Crazy day with missionaries

I've spent the day with other missionaries from our mission today, there would have been about 40 or so people in the room most of the day. It's been full of lots of things, probably too many, actually, crammed into one short time together, a gathering that only happens once a month. 

The reality is that missionaries are busy people and there are so many things we could pay attention to. Our "local area" is the Kanto plain which isn't so big by Aussie standards—only 17,000 square kilometres, ¾ of the size of south-east Queensland or 1.3 times the size of Sydney. But takes hours to get around. I only live 38km from headquarters but it takes about 1 ½ hrs to get there on the trains and not much different by car. So it is a bit of a deal to get together, but when we are together I guess it makes sense to cram as much in as possible? It is billed as a "Prayer and Praise Day" but in actuality not much prayer happened, unfortunately.

Today we:

• sang
• received Biblical input
• heard a testimony
• prayed with various people
• learned about thriving on the mission field (as opposed to surviving)
• heard from someone from our international headquarters about research and publication going on within our mission
• drank coffee, ate snack
• had lunch with our small group

In addition, I did a lot of networking. I:

• furthered the conversation with that person from international headquarters (who does a lot of editing), thinking about collaboration and how I/Japan field can be more involved
• caught up with a several people on various levels, many conversations of which seemed to revolve around "how I was" which amounts to "tired" mostly due to many Saturdays in the last months spent at sporting events 
• made a lunch-date for next week
• touched base about a morning-tea date this week
• talked about getting sheet music for our national conference next month (not an easy job)
• was asked about asking a couple I know about this urgent staffing need for our guest home in Tokyo.
• asked an admin worker to get an fast printing/publishing quote for me

I think that was about it . . . enough, do you think? All within five hours. And sandwiched by crowded train travel for most of us.

I've left with a list of To Dos and a buzzing brain. So I'm going to have to get off this computer as soon as possible, so that I can calm down enough to go to bed.

But it is just a little bit ironic that we heard about thriving and paying close attention to our inner selves and our relationship with God. In a slightly crazy environment like we had today, that seems a long way distant from being possible! But of course every day of our lives isn't like that . . . thankfully.