One month later and the tears still flow

Today I've been very busy. Tomorrow is the deadline I gave my writers for articles for the special edition Japan Harvest. I have more than half the articles already and am working on editing them and asking others to edit for me.

I'm still working on less information than I need, especially in the financial side of things. I'd like to put some maps with some of the articles, but have come to the conclusion that that will cost money. Money I don't have the authority to spend...so I wait on others to give me the go ahead.

I wrote something of a marketing proposal, but I'm sure it would have failed Marketing 101. Basically we're hoping to get this magazine out to more than just the usual Japan missionaries who receive it. We're sure that with the heightened interest in Japan and the vast amounts of money that has been given to various ministries, that there will be an interest in our special disaster edition. Gestimating how much that interest will be is impossible for this Occupational Therapist cum Mum cum Freelance writer. I didn't even do Business Studies in Grade 9 and 10!

At 11 I dashed off to a sixth grade prayer meeting at school. Before we'd even really started I'd received two phone calls. One from our new short-term boarder. A CRASH worker who needs a bed for a few nights (he gets our lounge). Then one from CAJ trying to coordinate me seeing a child for an Occupational Therapy assessment this week. Huh? How did all these things collide? 

Then back to the prayer meeting. Only two of us were there, usually there at at least half a dozen. Another symptom of how busy everyone is at present. We shared and prayed. On this one month anniversary of the disaster the pain is still fresh and tears flowed. Actually the pain is too much for us to take. Too much hardship for one person to bear. We thanked God that we can cast our burdens on him. We thanked him that he feels the pain, that he grieves too.

After our meeting I dashed off to the gym and then back home in time to meet Matt, our new boarder. By the time I got to lunch at 1.45, I was shaking. But thankfully friends who holidayed in Australia a couple of weeks ago brought us back a special treat - Promite! Not a very famous Australian spread, not as famous as its cousin, Vegemite. Not even that popular with many Australians, however, I like it (but not Vegemite). It made for a yummy lunch.

Then back to editing, shuffling documents around, looking at maps and wondering how on earth I'm going to pull off this whole thing. Certainly I feel something like Gideon did when God gave him 300 men to fight a battle against 135 000! But who got the glory when they were victorious? Not Gideon.