Connection at a retreat

I'm in a post-retreat slump. This morning (Monday), I struggled to wake up, despite having a very quiet, restful day on Saturday. And now I'm back at my desk, trying to pick up the pieces after being away from it since last Tuesday. Part of me craves the high of the retreat, the time to worship, to talk with other women, and, to be brutally honest: to swan around without responsibilities!

I guess this slump probably means that I am actually quite tired and need a longer break than just one day. I'm looking forward to going camping next week for four days, and hope that that will result in greater physical refreshing.

Last week was great, I got to escape from Tokyo and daily life to a women's retreat I've been to many times. I always look forward to this retreat with other cross-cultural women, but I don't look forward to coming home and facing the rest of my life afterwards!

This time was a bit different, though. It was great to come home to my husband and not this kind of situation. Home without children remains a very quiet place, something I love, but it was a dramatic change from hanging out with 60 other women for the better part of three days. My husband graciously listened while I spilled out many things from the week that had passed.

Entrance to the centre's onsen,
yes non-private bathing

But you might have gleaned that the retreat was good. It was, in fact, great. I got to go to the venue a day early, ostensibly to help the small leadership team to set up. But I didn't actually do much, mostly because there were so many of us helping that the few things that needed doing didn't take long (or took a lot longer, because...well you know how sometimes it's easier for one person to decide something than a committee!). So the first 24 hours really were very restful, though I did have the remnants of a nasty headache on Tuesday afternoon.

It was so much fun being able to see many people who I haven't seen for two years (the last time I went to this retreat). It's interesting reading about that retreat in 2023 (here). I'd forgotten how heavy the start of that year was. This year my heart was lighter and there were less tears. I'd also "graduated" into the "older woman" category of those who have no children left at home, which felt odd.

Some of these women I never see at any other time other than these retreats. Yet, conversations are deep. I pondered this with one lady over lunch one day. We concluded that most of us feel like outsiders most of the time, but at a retreat like this we are insiders who are almost all living in a foreign land. It's comforting to find this a common ground and fosters strong bonds that form quickly.

Writing workshop ladies talking

Worship through song during the retreat was led by a couple of very down-to-earth ladies and our speaker was also very relatable. The talks were Bible-centred and the retreat started out with a whole session of focussing our eyes on God, in particular focusing on his unfailing love.

Thursday afternoon was free time, plus the option of attending two of four short workshops. Yours truly ran one, on a topic I've never specifically taught before: writing prayer letters (for those who hate doing it). Eight ladies were brave enough to come and I hope they went away with a few ideas to help make this routine ministry task easier. I'm not a natural teacher, and find it uncomfortable to stand up in front of even a small group like this, but I can see ways that I might repeat this (and do a better job).

After that I went for a walk with a very dear friend who I haven't seen since December.

Thursday night was very special: an open worship night. I've noted in the past that at these non-church interdenominational events I often feel more free. I've worshipped in conservative circles all my life and am happy there. So worshipping with people who are far more expressive is different, but good for my soul, I think. We mostly sang, and towards the end dissolved into a lengthy people of spontaneous micro-prayers. It was exceptional. 

The fun ride home

On Friday we left for home straight after lunch. I squeezed into a fun car full of six women and our luggage. We had a great afternoon, you guessed it—talking all the way home (about four hours, as we gradually dropped of ladies along the way, and only got a tiny bit lost along the way)!

During the week I had all sort of encounters. Here's a tiny taste:

I met a neighbour I didn't know I had. She and her husband work in a Chinese ministry at a sister church to ours and live about five houses from us.

I caught up with the mum of one of my youngest son's best friends. Turns out our sons had been talking (Australia to US) just that afternoon!

There were two other Aussies at the retreat. One with the Salvos and the other on a working holiday visa, I chatted with both.

At various times over the week I was able to share bits of our recent journey with neurodivergence, autism, and mental illness. And about journeying with kids into young adult years, especially about the bumps and challenges we've faced. I rubbed shoulders with mums who are ahead of me on this journey, and others who are facing up to their kids finishing high school soon, as well as women who are still in the midst of figuring out how to get their kids an education in this foreign land. We all learn from one another and it's a joy.

I met women who "know" me through my writing: this blog and through my work with the Japan Harvest magazine. That's always a little scary. What do people know about me? What do they think they know? Many who know me for my role as a managing editor make assumptions about my educational background that aren't true. No, I don't have a university degree in writing (or editing, though I've discovered that few editors do, most learn on the job like I did). But it's always exciting to hear from those who have really enjoyed the content of the magazine. My roomie was busy reading the latest issue (I don't think she was trying to impress me).

I did a lot of listening and a lot of talking. And, as usual, came away wishing that I'd done more listening and been slower to speak.

Last week on Facebook, I shared this article about the value of cross-cultural relationships. I could probably write a whole blog post as I bounce off ideas that the two authors shared, but here's a tiny portion as it relates to the friendships amongst women I meet at English-speaking retreats in Japan.

Cross-cultural friendships may often lack the natural reference points that ease our interactions with people of our own background, but they do have the advantage of creating a sense of self-expansion. This is the sense that we are growing as people...

Self-expansion can come in many forms. It may come from an exposure to new points of view, or an introduction to new and exciting experiences that we had never encountered alone...we are constantly learning from each other...

Connections across countries . . [may help] to loosen some of the shackles on our thinking so that we are more receptive to new ways of viewing the world—a more flexible and open-minded attitude that encourages innovation. (David Robson and Alessia Franko, "'I call her my Italian sister': The power of cross-cultural friendships")

So, I think that these friendships are very helpful. They take me beyond my usual thoughts and experiences and stretch me into someone who has a bigger experience and broader mind. I love getting outside our organisation and church and hearing about how other people and organisations do life. It helps keep me realistic about the various challenges we face in our own lives. I'm already looking forward to next year's retreat!

This week is unusual

Tomorrow we are catching trains to our first in-person overnight mission conference in four years. It's 550km north of here, but we get to go on the super-fast Shinkansen, so it's a shorter journey than if we were driving. 

OMF Japan field has usually held all-field conferences every two or three years. We were about to gather in March 2020 when all plans had to be cancelled for the pandemic. Since then we’ve had two online substitutes, but they really have only been “better than nothing” events.

This is the grand dining room of the venue of
our last all-field conference, in 2018.

One of the best things about on-field conferences is actually gathering with other missionaries. It really is pretty exhausting, because not only do you have various meetings and gatherings to attend, you spend a lot of the “free time”, coffee breaks, and meals catching up with people you haven’t seen in a long time, but it's a "good" exhausted. This is our family-away-from-home. The noise is quite something! I think this one is going to be more overwhelming for me than they have in the past, because rarely, in the last 2 ½ years, have I been in a room with more than 20 people who are talking to one another.

Nevertheless, I'm looking forward to gathering with our “OMF Family” in May for the first time in four years. (Incidentally it will be first time in Japan that we've been to a conference without any kids—our boys are staying home.) This isn’t a full-field conference, but about two-thirds of our missionaries will be there. There will be many new faces, and, sadly, many faces missing—people who’ve retired or left the field for various reasons, as well as most of those who don't work on Honshu. It's going to be an all-masked affair, and I'm hoping that wearing masks all the time will not hinder our time together.

I don't get off with being just a participant, either. I'm running a writing workshop for an handful of people on Friday afternoon and playing the piano for a short while during communion also. But I'm okay with these! What I have had trouble with is actually believing that this is going to happen. We've had so many plans cancelled in the last 2 ½ yrs, it seems surreal to actually have something big like this really happening. And we've done our Covid tests, so we're really good to go! I'm packing my suitcase soon.

By the way, if you're interested, this was my blogpost after our last conference, in March 2018: https://mmuser.blogspot.com/2018/03/hokkaido-conference-is-wrap.html This time we're going to a much more bare-bones venue, a youth hostel.

Dwelling in the land of spoken word

This week, instead of doing my usual work that involves a lot of written word, I've been dwelling in the world of spoken words. I've been helping facilitate an online workshop for 17 members of our organisation. That means 3 ½ to 4 hours a day on Zoom, not just as a participant, but as one of those who is responsible for how it goes. But I really did struggle, at times, to pay attention when the other facilitators were talking. And then, towards the end of the week, I also struggled to get my thoughts in order as I taught someone else's curriculum. I avoid meetings as much as I can in my daily work, so this week has been pretty overwhelming. 

One of the concepts I taught 
about this week. "Six ways" 
of mobilisation.

It's interesting to read what I wrote in my blog post about it the week after it was finished last year. But especially how it gave me an "adrenaline rush", because that's not how I remember it at all, in fact I was pretty terrified at times and certainly completely wiped out afterwards (and am feeling some of that this afternoon, it's become hard to think and to write!). But thankfully I've felt a little more confident and less terrified this week!

Now we have a week's break and then do it again from Jan 31, with the same people, but different content and more meeting time (maybe 5–6 hrs every day online?). I've got plenty of tasks from my usual responsibilities tugging at me, so it's going to be hard to stay focused and not over-work next week.

On top of that we've had news over the last 24 hrs that COVID is touching closer to home, with cases at the school, including a colleague of my husband's. So school is going online again all next week. It's challenging times we live in!

Coming back to these verses again:

Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen. (1 Peter 4:10-11, NIV)–my emphasis

Professional development in cross-cultural ministry

“Professional Development” are words that I knew in my pre-missionary profession. My husband is in charge of this for the staff at the school he works at. But I don't hear these words often in mission circles. I wonder why? Maybe because we don’t think of what we do as a “profession”.

I had to essentially leave behind my former profession, Occupational Therapy—at least in terms of formal registration with a national registration board—when I started down the road of cross-cultural ministry. I couldn't keep up with the professional development  requirements, not to mention afford the costs involved in remaining a legit Allied Health professional in Australia.

So having left something that is fits a narrow definition of profession, I found it helpful to think about what I currently do using those familiar terms. 

What is a profession?

Dictionary.com has a very broad definition of profession:

a vocation requiring knowledge of some department of learning or science: the profession of teaching.

the body of persons engaged in an occupation or calling: to be respected by the medical profession.

My own professional development

Over the years I've gained a lot of knowledge about Japan, the culture and language, I've also gained knowledge about cross-cultural living—especially in Japan, and about many aspects of missionary life. So I guess I've been growing in the profession of missionary. Though I've never thought about it in those terms.

The time at the writer's retreat ten days ago also convinced me that I've grown into a third profession (or a fourth, if you count motherhood as my second profession): that of publishing. It's what I've spent a lot of time learning about and doing over the last decade. It amazed me that I could sit and talk with people about many varied aspects of writing and publishing. It shouldn't have! I've gathered a lot of information and expertise over this decade, none of it official with a certificate or degree, but certain not without merit.

And somehow I've had this mindset: always desiring to learn, and to grow.  Perhaps it is just my curious mind, although I don't discount the influence my university education and subsequent few years in the Occupational Therapy field had on me. 

The location of my first major professional development for
writing: Hong Kong.
Yes, it's not your usual Hong Kong image, is it?

Our mission helps with this by insisting on goal setting and regular reviews with supervisors. But what I do is a little outside the bounds of what many of the workers in our organisation do, so a certain amount of being a self-starter has been necessary. I don't actually know another missionary on any mission field who works as an editor (though I'm sure they exist, somewhere). And I'm doing this as a predominantly English speaker in a non-English speaking country, so there are less resources than if I were elsewhere. Therefore I've had to be creative.

Over the years my professional development in relation to publishing (there's more if you include cross-cultural living) has included:

• Reading books about writing and editing (and buying them, something I don't do a lot for pleasure on a missionary budget, but when I come across a useful professional resource, I'm keen to lay my hands on it).
• Reading many articles online.
• Writing a lot. Over 3,000 articles on this blog and probably over 100 articles published in magazines and a couple of book contributions also.
• Being a part of an online critique group and other online groups over the years has taught me so much.
• Editing and being edited. Nothing like having to edit someone's work to make you think about what good writing is. Nothing like being called on a decision you've made when editing someone's work to make you think about why you do what you do. I've got a great production team with the magazine who don't let me get away with sloppy work.
• Managing a magazine has been another level of learning and growing. Learning how to efficiently put together a quality product with a volunteer and long-distance team and also how to manage a team. Learning how to work with writers has been another, sometimes painful, journey. Much of this has been learning on the job, figuring things out as I went. Not only have I learnt about being a leader, but I've also learnt about how to be a good follower.
• I've had to learn how to use various online tools, that was especially the case when I took on my current social media manager role for OMF Japan. But also tools that I use to help me with the magazine (see this post and this one).
• Attending conferences, workshops, and retreats
• OMF Writer's retreat/workshop in Hong Kong 2010
• Magazine editing training Manilla 2009
• Christian Writer's conference Victoria 2014
• OMF Social media workshop Manilla 2017
• International Christian Publishing conference (LittWorld) in Singapore 2018
• Training with OMF about leading teams Bangkok 2016
• Led six writer's workshops/retreats in Japan
• Completed a couple of small online courses, and in the middle of another with Udemy.
• Attended a hands-on photography course.
• Attempted (and failed) to learn inDesign, the program that our magazine designer uses.

Well that's quite a lot when you write it out like that!

Last month I found this article and it is very helpful. It looks at what we do in cross-cultural ministry from the position of a profession and notes the vital importance of professional development, especially for those who stay a longer time.

When things get quiet here, I sometimes wonder about what the future holds for me with my current skills. I don't know. But I do know that I will not be content to become stagnant. I want to keep growing, keep taking on challenges, keep learning new things.

The writer's retreat I led 10 days ago didn't allow me to do much writing. But it did stretch me professionally. Having to answer questions about publishing and doing one-on-ones with people asking about publishing, writing, and editing issues was hard. This was especially so because there is much more time pressure when you are sitting with someone, if I encounter a difficult editing issue at work I can often walk away from it for a while and come back, or consult a resource or someone else. It was hard, but it was good for me.

What about you? Thinking outside the box, how has professional development looked for you in recent years? What are you looking forward to doing in the near future? What would you like to do, but haven't had the chance yet?

A week of training in Sapporo

This photo is of the inside of the front doors of OMF's
Hokkaido Centre (language and culture school
plus admin centre) which was built after we
graduated from langauge school.

I'm in Sapporo, the capital of Hokkaido—the northernmost main island of Japan. For me, Hokkaido is the place where I started my life in Japan, not the mysterious frozen island in the north that everyone in Japan "would like to visit one day". 

We spent our first 3½ years in Japan here, had our second son here, experienced four winters, and numerous other challenges, including having our son twice hospitalised in his first 14 months of life. So it's a place that can dredge up old, not-so-nice memories. 

But we have also attended numerous OMF conferences here. And have the great memory of doing our first camping-tour on this island (see one of my posts about that trip in 2013 here as we travelled in the northernmost part of the island). This is my second week-long training event up here. The other, though, was six years ago (feels like a life-time ago).

The training event I'm at is an OMF-developed training course called Project Timothy. It is part of a series of four designed to help people learn and grow in themselves and their ministry. This one is especially about gifting and looking at how God has working in and through our past to bring us to where we are now. Today we've been working on a very specific form of a life timeline. It's been rather challenging, but hopefully helpful. (I previously went on one of these courses in February 2016, in Bangkok, the one that focuses on Teams.)

The journey

On Saturday afternoon we finished Thrift Shop and I packed for my Hokkaido trip that evening. I really didn't feel like coming away, but as this was decided months ago, I went ahead, trusting that it was the right thing.

I left soon after church, catching the requisite three trains to get to the airport on the other side of the city. The photo above was the platform at my final change and quite confusing. Thankfully the station has made quite an effort to make sure people got on the right train! And yes, there was some English, or at least romaji rendering here (romaji being the use of roman alphabet to write Japanese).

The journey through the airport and the 1½ hr flight went well and then I met an OMF colleague and we travelled to the Hokkaido OMF guest home together on a bus. All very smooth and not as tiring as I'd expected. And I slept well Sunday night too, though I was a bit twitchy in the evening, being a bit people-worn and sharing a "flat" with three other ladies.

A luxury?

It's always a measure of hard and good to be away from home. I worked very hard the week before last to make sure that I was freed up to work at Thrift Shop last week and then come to this training. It was challenging, but feels good now to know that it's okay that I'm not attending to my usual responsibilities.

This week is a bit of a luxury, really. But possibly a very helpful luxury, to take time away from the usual daily grind to reflect on 40+ years of God working in my life to lead me to where I am today. I'm a reflector by nature, so this just plays to what I enjoy doing anyway!

During lunchtime I took a walk in the neighbourhood and snapped some iPhone photos. Tomorrow my post will be those photos, showing you a snapshot of now in this suburb of Sapporo, as well as some unique things about this city that has a climate unlike anything you find in any Australian city.

Geographically distant teams

My workday yesterday was been bookended by Skype calls. 

The first was a monthly editorial meeting with the executive editor of Japan Harvest. Most it is a meeting that gives us accountability with regards to bigger-picture stuff related to the magazine and communications with the organisation who publishes it (Japan Evangelical Missionary Association). The call only spanned about 9 km, but allows both of us to work from home with no commuting time or cost.

The second call was to the UK, with a member of OMF's International Communications team. She was providing support to me in my role as part of the mobilisation team for OMF Japan. She taught me a new techie trick to use with my social media role.

Both these calls were very useful and extremely convenient. Not to mention time- and cost-efficient.

Over the last seven years I've become an experienced geographically distant team-member. I didn't know this term until I went to a workshop in Bangkok last year and spent a week learning about teams. I was puzzled at the time because the teams I'm involved in are quite different to the face-to-face ones they were talking about, so I did some research and discovered a the term "geographically distant team" (also known as geographically dispersed/distributed, remote, or virtual team). In this world of increasingly fast internet speed, the sorts of teams I'm a part of are increasingly common. Teams where the members work from their homes, or from locations that aren't favourable for regular commuting.

Below I've pasted part of an assignment I researched and wrote following the above mentioned workshop (which was called Project Timothy 3). I wrote it before the mobilisation team of OMF Japan was formed formally, so that team is not mentioned. 

If you're working on such a team, you may find it useful (sorry, it's a bit longer than my usual blog posts).

Project Timothy 3 focused on understanding teams and how to best help them work, but the type of teams the course focuses on is teams that work closely together, they see one another often, and are in the same geographical location. The team that I am most involved in is a geographically distant team. We produce a magazine, Japan Harvest, for missionaries in Japan, but do it from our own homes. Our team lives in several prefectures in Japan and two other countries. So for this assignment I sought to understand geographically distant teams better and then took a look at my own team, at what’s working for us and what needs some attention.

What are they?

Geographically distant teams are increasingly prevalent in this world as companies and organisations take advantage of the technology available to them to connect teams in ways that has never been possible before.  A broader term that’s used more frequently is “virtual teams”. They are groups of individuals not physically in the same place but united by a common goal.

Wikipedia defines a virtual team as “A group of individuals who work across time, space and organizational boundaries with links strengthened by webs of communication technology.”

Powel, Piccoli, and Ives define virtual teams as “groups of geographically, organizationally, and/or time dispersed workers brought together by information and telecommunication technologies to accomplish one or more organizational tasks.” (http://www.managementstudyguide.com/virtual-team.htm)

Virtual teams communicate predominantly by the use of technology and may never meet. In some cases they have cultural, language, time zone, and ethnicity differences also.

Some virtual teams are temporarily formed to accomplish a set or limited task.  Teams aren’t necessarily from the same organization, are frequently topic-specific and dissolved after the completion of the task. Some teams are formed with specialists for the purpose of making recommendations, other teams have more powers to effect change and make decisions. Some virtual teams are set-up to outsource specialist tasks, like software development.

Where do you find them?

“Today it isn't uncommon for companies to have as many as 50% of their employees working on virtual teams” (http://www.reliableplant.com/Read/27807/Virtual-teams-are-different).

You can find them everywhere, from multimillion dollar companies to small business, and even in mission. NASA uses virtual teams to run space missions. Whirlpool developed the chlorofluorocarbon-free refrigerator using a virtual team. You see them in customer service support, consulting firms, management teams in national and international companies, and offshore teams for software development.

OMF International has many virtual teams. For example, the Field Leadership team in Japan—the members live in Tokyo, Tohoku, and Sapporo. One member is currently on home assignment. They sometimes meet in person, but many of their communications are via email, phone, and Skype. Another virtual team on our field this year was the Field Conference planning team. This is an example of a team that came together for a specific purpose for a short period of time.

How do they work?

There are different types of teams. Variables include: purpose of the team, whether members are from the same company or multiple companies, and the length of the project.  Some teams regularly meet, for example, the TED tech team has 29 members spread across several US states and two other countries, they meet via videoconferencing every week, as well as in person every three to four months (http://blog.ted.com/8-tips-for-virtual-collaboration-from-teds-tech-team/). Other teams meet less often or never at all.

A friend of mine in Australia works for a Christian organization called Scripture Union, that especially reaches out to school students. My friend supervises chaplains in schools across a wide geographical region. She periodically drives for several days visiting them at their place of work, and they periodically gather together at conferences. But she told me that the most meaningful thing they do to promote team unity and productivity is meeting weekly via Skype for time of reading the Bible and sharing and praying for one another.

Advantages?

Virtual teams: 

• save money,
• allow people with necessary gifts to contribute regardless of their location,
• can be more efficient,
• are more flexible to meet needs,
• can work at times that suit them best,
• individual team members have more control over where they work,
• they save time wasted on commuting, and
• at times it means that they can make decisions faster.

Disadvantages:

• Essential technology can be expensive and can break down.
• Trust is hard to build and easy to break.
• Collaboration is difficult to manage.
• Conflict can more easily arise from misunderstandings that come with a lack of the non-verbal cues that are part of face to face communication.
• Members may feel isolated and lack the motivation that being physically with a team can provide.
• Self-discipline is a must for a well-functioning team.
• Not being in an office can be less productive.
• Communication in general can be more difficult.

Specific challenges these teams face?

• Building trust.
• Managing collaboration
• Avoiding and resolving conflict.
• Accountability.
• Team spirit and motivation.
• Finding ways to meet.

Are you  a part of a geographically distant team? How do you make it work?

New tricks?

Old dog new tricks? Yes, I'm in my mid 40s, but sometimes I do feel like an old dog when it comes to things like learning new things about technology and social media. As I've gotten more involved in OMF Japan's mobilisation drive, I've found my boundaries of what's comfortable pushed again and again.

First, about 12 months ago it was helping in the redesign of the OMF Japan website (and talking about that to our leaders when I really didn't know what I was talking about) and picking up an Instagram account. Then editing the whole website. After that came learning how to blog on wordpress.com (something I'd tried in the past and given up as too complicated). Setting up guidelines for a new blog was the easy part!

Then I went to the social media for mobilisation workshop in Manila last month and discovered a whole 'nother world. I've been doing social media for years, but now it has become a more integral part of my work. I'm doing it not just in my own name, but for OMF Japan.

I've been working with another much younger colleague, who lives way north of here, to coordinate our FB and Instagram pages, that's taken some figuring out too! Even today, trying to figure out why she couldn't see the photos I shared on the Google calendar that I started for coordinating content.

I'm also trying to figure out the best way to convert an inDesign file of our 31 Days of Prayer into a sharable electronic document. Looking at Blurb.com just before lunchtime today drove me to the edge of what my feeble brain could manage. I'll come back to it later.

How my job has changed over the last few months can be seen somewhat by peeking at my iPhone homescreen which now includes these apps:

The first, Workplace, is a Facebook app designed for use for in the workplace. It's been very useful for our remote team. I've found it wonderful to easily get advice (especially technical advice) from others who know a lot more about these things than I.

Flipboard is a fun app. A bit like an RSS feed, except that you don't add blogs or anything else to it, just the topics you're interested in and it scouts around for you, looking for articles on the topics you're interested in. Helpful for me as I administer the OMF Japan FB page and am on the lookout for Japan-related stories to add to the mix.

Repost is an app that allows me to repost Instagram posts. I haven't used it much and have found it a little cumbersome so far, but I'm assured it's the best app there is.

Canva is also fun and allows you to easily transform a photo by adding words or graphics to it, creating your own "meme". I've used this a lot in the last month in creating content for the OMF FB page.

I don't have Buffer.com there, but it's on my laptop and I'm using it to schedule FB posts for OMF Japan. Another new website to add to my rapidly growing collection.

Yep, it's all related to social media. The workshop I went to in Manila was incredibly useful, introducing me to these apps (plus a lot more).

Then this week I've been challenged as I figured out how to distribute a video created for OMF Japan via social media (thankfully with a lot of help from our remote team via Workplace). 

Yesterday I added subtitles to a video for the first time using amara.org. Then I had to use handbrake.fr to apply the subtitles to the video. Figuring out how to upload the video to our OMF FB account (including allowing cross-posting to other OMF pages) and then to our blog have all been new challenges. Then it was discovered that there were mistakes in the subtitles and it had to be edited twice, which isn't an easy task when you need to make a completely new file as well as re-apply the subtitles to the video each time (thankfully a more tech-savvy member of our mobilisation team did it for me). But then the question: what do you do when the "faulty" video you've shared has already gone to a lot of people and you've got a new, better one to replace it?

I figure a few of you might not be fazed by this, but it was a challenge that made me feel quite like a techno dinosaur.

I wonder when it will settle down, or whether it just won't! This field is constantly changing and I suspect for as long as I'm doing this, I'll be playing catch-up.

I've learnt a lot and most of the time I'm glad I'm being challenged and stretched. It keeps me fresh and not-bored (the prospect of avoiding boredom drives me often). But sometimes I feel overwhelmed!

I am reassured by this article that one of these new apps sent me recently (maybe it was Buffer?). The article had a lot of good information, but this helpful paragraph at the end is reassuring:

If you take nothing else away from these eight lessons and case studies, do take away this: Find a social media strategy that works and stick to it. Evoke it through well-designed visuals, intentionally-written copy, and informed decision making, and you’ll be on your way to a storm of likes, comments, shares and results. From 8 social media lessons you can learn from the pros

Adventures in Manila Part 2

Yesterday I spent all day getting from the OMF guesthome in Manila to my home. You would think with only a 4 ½ hour flight between Tokyo and Manila it would take less than 15 hours to make the journey, but neither the guesthome nor my house are close to the airport (in terms of travel time), plus in air travel there is a lot of waiting around. Travelling on your own can get boring! So to fill in time, I pulled out my computer a couple of times and wrote this:

I’m sitting in the boarding area at Manila airport. It’s a noisy place. Unlike some airports, there is no carpet, only tiles and vinyl or metal seats. There is a constant stream of people walking past. This terminal seems strangely small for an international airport (there are two other international terminals that aren’t connected). I can only see about 10 boarding gates and yes, I can see them all, if I lean around the big round pillion to my left. I think this terminal only services Philippines Airlines.

Talking about social media and using it in our work.

Reflecting on the workshop

I’m really glad I came. I wondered in this post back here, whether I would be “on the edge” again, but it seems that I was fairly well positioned to be doing this workshop. In fact within OMF, Japan is one of the leading countries in social media, especially amongst the fields. 

Indeed, I think it is the first training I’ve done with OMF that has mostly consisted of people who are involved in non-front-line work within the mission. It’s nice to be among others who aren’t so different, though there were no other editors in the group as far as I know. We had a handful of Aussies too.

My mind has definitely been stretched. The workshop has been challenging in that there is a lot I don’t understand and will probably never have the time to be involved in.

I took brief notes, but mostly about things that are relevant to what I am doing now and can foreseeable do in the next few months. Just like when you move to a new location, you first learn about the streets around you, and gradually the circle of local knowledge that you have expands to include places further away. That’s how I feel about this field. It would be too overwhelming, and indeed impractical to try to do or understand everything all at once. I’m starting where I am and will build up as I can.

At this point I’ll be working on getting into a good rhythm with the Japan blog and our new Facebook page too (some of you will have received an invitation to “like” the OMF Japan page, I’ve sent that to many of my friends, that’s one aspect of using social media for mobilization: getting the news of what we’re doing out to as many as possible). 

On the Facebook page I’d like to post not just links to the blog, but interesting information about Japanese culture as well as general prayer points and even photos. I’m happy to receive suggestions if you find things you think might be of interest or even have photos that I could use for prayer “memes”. 

On one of our jeepnee journeys I was directly behind the
driver. It's a little hard to see, but he's got a Peso
note in his hand. On the little ledge in front of him is
a bunch of coins from which he gave us our change.

I'm going to attempt to figure out some kind of rough schedule for that too, like I have the OMF Japan blog, so I have a bit more control over my schedule. I need to do some work with the lady who's in charge of our Twitter account, so that we can get some consistency going. That’s probably enough to start with, considering the pace I’ve been working at recently! Anyway, enough about work.

Out on the town

Last night we went out for an end-of-workshop meal at a lovely Filipino restaurant. The food was delicious, but probably what will remain with me is the journey to and from the restaurant: on the quintessential jeepnee and, unexpectedly, a “motorized tricycle”.

A jeepnee is like a mini bus that you board from the rear, with bench seats along the sides. They are naturally air conditioned, with no glass on the windows. Amazingly the driver deals with the fares and giving change while he drives, with passengers handing the cash up to the front via other passengers and then the reverse for the change . . . all while the vehicle moves. I guess the less time he’s stopped, the most income he generates?

The motorized tricycle is a covered sidecar on a motorcycle, although not a low sidecar. We fit three people on ours: one behind the driver on the motorcycle and two inside the sidecar, though it was a challenge for two Westerners to fit on the seat inside the sidecar, though neither of us were large. It was a bit scary because our driver drove fast—he was zipping past other bikes and vehicles.

Both there and the way back we traveled around a 10-lane roundabout. Though it was large enough that it mostly felt like a single-direction road on a curve. What was amazing was watching our jeepnee driver make his way from the inside lane to the outside lane to exit. Somehow, I didn’t notice the return journey around the roundabout. I’m pretty sure we did do it, but I was jammed between two locals on a tiny edge of seat and because you’re sitting with your back to the outside, visibility isn’t great.

I’m sure it would take a while to figure out how to ask when to get off a jeepnee, because it seems they can drop you off anywhere along the route and there are no announcements! Nor could I figure out how you know how much you pay. Thankfully we had some locals in our group that kept us from getting hopelessly lost.

There were a few small birds inside at the Manila boarding area!

Another overwhelming impression was how thick and polluted the air seemed. I felt like washing out my lungs after we arrived at the restaurant.

More public transport

The adventures on public transport continued this morning as I made my way to the airport with my roommate, a lady in her 20s from Malaysia. We used Uber, something I’ve heard about, but never used. The car we rode in was a very comfortable sedan. The traffic was pretty horrid, though, it took nearly two hours with lots of stops and starts. I have a lot of respect for the driver. Actually, all the drivers. The traffic just seems to flow in and around each other, very close at times—though the lanes were very fluid no one collided. It reminded me of driving in Bangkok and Indonesia.

I’m going to have to put this computer away now, it’s time to squeeze into the metal tube they call a plane and wing my way north to Japan again. Hopefully I’ll make it home in reasonable shape. I’m really quite tired.

A bit later in the air

Yes, I hopped on the plane, but it took two hours from doing that until it took off. If we were told why, I didn’t hear the explanation. It’s so frustrating, knowing that all I want to do is get home into my own bed.

I’ve said before that travel isn’t my favourite thing. It’s exhausting. Even though this is just a 4 ½- or 5-hour flight, it’s going to be well over 12 hours from door-to-door.

We’ve got a very tired and grumpy toddler in this section of the plane. Actually, I was sitting with her and her mother, but because the plane isn’t full was able to move one row forward to give them a little more space. Hearing the screams doesn’t make me nostalgic for those years that we travelled with little ones.

Postscript

It took me until just after midnight to get home. Thankfully I was able to lie down on three seats and rest for quite some time after I wrote the above. That gave me the stamina for the two-hour train journey home, during which I stood a good portion of the time.