A poor missionary who doesn't get all her clothes second hand.

The kids weren't all that cheered me at the church we visited yesterday. The other thing is something I've wondered about blogging about, but have held back till now. A missionary friend of mine touched on this issue some time back on her blog. The issue of what missionaries wear.

Now, I'm not too hung up on the "I must look like a poor missionary" idea. I like to look good, but without costing too much. Though I have to admit to being a somewhat of a conservative ignoramus when it comes to fashion - preferring comfort over style any day. But I felt yesterday that I didn't look too bad. I wore this new, current season no less, trench coat.

Japan has stretched us in the clothing department purely due to climate. Sunny Queensland does not prepare you for cold winters. Simply doesn't. We've had to learn about all the accessories associated with keeping warm outdoors - stuff you put on to leave the house. Gloves, scarves, warm hats and jackets. In Hokkaido we had snow gear too - boots and water proof pants. Snow suits for the children instead of jackets, for inevitably they fall down.

I've been wanting an "inbetween" coat for some time - the time in spring and autumn when it is too warm for your mid-winter coat but too cool to be coat-less. It occasionally gets this cool in Brisbane, but not enough (in my miserly opinion) to warrant a special coat for the purpose.

This trench coat I saw at Target (ah, now I've blown my cover) a couple of months ago and it was perfect for what I wanted! It felt like a splurge, but I know I'll get a lot of wear out of it. Bonus is that it looks pretty good too! I like the idea of wearing such a vibrant colour. Cooler weather can get pretty depressing with all the dark coloured clothing.

So, I yesterday I didn't look like a "poor missionary who gets all her clothes second-hand". And it felt good.

Fun in the midst of serious work

Mission work can be somewhat depressing. I mean this in a positive way - the need of the world for the gospel is a need that presses us into service. We're sad for those who don't know Jesus. Who suffer unnecessarily because they don't have faith in the One who can give them hope. Therefore mission is serious. On home assignment we go from church to church telling people week after week about the desperate social and spiritual needs of Japan and the slowness of evangelism there. It can get you down. So when opportunities to have fun with it are a wonderful bright spot and help to balance things out.

Today was one of those. I had the opportunity to do the children's talk. I did the same one I've done all HA. I get the kids to show me where Australia is on a blow-up globe and then where Japan is. Then I pull out our boys' old Japanese kindy bag and pull some things out and talk about them (asking the kids questions along the way) - Japanese indoor shoes, distinctive kindergarten hats and the lunch 'bag' with a tiny Japanese lunch box, chopsticks etc. I finish with an illustration using chopsticks saying that they are pretty useless with out two of them and a hand. And say this is like mission - one chopstick is the missionary, one is the supporters back home and the hand is God holding it all together.

It usually goes fairly well, depending on the children involved. Today I encountered a brilliant bunch of kids. They gave me some really funny answers (plus some totally accurate ones). Even one three year old who, in answer to my question as to whether this bag was like what Australian kids take to school, delivered to the whole church a wonderful lecture on how it wasn't the same. We were in stitches.

I invited them back afterwards for some origami fun. After they'd played in the red dirt on the work site out the back, two boys came and wanted to make paper aeroplanes (I made them wash their hands). I helped two girls make see-saws and glasses and the three-year-old came back and we made a dog for him. It was such fun compared to the serious, potentially depressing work that we usually do.

To befriend or not

We have an early start tomorrow, so I'm not planning to write much tonight.

However we've been reflecting on the weird trend that seems to be emerging of making connections with people this late in our year at home. We've finally connected with two of our neighbours in the last couple of weeks and our eldest (who was so stressed about making friends last year) has finally emerged with a 'best friend' at school.

I actually stand around at school and think, There's no point in making new friends, we're out of here soon. Add to that the distress that some people seem to be feeling at our going again "so soon" and I'd rather avoid any more pain than I have to inflict on myself and others. In this case, a small number of friends is better! Difficult for an extrovert to admit, but true. I wonder what other people will come into our lives 'accidentally' at this late stage?

Confusing "mission" with "travel"

Something I read recently annoyed me. Something in an Australian Women's magazine. Being on the 'inside' of the mission"business" it is not always easy to know what the general Christian population thinks about mission. Many of our conversations about mission are with people who "get it". Who are enthusiastic. Who pray for us. But they are a small minority, I'm sure. I was even more convinced of that after I read this magazine article.

The article described a short-term mission trip. The magazine filed it under "travel". The mission part of the trip amounted to six days - day one of which was travel. Days two to six consisted of helping out in an international Christian school in Vanuatu. This comment's sweeping generalisation shocked me:

"Being a mission school, most of the teachers were untrained."

Then the final seven days of their "mission trip" consisted of a holiday in a resort.

I know I come from a long-termer's perspective. But this seems to me to trivialise mission. They stated their goal was to "give something back to the community". I wonder just how much of themselves they actually gave. We in the West are so privileged. But many give so little of themselves.

A double page spread was devoted to this "travel experience". And it included a ad for the travel company who does this - "volunteer then relax holidays".

I feel Aussie Christians are holding back a little too much. Or am I totally corrupted by my own life experience?

PS Janet, you'll know it wasn't Footprints.

Getting rid of stuff

Getting rid of stuff is almost a hobby for missionaries. I say 'almost' because sometimes it is kind-of enjoyable but other times it is not. However it is certainly not something we have a choice about. Changing houses often will do that to you. Even more so, living in small Japanese houses forces the occupation upon us.

Giving or throwing away some things is easy. Things like this fridge we simply cannot take with us nor wish to store. We also have no emotional attachment to it.

We have a slight emotional attachment to this car which has taken us thousands of kilometres, but it was only ours for the year and...well...we cannot take it with us. So it is not hard to give back.

Can you guess what this is? It is the baby spacer (you put asthma inhalers in one end and breathe the medicine at the other) that almost certainly saved us some stays in hospital back in 2003/4. I've never seen another like it, especially with the rubber face mask on the end that enables you to administer medicine to the youngest child.

Actually it has a pretty good story that goes with it. Our middle son was quite ill as a toddler. He ended up in a Japanese hospital twice around his first birthday with pneumonia/asthma type symptoms. Our hospital experiences were pretty awful. The Japanese doctors were also not keen on giving us preventative medication or anything, really, that we could use at home to treat his breathing and keep him at home rather than in a hospital. Until, through Australian acquaintances, we found a paediatrician in a neighbouring city who was used to "foreigners with asthmatic kids". This paediatrician gave us this spacer for free, which was actually a sampler he'd received but couldn't use because it had English instructions. Our son has grown out of his "asthmatic tendencies" thankfully and we have no more use for this amazing apparatus. But it has many memories attached to it - of pain and gratefulness. Of helplessness and prayer. It travelled in our luggage many times. I can hardly bring myself to put it in the rubbish (trash), but I cannot see anything else for it.

So, as we sort through our good and chattels once again, there are emotions attached. Happiness, sadness and indifference. It is not so much about materialism as it is about remembering our lives.

I'm a multilingual writer (not)

There is something addictive seeing your writing in print or on someone else's website. See this. And did you realise I can write in Spanish? See here my devotional was translated into Spanish. Here it is in French! This devotion was translated into 39 languages and maybe up to 3 million people read or heard it today. That is amazing! I'm glad that I only had to write it in English and they did the rest.

I've had an email from a colleague who is a Japanese pastor's wife in Japan. She was excited to find my devotion in Japanese. Her early morning prayer meeting uses The Upper Room devotionals and this morning she was going to tell her ladies she knows the writer of today's devotion! It is exciting that my lack of ability to write in Japanese has been totally negated!

I'm praying it was a blessing to all those who read it, and that God will continue to use my words to encourage and challenge others.

Japanese excited about reaching Japan for Christ

I get so excited when I see Japanese Christians keen to reach Japan for Christ. May God bless this young man with many 'fish'.