Encouragement

Here's a couple of written exchanges about my blog that I've received recently:

Encouragement
Recently a teenager, who is the child of missionaries in Japan, sent me an email that completely made my day:

Random flower photo that I took this time last year.
I put it here because it's always nice to have a
flower to look at.

I meant to tell you . . . [when I saw you last] that I followed your blog but kept forgetting to, I'm sorry!

I wanted to say that I love your blog because I get a peek inside of a different missionary family's life, which I don't often get to.

I also love that your blog gives me reminders about God's word, and what he is going to do in my life.

In a blog post the other day, I read your poem "Dates" and I loved it! I like writing poetry and fiction. Your poem gave me an insight into what being an adult is like, and I enjoyed that.

Thank you for your wonderful blog. I'll be looking forward to the next update!

It's easy to be worn down by the routines and challenges of daily life (and writing and editing), so I love it when I get such encouragements. Having it written down makes it even more special, because it's easy to keep and treasure later (and easier to share with you too).

About why I blog

I recently had a colleague who discovered this blog and he asked me about the main purpose (he was thinking that the main reason a missionary might use a blog would be to update our supporters). 

This was my reply:

My initial purpose was to write about the “ordinary” life of a missionary, helping to readers (presuming them to be people who haven’t lived the missionary lifestyle) to see what our lives are like. As I’ve realised that a lot of missionaries also read it, it’s expanded a bit to be a place that also reaches out to other missionaries, hopefully in an encouraging, honest way, by telling about my journey.

It isn’t for supporters specifically, or for staying in touch with friends or anyone in particular, though some do read if for that reason. It is not something where I ask people to pray for us either.

He also wrote: "I only have the newsletter... Sometimes I wondered if I should make a Facebook group for me Facebook friends who are interested in what we are doing... But the more "mediums" one uses... - the more has to 'feed' them... "

My reply:

Yes, the more mediums you use the more work you create for yourself! I write because I’m a writer. Often writing on my blog is quite therapeutic for me, not a burden as it would be for many. It has helped me hone my writing and editing skills as to fit writing this blog into my life I often have to process and write very quickly.

Noteworthy weekend

Another weekend-roundup. There really were only two noteworthy events on the weekend.

Track and field
The first was the final athletics meet for the year (for us). It took us away from home from 6.40am to 8pm. A long day! I ended up riding with the team in the morning and driving some of the team/supporters/coaching staff home in a school van. It's a 52 kilometre round trip, it took more than 2½ hrs to drive that!

Our son ran three individual races 100m, 200m, and 400m. He recorded PR/PBs in two of those events, much to our delight. He also ran the 4x400m. It was a "freshman" (9th grade) team consisting of the same guys who won a medal last year at the middle school finals. Obviously they were competing against guys older and stronger than them, but their goal was to beat their time from last year and they did this and narrowly missed their goal of 3 min 50 sec. It will be interesting to see if they'll have a chance to do this again next year.


Mother's Day
The other noteworthy event was a Mother's Day morning tea in a fancy coffee shop with David and our two younger boys. This is the second year that I told them that's all I wanted. 

Motherhood is a long-distance event of constantly loving kids regardless of how they treat you. I can't really say much more without invading the privacy of my boys. I got my morning tea, and there was some fun, but there were some tense moments too.

I've included this incident (as veiled as my description of it is) because I know that I'm not the only one who has difficult teenagers, though we hesitate to tell one another. I also know that when we set up a day such as Mother's Day, there are often high expectations and frequently circumstances mean that we don't hit them and we're disappointed. If that is your situation, for whatever reason, I don't want to discourage you by giving you the impression I have the perfect family, because I don't. My kids aren't perfect and neither are David or I. We don't love one another perfectly either. 

This is probably a whole post on its own, but I've been challenged recently by the Holy Spirit about loving the difficult people who are in my life: my own teenagers who I can't choose to avoid. I even thanked God on Sunday morning (before we even got out of bed) that because I have these kids, I have this opportunity to grow as a result.

One more thing that I can tell you about was that I did have the opportunity to talk with my own mum (and dad) for an hour via a video call in the afternoon, which was wonderful. So thankful for today's technology!

Sunshine surprise

This week we've had some unseasonably cold, wet, and gloomy days. Our temperatures went down to low teens (Celsius). I don't enjoy Tokyo's version of cold, so it was particularly discouraging to have to pull out my long underwear, heaters, and extra blankets that we'd only just put away after the long winter months.

I come from a state known as the Sunshine State and there is good reason for that. Only 30% of days are completely overcast. (Tokyo sits much closer to 50%.) I find cloudy, cold days pretty depressing. Though cloudy warm days (i.e. over 20˚C), not so much.

So, after revelling in some gorgeous warm spring days in recent weeks, this week hasn't been so enjoyable. But then yesterday the sun came out. In fact it seemed a little more dramatic than that to me. I drove an hour to Costco in the cold rain. I had the heater on in the car. I was inside for less than two hours and when I came out the sun was shining brightly and inside the car was very warm.

As I drove home I remembered the words I'd read just the night before in John Hindley's You Can Really Grow. He wrote that you can use creation to help you focus your eyes on Jesus. I knew this, but he went a bit further in explaining it.

When we read a verse like Revelation 1:16 'His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance', it is not that the Holy Spirit was searching for a way to describe the brightness of Jesus' face, and realised the sun would be a good image. No, the sun was made in the first place in such a way that it would declare the brightness of Christ. When you see and feel the light and warmth of the sun, you are not meant to think Jesus is a little like this; you are meant to think that the sun is a little like Jesus, and that he put it there to help you remember that and be amazed by him. (p 81)

So, right there, in the midst of Tokyo traffic I was able to worship Jesus by enjoying the warmth and light the sun brought us yesterday afternoon.

I went on in my reading of the book last night and also enjoyed the next chapter about people and stories. It talks about seeing reflections of God in people and in the stories we read and see. Also balancing that by noticing the brokenness that our sin brings into the world.

He challenges his readers to be proactive in our thinking, not just in worshipping through what we notice around us, but also to reject that which will draw us away. Not by withdrawing from society, but by actually just noticing things that will cause us to draw away from Jesus and not allowing those things to take root.

I'm finding this book a refreshing read. Have you been refreshed in spirit by something recently? Do share.

Missionaries plan relentlessly

We've found that the missionary life involves much more long-term planning than most people in our home country seems to have to deal with. And probably missionary families probably have to do more than those without children.

This was a farewell picnic (winter in Queensland!) in 2015, where we
were saying, "See you in three years."

For example, one day I talked with John* about his three children and their various educational needs. At the time he and his wife were trying to look ahead 2 ½ years and seeking to predict what the best plan for the education of their three children will be then.

Another day this year I talked with Rose* about her two children and she too was thinking about the future, and especially 2021 and the several months they were planning to spend in their passport country. Where would they send their children to school? What would be best for each? What would the government regulations permit? What would they require to have done, if they were to send their children on to tertiary education in that same country?

These are not uncommon discussions in missionary families. We've been asked for years by people about where our kids will go to uni and how that will work with an American, international school education. Even this year we've been asked what our longer-range plan is: when will we be back in Australia next time for a longer stretch (answer is: we're not sure).

We ourselves are currently planning the latter six-months of this year, which we will spend in Australia. We've just this week been working on booking flights for November and meetings in Perth at that time.  Most of our Sundays for those six months are already accounted for. We've had to tell the school here when we'll be back. We had to tell our mission when we plan to return too. And way back in 2014, we were already telling people in Australia that we were planning to be back there in 2018! We've been budgeting for this home assignment since 2015 too.

Long-term planning. Not that everything that we've planned comes to be. For example, up until the middle of last year we'd been planning on spending 12 months in Australia from this July, but for various reasons we changed that plan. Many of our expat friends have had to move or return to their home countries when they weren't expecting to do so. So while missionaries make long-term plans, we also have to be flexible to change them.

It's ultimately it is up to God whether those things come to pass.

In their hearts humans plan their course,
    but the Lord establishes their steps. Proverbs 16:9 NIV

But, back to what I started with: I think many missionary families end up doing more long-term planning than many people in our home countries. It's forced upon us as we frequently move between countries and have to take more factors into consideration when making decisions about our children's education. What do you think?

*Names changed for privacy.

Our long-weekend

We've just had a long weekend. It was the end of Japan's "Golden Week", ten days or so that contain a cluster of public holidays. However CAJ had just one day off.

On Friday I chose to do what I didn't want to do: watch two superhero movies (Ragnarok and Infinity War). One a DVD, the other an outing to the cinema. I decided this out of a desire to continue to keep a little bit of a connection with our teenagers' worlds. I'm not sure how effective that was, but I keep believing that I need to continue to make the effort because I'm sure that they are not going to.

Saturday we did the usual for this time of year: went to a track and field meet. It was the middle school finals. We had gorgeous weather. The sort of low 20s, clear-sky day that is a dime-a-dozen in Queensland, but much rarer here. We didn't even get a nasty wind in the afternoon, as has been usual in recent weeks.

The meet was on what I think is an artificial island on the edge of Tokyo harbour. It's in a park, which we haven't spent much time in, given that the only time we go there is to watch our boys compete. However with only one boy running and throwing on Saturday I had a bit more spare time than usual (and I forgot my book), so I went for a bit of a wander a couple of times. It really it quite pretty. Again, hard to believe that close by is major roads and cityscapes.

We didn't see one cloud all day: very unusual for this time of year!

Sunday was a usual day, with church in the morning and resting in the afternoon, as well as some baking for the week to come. 

I finished off this book. If you're interested in Japan and don't mind well-written historical fiction, it is worth a read. It's a story about Japan's most famous revenge story, where an illegitimate daughter of a Lord seeks to avenge her father's forced suicide.

The book is actually quite insightful. Japan has changed a lot since 1702, when it is set. But there are elements that persist in the culture. One striking thing was the language in which they referred to themselves, it was very self-deprecating. For example, "I'm but a stupid fisherman, Your Honor, whom fate has rowed far offshore." There's a good deal of tension as the protagonist is in grave danger the whole book and only escapes through a good deal of cleverness as well as amazing skill. She's quite the hero.

One final photo from the weekend. Yesterday marked eight weeks until we leave Japan. I surveyed the cupboards and found some unopened food that is expired, or that we won't use before its "best by" date. So I took a couple of photos and offered them to local friends using Facebook. 

It's a fact of life when you change countries, you have to repeatedly go through the process of reducing your "pantry" and then building it up again  Thankfully this time we don't have to quite get it down to nothing, but can keep the non-perishables that have long use-by dates. But I do need to empty the fridge and freezer so we can turn them off.

I wanted to include this photo, because it does show how mixed our pantry contents are: Japanese, American, and Australian foodstuffs! (I know you can get peanut butter in Australia, but this is an American brand and size—from Costco.)

Unexpected

Today I have "something I prepared earlier". I don't think I shared much here about what happened with my job in February, because that month was also somewhat dominated by taking our son to Australia. But I had some significant other stuff happening too.

So, I'm going to tell you a little now. One of my two main jobs is currently social media manager for OMF Japan. OMF is a world-wide organisation and at the moment the international communications team (based in the UK) is running monthly prayer foci (is that grammatically correct?). As in, each month they have a prayer focus that they post about throughout the month on social media. In February it was Japan, so obviously, though they had the lead on that, we had a big part to play. It was exciting to be working in a larger team on this and also to be using material that other people have had the time to create. It was also exciting to be able to re-use stories that I've worked on both on the OMF Japan blog and with Japan Harvest magazine. But on top of travelling and helping our son, it was also a pretty frantic month.

That's just background to say that this year I've been trying to dove-tail our OMF Japan social media with the international monthly focus, where appropriate (last month they had China, so that didn't work). This month, however, is "The Journey to Long-Term Missions", which we can totally work with. We've got blog posts coming up on those themes and I'll be working to create Facebook and Instagram posts that match the theme too.

The other day, to my surprise, I found that that the international team is using a series that originated on this blog. I wrote it as a series of answers for a friend I haven't seen since primary school. She was at Bible college and had an assignment to ask a missionary some hard questions. So I blogged my answers. That was 2012. Then last year I rewrote the posts to kick-start getting content up on our OMF Japan blog and new website (the first post of the series is here). Now, they are being shared this month on the OMF International social media channels. Their Facebook page is followed by more than 7,500 people and their Instagram page is followed by nearly 1,500 people. So that is a very much wider audience than this blog has!

It's always exciting to see things that I've written before being used again, and to reach a different and wider audience, especially if I've not had to write something new, or even edit the old! My husband faithfully prays every week that my writing and editing will be of help to others, something like this is a tangible answer to that prayer.

If you're interested in finding out more about OMF International's campaign this month about The Journey to Long-Term Missions, there is a succinct prayer guide here.

Park ride

I did end up riding to the park today, but kept it to a short visit and didn't do too many things on my ride home (I often do some shopping or go to a coffee shop). It's very green now! Absolutely gorgeous.

This week is called Golden Week as it holds several public holidays. One of which is Children's Day. There are these Carp "flags" up all over Japan to commemorate. These were huge (note the people under the flagpole).

There were a lot of school groups in the park. And other groups too (riding past the BBQ section was a bit agonising). Here we have a lot of backpacks waiting for their owners to stop playing. Squatting on the left of the photo is the "caretaker" of the backpacks. I'm guessing that each class had one tree. Later they would be coming back to have a picnic.

Ah, fresh, spring green! Love it!