figured that out, then you haven't seen much of it! It was a tiring journey, but we listened to radio commentary of the Aussie women playing cricket against England. We cruised into a very quiet looking Cairns around dinner time, watched more cricket as we wound down in the evening, and crashed on the bed.

The next morning we were moving again: to the airport and back to a chilly Tokyo. The trickiest part was always going to be getting back home from the airport when we were so tired. We'd parked in long-term parking and once again cricket on the (internet) radio helped us on our journey! (Yes, we're cricket-mad, and not ashamed at all.) 

The most immediate culture shock we had was figuring out what speed to drive! Yep, we've driven for nearly 25 years in Japan and in 13 days forgot that most driving is slower in Japan than in Australia. Quickly sorted that and we were home in 1 ½ hours by about 8 pm. It felt odd, but also good to walk back into our apartment. It's at the same time still new-to-us and very home-like. We moved around like we were in a dream, reminding ourselves that the most urgent thing was being prepared for David to leave before 8 am the next morning (Tuesday) for work, and getting some sleep.

Some Christmas presents from our
sons that we received before
the wedding.

I predicted that it would take several days to get back into the groove, and that is exactly what happened. By Saturday we were exhausted and very thankful for a quiet day with nothing at all on the schedule.

Now those 13 days in Australia seem like a dream, except that every now and then there are reminders from our time there: like photos, messages from our new daughter-in-law, and things that we brought back with us. As usual, things have moved on in our absence, so it has been a delight to have a few friends here demanding to see photos from our time away!

So, we're going through the motions, but sometimes my thoughts and soul are still catching up with where my physical body is. It remains true that the last 12 months have contained much change for us, and I think I'm still finding my feet in this new phase of life. Please pray that I'll be patient with myself and people around me as I walk through this.

A new layer of being settled

On Monday I went to our organisation's monthly regional gathering on the other side of Tokyo. It was, as usual, a huge day. But also a really good one. In particular I was able to have four longer conversations with old friends and new. I'm an extrovert with a strong introvert shadow (at least that's what I was told 25 years ago). I love time alone, as well as spending time with people, but most value deeper conversations. Random memory: no one told me that on your wedding day that you shouldn't expect to have deep conversations with anyone of these precious people who you invite to share your special day, it was very disappointing.

Some of the conversations on Monday included questions about how well we were setting back into life in Japan. It's over four months since we returned now, and you might think that is a long time, but in fact we've been in transition for much of the last two years, and some of those changes were massive, so it takes time to resettle and adjust.

I was surprised to realise that during November I'd hit another level of "settledness". And I think that is mostly related to connectedness. During November several things happened. 

We also had time to set up our
Christmas decorations and tree
on Saturday. Doing that for the first
time in a new house is always
significant. We're particularly
enjoying the fairy lights in the
lounge room.

School

I've been able to be a useful part of several events at school, a place where I no longer hold the role of "mother of student" and wondered if I'd find a way to be part of the community.

1. School bazaar where we rented a table and not just sold stuff to happy customers, but got to catch up with old (and new) friends.

2. Wrestling. It's been a few minutes since I mentioned this here! And no, we no longer have a wrestler at school, but it turns out that I can still participate. Our school team has had several matches "at home" over the last few weeks and it's been fun to wander down (just 5 minutes on my bike), to cheer, and also catch up with old and new friends in the bleachers. This Saturday CAJ is hosting several schools at an all day tournament. David's running the event for the first time and I'm his assistant! I'm looking forward to working with him again these next couple of days.

3. Christmas concert. Last Thursday we went to the Christmas instrumental concert at school (yep, they have a choral one too). I love orchestral music, it was fun being part of the audience. But I unexpectedly found myself getting sentimental as I sat in the school gym. It's a place where so many of our family's important events have happened. Sporting events, yes, but also three high school graduations, and various other events. So many memories (am I getting old?). I ended up sitting next to someone else who has many memories. She worked with our eldest son when he was in Grades 3 and 4, in a period of life when he definitely was struggling. She was so happy to hear how things are for him now.

Church

Since we came back to Japan we've also been searching for a new church home and during November we found one. It's so good to be settled, not just in that decision, but also week-to-week knowing where we'd be attending the next Sunday. 2024 has been very unsettled. We've worshipped in 16 different churches this year, five of those were churches we visited to speak about our work, seven were churches we've visited in Japan in the last four months, and we also spent two months early in the year travelling on long-service-leave and at different localities each weekend.

This new church includes a number of people from some of our Japan "circles": school, parents of kids who were classmates of our boys, and missionaries I've met via my magazine work and retreats I've been on. David has a couple of the youth under his care this year at school and one of them is also on the wrestling team, so we've been able to get to know them a little there. This church has a tradition (as many churches in Japan do) of eating lunch together after worship. It's a BYO situation and we've been enjoying "breaking bread" with church members and gradually meeting more people. Sundays are becoming a big blessing.

We've also been riding to church, which is potentially good for our health, as it's further than we usually ride each week: about 18 km round trip. But that's a story for another day (navigation in Tokyo isn't easy on a bike).

So, in answer to the question: How are you settling? I think we've hit another level and are feeling pretty settled. Something I read today reminded me of the "Maslow's hierarchy of needs", a psychological theory that organised human needs into five categories in a triangle figure. The base level is physical needs like food, shelter, and rest; after that is safety needs; then love and belonging needs; esteem needs (need for respect, recognition and status); and finally self-actualization needs (to achieve one's full potential and be creative).

There is some truth to this. The basic idea is that the "lower" needs need to be fulfilled before the higher one's can be, however it's also true that people are usually partially satisfied and unsatisfied at any one time. And of course it doesn't factor faith in there, although you could say that trusting God for all your needs changes all this. However, it did strike me that some of my unsettledness could be related to struggling with belonging as well as changes in "status". Just something to mull over.

We're flying to Australia again in a month, so that's probably going to destabilise me again, but it's just a short visit (for our son's wedding, but hopefully include many more opportunities for deeper conversations with those we meet than ours did), and then we'll come back to our new home.

The Psalmist says it well:

Lord, you alone are my portion and my cup;
    you make my lot secure.
6 The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
    surely I have a delightful inheritance.
7 I will praise the Lord, who counsels me;
    even at night my heart instructs me. (Psalm 16:5–7 NIV)

 

Letting go makes room for new opportunities

I was chatting to a colleague the other day on a Zoom call. He noticed the piles of boxes behind me and asked about them, a little concerned that we still hadn't finished unpacking. I assured him that that wasn't the case and that these boxes were destined for the school's secondhand sale that was happening the next week. He knew about our quest to sell our oven, washing machine, and fridge, and commented that there was a significant theme in our lives recently: letting go.

It's true. We've had to let a lot of things go. In the last 18 months we've literally downsized from a three-bedroom house equipped for a five-person household, to an apartment equipped for two people. We've also moved countries twice in the last 16 months. Our move out of Australia included letting go of a number of things, as we also downsized there. When our two younger sons moved out in February we gave them a number of things that would be useful to them, but no longer useful to us. When we packed up in July this year we had to put away things that we enjoy, but can't take to Japan, and now might not see for a decade or more. Most of that stuff hasn't been hard to let go of. I think the hardest was the oven. Much of the rest of it was old and well-used, or had passed its "useful to us" date.

We had to say goodbye to two houses. One of which we'd lived in for 13 years and contained many memories—though we were happy to leave it in many ways as it was hard to heat and cool, and broken in various ways. The other one we only lived in for 12 months, but we were very fond of (we especially loved the deck).

Saying goodbye to stuff, though, has an upside: you get to say yes to other things. Like less stuff to look after. We're now able to live in a small apartment that requires less up-keep and takes a fraction of the time to clean and a fraction of the budget to heat and cool. And we now have a cute car that is easier to manoeuvre in the narrow streets of Japan.

Moving between countries means letting go of relationships too. Not as in ending relationships (at least not the closer friendships), but letting go of the intimacy that you get from attending the same church, living in the same community, or living only a few hours drive away. This has been an ongoing theme of our lives, ever since we first moved to Japan in 2000. This time we also had to let go of hosting our sons in person on Sunday afternoons/evenings.

I'm trying to grow lettuce from seed 
for the first time. I think I might have
sown too many seeds!

Other things we haven't so much "let go", but they've changed nonetheless. We're no longer a parents at school or at any sporting event. I'm no longer cooking or shopping for large appetites. But that's getting to be "old news" now, though my soul is still adjusting to it. Christmas is becoming imminent and we're aware that this will be the first time in 25 years that we've celebrated that day without any of our kids, and only the second time in 50+ years that we've celebrated without any family at all (aside from each other)...but again I mentioned that last time I wrote here.

It has been a season of letting go: it's worth continuing to acknowledge that. But also remember that letting go allows new things to happen, like the adventure we took last week to watch wheelchair rugby. We're embarking on a new adventure on Sundays too: a new church. If I look back at the four months since we arrived back in Japan, I can see evidence of all sorts of small opportunities we've been able to take up that were largely absent during the previous years of busy parenting. Only God knows where this new season post-"letting go" will take us.

A bit of couple fun

Every time we go to Australia for home assignment we have a debrief with a psychologist/counsellor. A few years ago they told us we were obviously good at working together, but probably needed to rediscover fun. Missionaries having fun?!? Yes, we need to!

And it was true that we'd fallen out of the habit of having fun as a couple. When the boys were younger we rarely went on dates. We first moved to Japan when we'd been married just three years, and we had a very busy toddler. In Japan we had no family and it was just too much stress to find a babysitter, so we learned to stay home and enjoy what we could do there, like watching a TV episode from a DVD or play Scrabble. We’ve turned into home-bods, even more than we previously were. As our guys got older David and I have slowly gotten out a little more, but still often found going out too tiring when we were already tired from work and parenting. Much of our fun was as a family: supporting our guys at their sporting events as well as camping and holidaying together.

The last 18 months, and especially the last nine (since our younger two moved out), things have been changing. David and I went to several cricket matches in Australia (our shared love). Obviously (if you've been reading my blog this year) we went away for two months! Living on a budget, though, we rarely ate out in Australia—though it’s easier to do so now that we don’t have to cater to enormous sporty teenage boy appetites.

This is the first time we've ever been to a live
match of any sport between our two countries.
Japan and Australia just don't have many team sports
in common. One day we might find a Rugby Sevens
match to go to!

Last night we did something that felt like "playing hooky". We went to an international sports event: Australia played Japan in wheelchair rugby, a sport we’ve come to appreciate via the Paralympics. We actually had tickets to go to a session of this sport for the Tokyo Paralympics in 2021…but Covid…'

It was a lot of fun. I just wish I could have cheered louder…there didn’t seem to be many true Aussie fans around (they handed out Australian flags to Japanese people at the door, in a valiant attempt to support the guests).

Time out for a quick team meeting with the players on the court.

It's called the Shibuya Cup and the teams are playing four matches. Last night was the first. They gave us a booklet that showed the teams, and explained the game and the rules.
If you'd like to take a look at some of the action, it's here on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@JWRF/streams

Japanese publications are so cute!

 

We also were given these free cartons of coffee milk as we entered!

This little trip yesterday was fairly spontaneous, I only heard about this free event last Monday because I follow the Australian Paralympic Facebook page. I wonder what our next adventure will look like? David's got Christmas holidays coming up...and we have no family to hang out with this year, for only the second time in our lives. We'll see what turns up and what fun we can find.

 

It's messier than I like to admit

I kinda regret that I had to talk about our ministries to people in Australia. How many of you have to stand up in front of friends and strangers and talk about your job and why you do your job? It's one of the weird things that missionaries often have to do, and not one of my favourite things.

Why do I regret it? Because I said things about the past that sounded like I'd resolved them, that I was past all that. It's tricky to get up in front of an audience and tell a story about your life. You have to have a point and a conclusion. Sometimes to make that point or come to that conclusion you have to make it sound more complete than the story actually is.

So here's what I regret: I told a very brief version about how I came to be doing this pretty specialist job as a missionary (editing and publishing). The story I told was only about 400 words long and took 2 to 3 minutes to say. That's a radical summary and it's not that simple. And nor is it complete. Part of the reason I ended up doing this was because I struggled with learning Japanese and was asking God why he brought me to Japan. Saying it like that makes it seem like that was all in the past. The truth is that I still struggle (so much!) with Japanese and that I still wonder sometimes why God brought me to Japan.

One significant part of my job these last 23 years has been raising children, and obviously that is over in a day-to-day sense, which means I'm less busy (even cooking dinner and doing grocery shopping takes less time). 

I'm also sitting with transition within the two main jobs that I've done these last seven years: magazine editing and social media for mobilisation. With both these jobs, at present, I don't have as much day-to-day stuff to do as I've had in the past. 

I wish I wasn't feeling so unsettled, but the old thoughts about why I'm in Japan keep coming back. That's despite spending a whole year telling people we met in Australia why we were going back to Japan and fighting so hard to make that possible! The fickleness of the human heart astounds me sometimes. The other annoying thing is there's so much evidence that I should be here, that God's put us here again. Despite understanding that transition takes time, I don't really understand why I still feel so unsteady, and so grumpy at times.

Cosmos were almost the only blooming plants
in the whole park (aside from weeds). I took a
moment to enjoy them.

Then yesterday I took some time to ride to my favourite park—something I've been looking forward to for months. I'd been waiting for the weather to cool off a bit, which it did on the weekend, and then, on a meeting-free day, I hopped on my new bike and went on an adventure.

It wasn't the nicest of days. It was grey and gusty, with a threat of rain, and despite the much more pleasant temperatures it was a little unsettling out there. I headed to a small shelter in the park and ate lunch and later headed a bit further south to a favourite cafe of mine that I've visited in the past.

My intention during this time out of the office was not just to get some exercise and go to favourite places, but also to ponder what was going on in my heart. A retreat, of sorts. I've been thinking about the question of what God's got for me in this new season in Japan, but the much bigger question of what my purpose is as a human. The Westminster Catechism (shorter) summarises that as "to glorify God and to enjoy him forever." The New City Catechism says "God created us . . . to know him, love him, live with him, and glorify him".

What does that mean? I found an article from The Gospel Coalition called Enjoying God. It was a little heavy for my poor little brain, reading it on my tiny phone screen while I ate lunch, but still good. One Bible reference it pointed to was Psalm 145, which I encountered again at my next stop.

Then I rode to the cafe and, after a spot of birthday-present shopping nearby for my husband, I ordered a coffee and retreated upstairs (yep, it's a two-story cafe) and pulled out an old favourite that I've started re-reading: Awe, by David Paul Tripp. To my astonishment, the chapter I was up to was called "Ministry" and spoke right to me (and quoted Ps. 145 in its entirety). 

This blog post is getting a little long now, so I'll commit to writing a followup on it because it's easy to sit here at my computer and simplify the journeys that God takes me on, putting it all down in black and white as if I've got it all figured out. Doing that denies the reality that it's messy! I'm hoping to sit down again tomorrow with my Bible and a couple of books to listen further to what God is saying. 

Suffice to say, that I need to take a bigger picture approach to my life and ministry. My last 25 years have been full of the minutiae of raising children, the last 14 years have been full of deadlines pertaining to the magazine, and the last 7 years have been full of social media deadlines. My life has been very busy, and I've loved it. But change is inevitable and indeed necessary. I need to refocus my eyes on Jesus and remember that he didn't make me just to be a mum to my kids or just to have a schedule full of deadlines.

I'll be back...

Something to ponder: "So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal" (2 Corinthians 4:18 NIV).

It's been a lot of change!

A week and a half ago I came down with a cold that David had already had for a week. We’re both still recovering, though each day our symptoms are receding further. We both have chronic asthma that is well controlled, but at times like these, it's in our face and limiting our capacity; both of us have lingering coughs. I went to the doctor last week to get my regular asthma meds and he thought I had sinusitis too, so fun times and lots of tissues. 

A friend captured the proposal
from a distance (only our son
knew the photographer was there)

Last weekend I had very limited energy, but nonetheless we had an exciting weekend: on the Saturday (24th) our eldest son asked his girlfriend to marry him and she said yes! So we’ve been digesting that news and gradually telling people. I started this blog in 2010 when he was only 10 years old. It’s hard to believe that we’re now already at another new stage of parenting: getting ready to welcome in a daughter-in-law! (And we’re only just starting to get used to having no kids at home in Japan.) Of course, we’re not in the same country as them, so we’re now planning a trip to Australia in January to help them celebrate their wedding. 

Every now and then I'm amazed at how much change has gone on in these last few months:

• our younger two sons moved out and that has precipitated many big and small changes that we're still adjusting to
• we moved countries, again
• we moved to Japan without children for the first time (and yes, this warrants its own bullet point)
• after a year of both of us based at home and not working regular hours, David's working outside the home again, 8–5 Monday to Friday, and I'm at my desk at home for many of those hours too
• we've downsized into a small apartment and small car
• I'm learning to cook again in a smaller kitchen with a smaller space for storing ingredients
• our eldest son has made a lot of changes in his life in the last couple of months, and believe it or not that is taking a bit to adjust to in our thinking
• our middle son, who has been unemployed since leaving school in June 2021, has a job, a licence, and a car, and continues to surprise us as to what he's able to achieve
• we are adjusting to the idea of having a future daughter-in-law whose name we know!
• we're planning an unexpected short trip to Australia for a wedding in January.

There are a few other things, including changes in the two teams I work with in Japan, but I'll leave the list as it is.

That list makes me feel tired! It partly explains why we got sick and it's taken so long to recover. It helps me to remember to be gracious to myself when I'm feeling wobbly or weak, and that transition of this magnitude takes time to recover from.

But aside from that, there is so much to be thankful for in the above list and we're amazed at God's provision, his leading, and his care for us and our children.

It's been a month since we moved in

Moving day, four weeks ago!

It's hard to believe that it's been a month since we moved into this apartment, but the calendar doesn't lie. This is a simple, photo-heavy blog post with some before and after photos from the last couple of weeks.

It took a while to refine our new
household rubbish sorting system.
We have no outside storage, so it's all here.

This is how it looks today. We're pretty pleased. Two little plastic trays for paper and bottles/cans under the microwave. On the floor is a tiny "dirty" rubbish bin and plastic recyclables. We’ve also got

some extra (non-rubbish) storage in that little cupboard near the floor.

This was 10 days ago. We got rid of almost all our boxes: 
to a fellow missionary who’ll be moving in a few months
and in the “paper” recycling last week.

Looking tidy now!

More boxes.

All gone. Only thing left in this picture to deal with

is hiding behind the plant: wall pictures to hang.

I’d hoped to get this area of my office sorted before Christmas, but my
 amazing husband sorted it just after 
I last included this photo in a blog post!

Doesn’t it look great? And if anyone local
wants some metal cricket wickets…

Our new slow cooker arrived last week too.
We sold our large one last year and have bought 
this, which is more appropriate for two people.
I cooked 700g of pork in this last night and it was
so tender!

School started for the students today too, so hopefully we’ll get into more of a daily/weekly routine (and start remembering what day of the week it is again). It’s been over a year since we had the routine of David working at school, so it is a bit of an adjustment, but good. David’s been struggling to get over a cold, which to me shows this transition hasn’t been nothing. It’s taken a toll and we have to take time to recover, but that’s hard to remember some days.