World evangelism: aim lower, think smaller...

Check out this video. It is worth the five minutes it takes.

Should I cringe or not?

There are a few things we are doing in Australia that are no-nos in Japan. Sometimes it makes me feel uncomfortable, then I have to remind myself that it is okay to:

• Have shoes on seats - in Japan, no part of the shoe should touch the seat. Not much of a problem except if you have little kids who want to rest their feet on the waiting room seat or kneel up and look out the train window. As this is always a public issue (in private we don't have shoes on anyway), it is something I've had to be very vigilant about. I cringed slightly the other day when our 10 y.o. lay down on the seat in a waiting room.

• Walking while eating - we're seeing this a little bit more now in Japan than we used to. Not something we do a lot of anyway, but it is sometimes pretty inconvenient to find somewhere to sit while eating when you're out.

• Crossing my legs out wide - as in with my knee sticking out to the side rather than neatly tucked into my other knee. Actually Japanese seem to cross their legs way less than foreigners do anyway.

• Cross my legs when sitting on the floor or stretching my legs out. These are masculine ways. Females are to tuck their legs underneath them or discretely to the side. Murder for any length of time!

• Leave my shoes on inside - it just feels all wrong.

On the other side

Once upon a time I was a practising Occupational Therapist who loved to treat injured hands. Today I get to take my 10 y.o. son to be the client of a Hand Therapist who will treat his hand. I'm sure he's going to hate it. He somehow fractured the his little finger in a very tiny way on his class breakup at Movie World a month ago. He doesn't know how. He didn't even tell us he had some pain until more than a week later! Now it seems the finger has healed with a tiny fragment out of place and the finger is swollen and bent slightly at the final joint. Also known as Mallet Finger. The treatment - a splint for 2-3 weeks to straighten it out. Just before we go to an SU camp at the beach! Here's hoping it is waterproof! We're racking up the bills, though, Orthopaedic surgeon, two x-rays, Hand Therapist...so much fun. At least I don't have to travel to the other side of Brisbane to see this lady, she's only 15 mins down the freeway. Sometime I'm going to have to pack too...

Contrary Mary or maybe Contrary Mudge

Just to show you how contrary they are (see my previous post about whether our boys call Australia home), our middle son developed a passionate interest in cricket today. He watched Australia do the impossible and come from a long way behind to win. After which he ran around putting up cricket posters and is waiting impatiently for the next match! As a passionate cricket fan I am, of course, very happy that he is developing this interest. So next time I shout, "Howzzattt!" he might stand a chance of understanding my outburst.

Are your boys more comfortable in Australia or Japan?

Another question we're often asked. Not unique to us, either. A missionary friend has recently blogged her boys' response to this.

We are "home" in Brisbane for a few days. A few minutes ago our 7 y.o. asked, in a fit of boredom (while his Dad watched Day 3 of a Test Cricket Match),

"When will we go home?" 

I don't think was exactly what he wanted to say, but the sentiment is still there. When questioned about it, he wouldn't elaborate, although he did ask which day exactly in July that we'd be flying back! His 10 y.o. brother echoed the sentiment. I played the devil's advocate by asking,

"Aren't you Australian?" He quickly replied, "We've spent too much time in Japan for it not to seem more like home." and 

"I like Japan just a little more than Australia." 

 This comes as a bit of a surprise to us. In Japan our eldest had often commented that he'd like to go back to Australia. Nevertheless, we did know that there are things about Japan that they miss. On the other hand, there are things about Australia that they will miss when we return too! What a mix-up.

 A term for this is "Third Culture Kid" (TCK) - meaning a child who's spent a significant period of their formative years in a culture that is not their passport culture. The term refers to the fact that these children don't totally identify with their passport culture nor the culture where they've grown up, but rather feel most comfortable when with other children who've grown up in cultures other than their own.

Speaking Japanese in Australia

Sometimes we're asked if we practise our Japanese in Australia. Regularly - no, but occasionally - yes. On Saturday evening we took a picnic and met some Japanese friends (in photo) in the park. They were here on a brief holiday to visit friends they'd made while studying a few years ago. We spoke in both Japanese and English, but Japanese particularly when their children were present as they don't really remember English very well. Then on Sunday evening at our home church we talked with an Australian friend and his Japanese wife. She was more comfortable speaking in Japanese than English. They are coming over for dinner in a couple of nights. When David was in Perth in November, he visited a Japanese church and Bible study - there he got to speak at length in Japanese as well as sit through a three hour Bible study in Japanese. I am in regular contact with my best Japanese friend too. Her English is also good, but I try to keep up a little bit of written Japanese by writing some Japanese sentences in my emails. So, just recently we've had quite a bit more Japanese practise than usual. Interestingly enough after eight years of living there, the language seems rather lodged in our brains. Bits fall off the edge when not used - like vocabulary, but by and large we still retain enough to communicate. Many of the bits which we've lost come back fairly quickly, thankfully.

Looking forward to 2010

There is much we don't know about the future, though we do try to fool ourselves by wishing everyone a "happy new year". Nevertheless, here are some things that the new year may hold for us and things I'd like it to contain:

• More transition as we move back to Japan mid-year.
• The above means more goodbyes, more packing, many more decisions about house, car etc.
• I will be more involved in the production of Japan Harvest - the details are not clear yet, though.
• I will continue to write articles and devotions.
• I'll try to catch up a little in the Occupational Therapy field. Hopefully once we're settled in Japan will be able to help some of the younger kids at CAJ with handwriting etc.
• My boys will continue to grow - this year they'll turn 5, 8 and 11!
• The last year before David turns 40.
• I want to continue to blog.
• Moving back to Japan for our third term as missionaries puts us above the average for length of missionary service in Japan. A little scary, really. More and more, though, we know that is the right place for us to be, even if few understand that.