It’s a big week

 Moving into a new chapter in our lives isn’t without pain. I know that the changes we’re going through right now are necessary to move into the next thing, but it isn’t all joy. 

To start with, this week has been miserably hot. Cleaning, packing, and moving furniture and boxes around is an energetic exercise at the best of times, but this week we’ve hit a heat wave in Tokyo, a fairly early one. The average maximum temperature in July is usually 30, the last three days have been 36 or 37 degrees. Additionally, the house we’re moving out of had air conditioning only in the living/kitchen areas, and even that we lost on Tuesday morning as they came to uninstall the units. It’s been a case of working in spurts punctuated by breaks. Thankfully we’ve been able to housesit for friends of ours who are currently in the US on holidays. Their fully air conditioned apartment is only 300 m away from our house, so it’s been extremely easy to pop back and forth between the two. That’s meant we’ve been able to sleep in the cool too.

Sorting our goods thankfully hasn’t been too painful, we did a good portion of it in the months leading up to this move. But still, there was plenty of decisions to be made (this decision tree I shared earlier this year helps you to appreciate the extra layer of complication we have as missionaries). Some decisions are more important than others, but they add up. Just today I’ve decided which pieces of gardening equipment to keep (thankfully I don’t have much), which ice packs to keep, and whether I want to store a razor, or take it with me. Seemingly minor things, but the end of a long list of decisions.

On Sunday we watched as our two youngest sons decided what to take with them when they leave Japan next week, knowing that we don’t really have room to store stuff for them here. You see photos of kids leaving to go to college with whole cars stuffed full of things. Our guys only get a few bags. One of the harder decisions to make was regarding their winter clothes. It was hard to even touch those in the midst of this current heat.

On Sunday evening, it was almost anticlimactic to watch our loved dining table taken away by strangers. But all of a sudden, our house was definitely missing a key piece and since then it’s been feeling more and more like a familiar, but no-longer-the-same place. Then Monday morning the “large rubbish” department of the local government came and took away nine other pieces of furniture. Last night friends came and took our son’s beautiful desk. And two other friends came and took two futon sets.

Last Friday afternoon we welcomed local friends to an open house. We provided cold drinks (it was another stinking hot day), home made snacks (I found frozen bananas that either had to be used or tossed), and a bunch of stuff free for the taking. It was a great opportunity to see some people for the last time. But also we cleared out a lot of stuff too (which either got taken, or subsequently disposed of). It was like a turning point in this move. From then on things have been steadily leaving the house, destined for various places.

One of those is a space OMF rents for missionaries going on home assignment. This is a shared space, so requires quite a lot of juggling. Just in the last fortnight, several missionary units have put stuff in and taken stuff out. Thankfully it’s close to us, so we’ve been able to save a lot of money utilizing our eight-seater van and our two strong sons.

The twist, is getting stuff up and down this unattached ladder! Removalists aren’t super keen and I can understand why!

In the photo you can see a large blue tarp. That is covering the goods of a single missionary who will be coming back, we understand, in the next couple of months.

Other stuff that this last week has held includes:

• A trip to immigration to get our re-entry permit.
• A trip to do the paperwork to transfer the ownership of our car to the missionaries who’ve bought it.
• Quick trips to the store to buy lunches
• A trip to the city hall to tell them we’re leaving the country (so need to pause health insurance).
• Farewelling our youngest as he went to his final youth group camp over near the Pacific Coast. We’ll see him again on Sunday when we head that direction ourselves.

And coming up:

• Tomorrow David will make a journey into our nearest large centre to see if they can figure out why his not-old laptop won’t start.
• We also will make one or two trips to the local dump to dispose of the miscellaneous pile of stuff that we don't want to store.

Friday David will hand over the keys to the house and Sunday we’ll gather our bags once again and head to the OMF guesthouse for a couple of nights before hopping on a flight on Tuesday.

Speaking of bags…we’re pretty sure we’ve got more than the weight our tickets allow us, so today or tomorrow we’ll be weighing it all and deciding what to mail.

It’s been a big week, and hidden underneath all the busyness is an array of emotions. This is a good move, but also lots of big changes and adjustments are needed by everyone.

We have so much to be thankful for. I’m thankful for small things like a nap yesterday afternoon (I’ve been waking after only six hours of sleep each night) and no headaches for nearly two weeks! 

And we have so much to continue to trust God for. It’s pretty common these days to call someone in their life their “rock”, but I think the best rock is God, the only unchanging, reliable being that we know.

 “Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from him. Truly he is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I shall not be shaken. My salvation and my honour depend on God; he is my mighty rock, my refuge. Trust in him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge.” (Psalm 62:5–8)

This time next week I’ll hopefully be in Cairns, Australia, recovering from an overnight flight. I’ll “see” you on the other side of this journey.