When are you going to settle down and get a real job?

I relate to this article about the challenges of the people who we love who don't understand what on earth we're still doing in Japan. 

This was my 40th in Japan last year. It was a time when
I was acutely aware of our absent family and friends in
Australia. Nonetheless, I had trouble parring down
the list of friends to invite to my party. We aren't lacking.

Actually I think our families have mostly given up asking when we're going to "settle down" to a life like they've known in Australia. I guess they're probably resigned to our strange life, even if they don't  understand. (I wrote a little about those kinds of conversations here.)

Basically it boils down to the fact that, though our lives look odd and unsettled to most Aussies, we've been working for the same organisation for over 14 years now and feel quite settled. We know that what we do is hard for people to understand, so we try not to expect that.

Explaining our "call" to people is plain hard, pretty impossible when they don't share the same love for God that we do. We're sad that it causes pain to those we love. The pain of our absence in their lives. 

But I like these closing paragraphs from the article:

Or maybe you’re that person who has a loved one “out there,” and you’re missing each other’s lives. I know that hurts, too. To be left and to be the leaver—they’re both difficult roles to play. I feel those aches. I know what it’s like to have your favorite person/people gone from your everyday life—to be missing from around your table at the holidays, to not see babies grow, … and I know what it’s like to be the missing one.

But I also find that it’s in these hurts that there is much beauty. And I think each person needs to come to terms with that themselves. I can’t make anyone understand or agree with my Call. But I do know that my God is strong. I ask Him, for my friends and sometimes for myself, to place a peace and an understanding in our loved ones.