Reflections on our 12-day trip to Australia

I did a lot of this: just sitting with
our granddaughter.

Three days ago we arrived back from our short trip to Australia to meet our new granddaughter and spend time with our kids. As you might imagine, it was a very special trip. Most of our international travel in the last 30 years has been for work, not leisure, so this uptick in family-related flights to Australia in the last few years has felt a bit extravagant. We're thankful that God has provided for our needs and that we've been able to walk a little closer to our kids through the challenging years as they transition into independent living in a country that they haven't grown up in.

The timing was perfect: we got to meet our granddaughter when she was only two weeks old, and also to have Christmas with all our kids as well. It's the first time that we've had only a "nuclear family" celebration in Australia for Christmas, i.e. not with our parents and siblings, only our kids.

Train window view: it was quite rainy
and we saw many sugar-cane fields.

It did feel like we had a double Christmas, though, a strange combo of the two types of Christmases that have become normal for us: a winter Japanese one, and a hot Australian one. Someone asked me which I preferred and I couldn't say. There are good things about both and memories associated with both.

Our journey there was a bit of a long slog. It took 25 hours door-to-door, including a two-hour car trip to the airport here, then about seven hours in the air, a taxi trip from the airport to the train station in Cairns, then a long and slow journey south to Townsville on the train that felt like it took forever (only about eight hours, twice as long as driving it would have taken). It's the first time I've taken an intercity train in Queensland. Overall the train was a good choice. It was cheaper than renting a car and, after an overnight flight, it was safer. The journey home took longer, because of train and plane schedules we had to spend the night in Cairns, so it was close to 36 hours to get back to our place in Tokyo.

Beautiful Townsville waterfront,
with Magnetic Island in the background.

Most of our 12 days in Townsville was spent hanging out with our eldest son and his wife and daughter at their place. The temperature and humidity this time of year aren't super inviting for going outside, especially with a newborn. But we did spend a little bit of time on the beachfront (though not in the sea...that's a bit dangerous with jellyfish and crocs), we went to church with them twice, and also to the Christian Christmas celebration called "The Stable" that featured not just carols and food, but live animals and actors walking around as Christmas Bible characters.

We got to housesit a beautiful water-front
apartment for free.

The apartment complex had a pool, and yes, we did have a swim one evening.

This is one reason you don't swim at this time of the year in the sea in north Queensland.

One day when we went to exit the apartment building
we found this shopping trolley taking a solo trip up and down
in the lift!

Beautiful tree in downtown Townsville. It has
a population of around 190,000, the 7th largest
non-state-capital city in Australia. Tiny compared
to Tokyo, but feels good for us who grew up in
rural Queensland.

It was a growing experience as we tried to fit in and adapt to what was going on for them, which meant not planning ahead, a lot of small grocery trips, and trying to discern how best to help out, without taking over. Like the rest of the parenting journey there's no instruction book on how to be a parent to your adult kids. But after years of raising them, I have to say that it's satisfying to sit back and watch them operating as responsible adults. Though, just like when they are younger, it's also hard to watch when they are struggling and in pain: you just want to fix it all for them and it hurts when you can't. I can easily see how challenging it would be to set boundaries if you lived close to your adult kids when they're raising their own kids. Good communication would be very important.

People have asked how it felt to be a grandmother...there's no clear answer to that either. I feel quite young at 52 to be a grandma! There is a detachment that you don't have with your own babies, when you're too tired and busy to really enjoy them. As a grandma just dropping in for a few days I had the luxury to sit back and enjoy the cuddles, while also helping out with meals, nappy changes, and a little bit of cleaning, without the long-term responsibilities and anxieties that come with parenting, especially the first time you do it. It also felt like picking up an old skill—holding a baby felt very natural and it was very special to know, as grandparents, that she's "ours".

Having our two youngest sons also visit for Christmas was like icing on the cake. The days surrounding Christmas Day when we just got to hang out together were very precious. The four guys (David and three sons) spent a lot of time playing two boardgames and I got to hang out with the girls. As I said, precious time. The last two times we came to visit this year we didn't have a solid "home base" of our own and there was a lot of other things going on, and therefore it was hard to get together and just "hang out", but that was different this time and it was lovely.

It's also been good to get home a week before school started again, we've been able to get extra sleep and relaxing time, as well as catch up with a handful of friends over meals.

Today I had the goal of starting our prayer letter, but also writing my reflection blog post looking back at 2025. I fear that I've got too many ambitions for my day!

Christmas week

My husband, David, finished school two weeks ago for the Christmas-New Year holidays and since then life has slowed down a bit. We’ve been sleeping in and having more down-time than usual. For many years this is when we would go for a week away in the mountains with our family. This year, with no kids here, we decided not to do that, to instead make new memories. However then our eldest son got engaged and announced the wedding would be January 11, which for us means a trip back to Australia. So we decided to stay home during the days before Christmas: a decision that favours the budget as well as energy-conservation.

Christmas Day was a very quiet day: the quietest Christmas celebration we’ve ever had. The only other time we’ve celebrated that day without parents or kids was a crazy busy day in Indonesia on a short-term missions trip in 1993. (Noting that when we’re in Australia we often have two Christmas celebrations, one with each side of the family, and often not on the day itself.)

David “puzzling” next to the tree.

So what did we do? We chatted with family, ate Christmassy foods, participated in an online Christmas worship service, finished a jigsaw puzzle we’d been working on, played a game of Scrabble, exchanged a couple of gifts, and went for a mid-afternoon walk. We also watched a Christmas concert and then a Christmas movie. A quiet, but happy day.

A strangely fitting day for 2024—a year that has been full of many new and different things, along with big changes. But I won’t jump into a year-end reflection yet (that’s for next week).

We did invite a number of people to join us for Christmas dinner, but for various reasons none were able to come. The sentiment around Christmas is so family-orientated and so “going home” orientated. It’s strange to not do either. But we have been doing Christmas away from our birth families for a long time now. We are very used to a quiet time at home (though it never was that quiet for most of the years we had with three young boys). We're used to celebrating at home and connecting with our Australian family via video calls (or phone in the early days). So, though it was odd, it was not so bad as in those early years. Plus, fast forwarding to the days after Christmas: we had plenty of social interaction with close friends planned for the days following Christmas.

It’s probably more noteworthy that our two youngest sons had their first Christmas without us ever yesterday. They spent the day with my extended family and we were able to have a little bit of time with them via video too.

Twelve years ago I wrote on my blog that I’d had conversations with friends who had much older kids than mine and who wouldn’t see their children for Christmas. In that blog post I wrote about my first ever Christmas away from my birth family (good story, ended with a very late Christmas dinner of a whole fish, including eyes). I doubt my sons had as strange a day as that, but I’m sure it felt a little weird. I was reminded of that today when I spent time checking in with the short-term worker who I’m supervising. Christmas was also weird for her, being away from family, but thankfully she was able to experience the power of belonging to and celebrating with other believers.

This year has been full of change and new experiences for us, but (almost) all of this has been good change. So many Christmas songs are focused on family, they tap into the good feelings of belonging and earthly family. But both of these elements of life are subject to change and also to faults. Being away from family can give you the distance to remember more easily that as a Christian the most important thing in life is that we belong to the God’s family. Though that can be difficult here on earth, is also something that is foundational and though the members we physically live life with change (sometimes daily) the head of the family does not.

I started this blog post without any idea where it would end (as I often do), but I think I’ve found the end! May God bless you this Christmas week, with a greater joy of belonging than you’ve known before.

'Twas the week before Christmas

I did my usual Monday grocery shop this week and was a little overwhelmed by the crowds. It was hard to get a park in the huge carpark under our local shopping centre (there are more than 3,000 car parks at the centre, the majority of them are undercover). And in the grocery store itself there were lots of people "hunting in packs" and more notable were those who looked like they'd been at it for a long time: their trolleys were full to overflowing, they held long lists, their eyes were bleary, and occasionally they could be heard on the phone consulting other important parties. It was pretty crazy.

'Twas the week before Christmas, 
when all through the mall,  
shoppers descended like a mad summer squall 

—penned by David Marshall, Dec '23

Because we're about to travel and be guests of our parents, I wasn't buying much, but I know our mums are probably stressed about all this, just as these (mostly) women appeared to be. I hope that we will be able to be gracious guests and not cause too much trouble!

But really, what I want for Christmas is not the "perfect" meal or decorations or presents, I just want to honour our families by spending time with them, some of whom we haven't seen for more than five years. We put so much emphasis on making this celebration "just right" that we can easily forget the more important things.

Obviously, as a woman of Christian faith, the most important thing to me is that we're remembering that this is about Jesus, the son of God, the miracle that God came to earth to be one of us. Without that event, this celebration would never have started. Unfortunately, as we all know, in many places, he's completely forgotten, overtaken by many other aspects of the season. And even those of us who are Christians can let the general fervour and busyness of the season overtake the meaning of the story that has grown a little too familiar to us.

A bit of a blurry photo of the outdoor
carols service that our eldest son's church
ran for their community. He's on the guitar
on the left of the picture. It was fun to join in
this and encouraging to hear the origin
story of the season told clearly.

But I think it's also a great time to celebrate what else God's given us. For many of us that includes family and friends. I'm thankful for being able to be physically with family this year. It's a great time to get together and be thankful (Australians, especially, without any culture of thanksgiving celebrations separate to Christmas). It's also wonderful time to gather with our communities, with "our people", and be thankful for where we get to live and the people we get to do life with. To be filled with joy at the various fun things planned for this time of year, especially when we know life can be too full of pain and drudgery. 

It's a time of year when things get magnified: bad things can seem worse and small positive things can make a huge difference. Let's take time to acknowledge the good and the joy. And let's release some of those high expectations we have of ourselves and of others, be faster to apologise and to thank, and not so fast to criticise. Let's take pleasure in the small things.

I live in a dichotomy

The past week has been full of things we've grown to associate with Christmas in Australia, things that we don't do or experience when we're in Japan:

Outdoor carols events: we went to one run by our eldest son's church and have seen plenty others advertised. The one we went to was different to many Australia Christmas events: it was evangelistic, it didn't include Santa, and almost all the songs were related to the true story of Christmas.

Church family Christmas dinner: some churches in Japan may do this, but mostly Christmas is a time for outreach events like concerts

An example of Australian "ugly"
Christmas clothing :-)

Christmas everywhere we go: decorations, lights, packaging, Santa, events, and Australia's version of the "ugly sweater" (often matching shorts and t-shirts with some kind of repeating Christmas motif), it's all far more pervasive than we see in Japan.

Preparing for the "rellie tour": visiting our birth families around the state for Christmas, which requires two eight-hour drives and one 90-minute drive.

Cricket: yep, this is a summer sport and the "sound of summer" for us is cricket on the TV in the background of life. And last week we actually went to one match live, which was a great experience after a lifetime of watching it on the tellie.

Summer: of course, it's summer, even if most of the Christmas motifs deny it. It's our second descent into summer for the year. A Brisbane summer is a bit easier than a Tokyo summer, the humidity is far less oppressive, and the nights are often are not as hot. But it will be longer. We do go most places in a car, too, which makes it easier than riding a bike or walking. We also live in a house with decent insulation, and our bedroom has an air conditioner (though I really would prefer not to live in aircon all day and night).

I remember when I first when to Japan I felt like I had to reinvent myself, like I was a completely different person in Japan than I was in Australia. To some extent that's still true. I remember meeting a life-long friend here one time for a Japanese lunch, then we went to an Asian supermarket. She remarked that she was seeing a completely different side to me than she'd ever seen before (she's never seen me outside the context of Australia). 

Life in Australia is very different in many ways to life in Japan. Life in cross-cultural ministry is also different to what most people "get". And it's easy to feel sorry for myself and descend into a pity-party here. I'm glad I didn't post this when I first wrote it because I've been able to delete a couple of paragraphs of that kind of thing!

I know that I have friends who love me and try hard to understand and love the weird person that this life has made me. I am ever so grateful to them. This is a lonely life and those special friends make a huge difference. I'm trying to do my best to embrace the "Australian Wendy" for these months we're here.

I'm also grateful for the various people we meet along the way who understand. We met two just yesterday, people who we've only crossed paths with a few times, but who have a lot more in common with us than many other Aussies.

There's so much to be thankful for! Even the uncertainty about the future, because it challenges me to trust God more. What are you thankful for this week?

Life keeps me flexible

We're in the midst of wrestling again, after a hiatus of several years. Our last big year of wrestling was 2016-17. There have been bits and bobs of wrestling in the years since, but, for various reasons, neither of our younger two sons are as passionate about the sport as their big brother is. Plus there's been injury (and a pandemic!)—last season our youngest son only wrestled once before being sidelined by a concussion. This year he's a senior and has gone out for wrestling one last time. It's taken me a while to back into the roll of things. I've just looked back at some of the blog posts I wrote during our eldest son's high school wrestling career, and it was a very intense time. This doesn't feel as big, perhaps because wrestling isn't our youngest son's main sporting passion.

So tomorrow, for the first time in several years, I'm hopping on the team bus (before the sun comes up) and heading to a day-long wrestling meet at a US army base. The blog posts I read this morning reminded me of the friendships forged in the past at these meets, but sadly I don't think any of those people will be around tomorrow (at least none of the CAJ wrestling-parents from the past). We'll see what eventuates. At least David will be there!

Our son is the "heavy-weight" of the team, in the 215 lb (97 kg) weight class. He's been watching live wrestling since he was very young (he attended his first meet was when his big brother was in Grade 7 and he was in Grade 2). And he competed on and off since he was around 10, but never with such big guys! He's won twice this season already, so we'll see how he goes tomorrow, the last meet before Christmas.

Then on Sunday we've got a friend from my uni days coming to visit with her family. They are in church ministry in Australia, but they have a strong interest in mission. The weather is looking good, if a bit chilly, so, after church we're planning to head to my favourite big park (in our van) for a picnic. Monday is going to be a bear as we recover from all that! Tuesday and Wednesday next week are also big ones, with various meetings/responsibilities downtown.

In between all of that I've got some baking to do: fudge that people have ordered, snacks for Sunday and for the school's seniors (a once-a-month encouragement organised by the parents of the class), and a usual amount for our own family to snack on.

Holidays are coming up too: with some time in the mountains before Christmas, and then our eldest son is coming to visit for Christmas from Australia for the first time in 3 ½ years! I'm looking forward to the break, and have a few books lined up. I should probably pick up my cross-stitch again, I don't think I've touched it all year.

Meanwhile, I've got some editing to do before we go away, and some writing. I'm excited to have been asked to do a "small" writing project for our US office: a series of blog posts about preparing for home assignment. It's really helpful for me to have a background project like that to work on, one that doesn't have tight deadlines and multiple moving parts and people. Plus it's a project that engages my writing brain more than my editing brain—it's nice to be on the other side of the relationship sometimes, it keeps me limber.

Not feeling festive?

How do you “do” Christmas when you’re not “feeling festive”? 

Now I understand that my life is really quite different to many of yours in this respect. I do not live near family and will not be celebrating Christmas with them. In fact I’ve celebrated very few Christmases with my family in the last 21 years! So I don’t really have much experience of all the pressure that families put on one another at this time of year.

I also live in a land where “Christmas” isn’t an overwhelming factor in life. I remember being surprised to see Christmas everywhere in Australia last time I was there in December (2018). The receptionist at the doctor was all decked out in Christmas gear. The pharmacy next door gave me my medication in a red paper bag covered in white stars and Christmas greetings. In Japan you have to work a bit harder to find such things, and mostly it’s in shops, churches, and of course in my own home. Before the pandemic we saw more at our school, with weekly concerts, decorated hallways, lights on the grounds etc. But I’m rarely at school these days and because I don’t have kids in music programs, I’m not invited to concerts.

People in church-based ministries (not our family) are usually very busy this time of year, as Christmas is the easiest time of the year in Japan to invite people to hear about Jesus, so there are lots of events. Not so much these last two years, though.

In fact in Japan, if you aren’t a self-starter, you might miss Christmas altogether. It can be a little lonely if you’re used to celebrating with family. But we’ve got our small family routines and traditions that mean it’s just a quiet, at-home affair.

But back to my first question: how do you deal with the season if you aren’t in the mood for festivity? 

A couple of weeks ago I struggled to get my head into the right place to come up with social media posts for our mission for December. I wasn’t feeling festive. I think, even beginning to feel a little jaded. I mentioned this to a couple of friends and one later shared this short article that helped: https://m.facebook.com/547967600/posts/10157506078937601/?d=n

It’s just a Facebook post, so I’m not sure if you can read it. To summarize. The author’s family was tasting grief and she went to a candlelight service at their church as she usually did. She writes: 

I felt like an imposter. I was a cloud of grief and darkness amidst a cheerful celebration. I felt guilty for dampening the time of rejoicing 

As I sat I found myself talking to Jesus. "I'm ruining your party," I told him. 

It was his response in that moment that changed Christmas for me forever. He told me, “Cassie I came to that manger as a baby not for those in celebration, but for those in mourning. I came for you. In this moment. Right here.”

She’s right. Jesus came, not to be celebrated with tinsel and shallow joy. He came because this world is in pain. We are hurting and needed him to come to comfort us, to save us.

So, I girded my loins and pushed on to do the usual things we do at this time of year. Not with a light heart, because it’s not been a light year. I continue to grieve the losses, to feel the sadness and confusion, the frustration and angst. But I also remember my Saviour who actually chose to enter this sad, confusing, painful world for me. He didn’t have to. I don’t know what kind of grief he felt leaving the fellowship of the Trinity for life in a human body. It’s beyond my understanding. But because he did, I choose to trust him and celebrate him.

I’m thankful that we don’t live in a place where we have to do lots of events just because it is December and that’s what you do. I’m glad for the quiet of the season that’s coming, when school finishes and we have a brief hiatus before the craziness of January begins. I’m hopeful that I can spend time resting in the love of Jesus, waiting on him.

(And I tried multiple times and ways to get a photo to load on this post, but could not. Sigh.)

Choc-chip shortbread

On Saturday morning over breakfast I indulged in some cookbook browsing. I was tired, but had high aspirations of getting some seasonal baking done. I came across a recipe in my collection that I'd never tried, but looked easy enough for a tired Saturday's baking. It's garnered high praise at home, and one of my Facebook friends asked for the recipe, so without further ado, here it is:

Ingredients

250g butter, softened

½ cup icing sugar, sifted

½ cup brown sugar

2 ¼ cups plain flour

¼ cup rice flour

150g choc bits

1. Beat butter and sugars.
2. Stir in the flours and choc-bits into butter-sugar mixture.
3. If it's hot, you can wrap the dough in plastic wrap and rest it in the fridge for 30 minutes, I didn't need to do that with the room temperature around 18˚C.
4. Shape spoonfuls of mixture into balls and place on tray. They didn't flatten in the oven, so I'd recommend squishing them a little.
5. Bake at 180˚C for 12-15 minutes or until golden. My oven is "hot" so I used 170˚C for 12 minutes.
6. Cool on the tray for a few minutes before transferring off the tray.

Thoughts at the end of a 16-week "term"

We're nearly there: at the end of the first "block" of school. In Australia they have four terms: each of 10 weeks. I originally wrote "we are used to", but the truth is we've rarely had our kids in that system, so we really aren't "used to" that anymore, though we grew up in such a system and hanker after it every now and then. 

Here, we get only two breaks of a week or more within the school year. The first one is over Christmas-New Year and is about three weeks. The second is just a week, at the end of March. [Of course we then get a rather long summer holiday of nearly three months! But I honestly would rather have it split up through the whole year.]

School started over 16 weeks ago  we've had just a couple of long weekends in that time. Plus, this year, two hospitalisations during that period. Not to mention that the last four weeks of our summer break was fraught with stress as our middle son, with the assistance of David, completed a whole year subject of high level maths. [Long story about how that happened, but it was much more than we expected.] I was working from home (as usual) during that period, and the daily saga of wondering if he'd get through this mountain of work, and sitting in relatively close proximity to the drama, was stressful.

When the boys were younger it was crazy by this time of the year: fatigue, plus the excitement of Christmas overwhelmed our household in early December. Now the boys are older that is lessened, but we have noted that these older boys are having a bit more difficulty getting out of bed. That's compounded by the fact that it really is nicer in bed than out on these cold mornings, and that the sun doesn't get up until after 6.30 (not as bad as many northern European places, I know, but still, it doesn't help).

A Christmas morning tea in a past year.

Needless to say, we're all looking forward to next week. We're going away for a seven-day break, back to the house we stayed at in July. Loaded up with books, movies, games, and food, we'll apply ourselves again to intense relaxation.

This pre-Christmas holiday week is one of the few traditions that we've managed to maintain as a family. At least "big" traditions. This year it will be a bit strange as we get used to doing it as a family of four, rather than five.

I'm looking forward to time away from the relentless-ness of my work. My never-ending pile of editing, email, and social media responsibilities will be put on hold for a week. And no WiFi will certainly help! I'm also glad this Christmas that we are not looking down the barrel of lots of travel: though seeing family in Australia is always good, for us it means hours and hours of driving. Last Christmas we also were in the midst of transition as we packed up our lives in Australia and shifted focus back to Japan. Not starting 2020 like that will be a huge bonus! But now I'm moving onto an end-of-year post that I can write after Christmas.

I hope the lead up to your Christmas is not too fraught. At Christmas there can often be a lot of pressure to be perfect and to have it all sorted. We see ads and social media posts with happy families that have it all together, with piles of presents or food, and with intricately decorated homes. No one is arguing, or hiding in their room. We don't see the struggles people have with finding time or money or even enthusiasm. We don't see the loneliness that often comes with such a season. We don't see the families that are torn apart with divorce, and the parents who can't see their kids on Christmas day.

If any of the above describes you, please don't despair. The ads and the social media only show a sliver of the truth, not the whole truth. No family is perfect, many out there are hurting. You aren't alone. If you need help, please reach out. To a friend, to a local social service, to a trusted pastor. If any of my personal friends need an ear, know that I'm around on Messenger, or via email if you need me.

We ourselves aren't doing badly. We have friends here, tomorrow night we are celebrating with a few of them. Christmas Day will be quiet, with just the four of us, but we typically connect with family back in Australia via video calls as well! After a busy year we won't be disappointed in a quiet Christmas. It is our first Christmas without our eldest son with us, but then both of us did that to our families when we were in our early 20s, so it's not such a strange thing that he's growing up and doing his own thing.

Well, this has turned out to be a rambling blog post. I hope it gives you some insight into our "on the edge of ordinary" life at the moment. A friend just sent me this video, I thought you might enjoy it too.

An unusual Christmas Day

When we first went to Japan we had to find new ways of celebrating Christmas, but that is a long time ago now. After 18 years of this missionary life, and only three Christmases in Australia in that time, Japan is the norm and Australia is the outlier (this year is our fourth). All our boys think of winter as the normal time to have Christmas, and having Christmas as a nuclear family is also normal. Expanding our celebrations to include extended family who live in different parts of the state adds to the strangeness of this time.

Sorting out how we would "do" Christmas wasn't easy this time, for various reasons. However, we finally managed to nail down a travel schedule late in November. We travelled up to Rockhampton (about eight hour's drive) to have several days with David's mum and then down to Toowoomba to my parents. 

At both places, we had or will have an extended family "Christmas Day". Involving presents and festive food. It turned out that, however, that the 25th wasn't a good day for either side of our family to celebrate together. So, to avoid awkwardness, David came up with the brilliant suggestion of travelling on Christmas Day and having our own nuclear family celebration on the road. Early on our all-day Christmas day journey one of the boys declared this was the weirdest Christmas ever, but after our lunch at a quiet park when we ate leftover roast chicken/ham sandwiches and fudge then exchanged presents, it was declared, "The best Christmas ever." Nice!

Here are some photos from the day:

A classic rural Australian road scene (at least within a few hundred km of the coast).

Where we had lunch.

Another tree in the park where we celebrated Christmas day as a family this year.

At our first stop, we found a bush that looked like it had been decorated just for
Christmas: but it was all God's decorating.

Exchanging presents.

Our last stop before arriving in Toowoomba. Such a classic park scene and blue sky.

I've found it challenging to have two mindsets these last few weeks: holiday/Christmas and finishing up our time in Australia. I've been switching between the two. At the moment we're trying to relax as deeply as possible and trying not to allow thoughts about what we'll need to do from next Tuesday (move house and leave the country in eight days). I hope that it will all work out in the end and that I won't be too much of a wreck before it's all done. Thankfully my indigestion has settled down for the time being (last week I was chewing antacids regularly). That's an indication that I'm getting some relaxation.

Now I'm going to sign off. We're about to go an play some "backyard" cricket in the park with the boys. I was serious when I said we're trying to relax deeply: we're immersing ourselves in an Australian summer, including watching cricket day and night. And now, playing it too!

A taste of home

I'm briefly checking in from our holidays north-west of Tokyo. I enjoyed making these this afternoon. Fruit mince pies (known as "mince pies" by some, I believe, but in Australia "mince pies" have meat in them).

Christmas when you're living overseas involves making your own traditions, these often are versions of what you've known in your home country. These pies are readily available in Australia and I would never make them there because they are too fiddly. But in Japan you can't buy them (at least I've never seen them, the foreign food here tends to be Asian or American, not Australian/British). So making them seems justified, a small taste of home. A totally delicious taste of home!

Another aspect of doing Christmas well overseas is doing things with the friends who are local to you. We've already had a couple of Christmas parties (one school one, one with friends) and we're sharing some of our Karuizawa/Miyota-holiday-traditions with friends who are staying nearby for a couple of days. 

Christmas Day we have another family join us and then on Boxing Day (next Tuesday) hopefully we'll still have some of these pies left for when some UK/Finnish/Peruvian friends will join us for morning tea. If not, then I guess I'll just have to make some more!

Have you celebrated Christmas overseas? What did you do that helped connect you with your home culture?

Fruit Mince Pie Recipe

As I wrote yesterday, I made fruit mince pies while we're away (I also made more yesterday, that makes about four or five dozen!). It's a relatively new tradition in our house. I think I've done this about three Christmases now. It's not something I ever contemplated doing before then, even though I'm totally fine with making sweet short-crust pastry. In Australia it is something I've just bought in the shop.

Below is my pastry recipe (passed down to me by my mum), part of my apple pie recipe. But the quantities I play around with a little. Japanese flour and Australian flour have different gluten contents, so a higher flour to liquid ration is needed (i.e. more flour for the same amount of liquid). So you can either use this amount of flour and liquid and then add in more flour as needed, or start with more flour and add liquid till you get the a good pastry consistency (not sticky, but wet enough to hold together).

I would also argue that the tablespoon of cornflour isn't essential.

The fruit mince I don't have a recipe for. My method this time was to combine apple sauce and orange juice with some mixed fruit (not candied) in a saucepan and cooked them for a short time (I'd have used cinnamon and maybe nutmeg, but I forgot to take them with me). For the first lot I let it soak in the fridge for a couple of days (convenience more than anything) and for yesterday's lot I used the filling straight away. But there are many different recipes online that you can use, if you need one.

Once you have these you need to roll out a portion of the dough as thinly as you can and cut it into circles with an appropriately sized cup/small bowl or container. The tops I made with cookie cutters, but you could also make them circles. The assembly is simple and then I brushed the top with egg.

I baked them in my fan forced oven at 170˚C for 15 minutes yesterday.

A sizeable Christmas tree

The Christmas tree we bought at Thrift Shop in October has turned out larger than we expected. It came in three boxes (see the photo here). We've had to shift furniture around to fit it into the small Japanese room we call our lounge room. It's diameter is about half-a-room and it nearly hits the ceiling. 

It doesn't look so intimidating in this photo, possibly because you might expect that the room goes a lot further back than the camera, but I was perched on the lounge and plastered against the back wall when I took the photo. Our 11 year old can easily crawl into the corner under the tree and barely be seen.

We're adjusting to it (we put it up last Sunday, the first Sunday of Advent) and watching the TV in that position isn't too bad. The only trouble we're having is figuring out what to put under the tree . . . teenage boys aren't so easy to buy for, especially when it's not our habit to spend much on presents.

But then I read this post from a "kid" who doesn't have parents anymore and remember how little presents mean in the long run. We're hoping for some great memories to be made this Christmas.

Photos from the previous 10 days

I posted a number of photos on Facebook over the last 10 days. Here are some that show you something of what we've been up to.

The view from our living/dining area of the holiday house. So great to see space and distance!

We encountered an international curling competition and got to watch a little. So much attention to detail!

I found these plastic eyes (and a number of other variations) for putting in food. We "played" with our food a bit! This is our youngest son's creation.

This is the volcano that we were living at the base of. Mt Asama. There was a pretty constant stream of steam coming from the crater. It's the most active volcano on our island, Honshu. It is 2,568m above sea level. We were staying at about 1,000m above sea level. 

We enjoyed an all-you-can-eat restaurant one day (and ate practically nothing else that day). It included unlimited meat that you cooked at your table in this recessed BBQ.

Christmas was a quiet day at home. We were pretty pleased with the simple table decorations that we'd gathered (runner bought just before we left Australia for less than $5).

A new board game has been enjoyed: Pandemic. This one is different in that it is everyone working together to beat the diseases.

Today I got out of the house and rode to the park on my own. The serenity was delicious. The weather was brilliant, except that it was about 10˚C.

The autumn colours have disappeared from the trees, but the sky was blue and a tinge of green remains in some of the grass. Additionally, the gardeners have planted some decorative plants/flowers. I don't really know what to call these colourful cauliflower-like plants, but you see them around the place at this time of year. They really do look exotic.

Imagining what it is like on the other side of the equator

I found an interesting post I wrote this time of year five years ago about how difficult it is to

Christmas last year outside. Difficult for most northern-
hemisphere folk to imagine.

imagine what the conditions are like in the other hemisphere (I write this wearing long johns and ugg boots, while many of you are in shorts and thongs), even if you've lived there and experienced it many times. It's no wonder we have trouble with racism and sexism and all sorts of other prejudice—we have so much trouble imagining a life that isn't our own.

Isn't it interesting that we are so influenced by our current experience that we find it hard to imagine someone else feels different? When it comes down to it, we are all profoundly self-focused and unimaginative. (From the post above)

Here's another quote from that post:

We're going to go and do what we can to enjoy the season where we are. We learned early on in this journey in the northern hemisphere that enjoying where you are, rather than being paralysed by what you cannot have and where you aren't, is the key to overcoming homesickness. 

Unsettled reflections on our Christmas-time

In reflecting on this Christmas in Australia, a time for us when most people assume that that should be the ultimate in "good experience about being home". Now without being disrespectful to our families, I want to write that it wasn't the ultimate.

We had a wonderful time with family over Christmas. We travelled to three different locations in Queensland, travelling 2,200km, and saw all our siblings, all our siblings-in-law and parents and all of our nephews and nieces (barring one) over 16 days. It was great! No doubt about it. 

But it did made me feel unsettled about our calling to Japan. It would be all too easy to say, "This whole missionary thing costs too much personally, it means we don't see our families often enough." It would be all too easy for our families to say, "We hate this missionary thing you guys are doing, it means we don't get enough of you." To their credit, they don't say that (at least to us).

But on the other hand, to say, we're ditching "this gig" in Japan because of the above reason, would be to turn our backs on the gigantic needs there, citing our personal needs are bigger. But the reality is that our personal needs aren't more important. Our families carry on without us (though I'm sure they miss us, they've gotten used to our absence). We don't collapse in despair because we can't be in Australia for family gatherings (though this isn't without a sense of loss too).

I think the other thing that made Christmas challenging was that hanging out with people who don't have the same vision or mission as you do is always going to be a dampener on your own vision. In fact Christmas and staying with family is just a continuation of the whole of the dampener of home assignment: trying to convince people that mission is important and mingling with many people who don't quite believe that. The times we spend with supporters who truly do believe this and are 100% behind us is extra special.

Ruth and Gary Weston, our Australian colleagues who've
gone before us in Japan (they were "veterans" when we were
just starting out as missionaries).

So it was a wonderful joy to unexpectedly share lunch on Saturday with colleagues from Japan. A surprise because we'd organised a social BBQ with our state mission director and he and his wife suggested that these colleagues, who've only been here for a week and a bit, might come too. It was a wonderful few hours of refilling. Refuelling with passion for the work God has given us to do. Separating ourselves from the self-indulgences of the season for a time and refocusing.

This time last year

Last year I was dreaming of an Aussie Christmas (not a white one), this year I'm living it. 
Last year I was shopping at 100 yen shops, parking my bike out the front, this year I'm avoiding shops and the crowds that go with them as much as possible.
Last year I was suffering a dreadful cold and asthma flare-up, this year I'm healthy and

Last year's Christmas morning tea in Japan.

thankful. 
Last year I attended a Christmas eve service with my family, coughing into the white mask that covered my mouth and nose, this year I'll go with my parents to their church early tomorrow morning before the home-based festivities begin.
Last year we celebrated Christmas day all by ourselves, this year we'll celebrate it with my whole family: my parents, two sisters and their husbands and children.

We enjoy Christmases in both Australia and Japan. We're not particularly homesick for Japan, but are enjoying being wholly present here in Australia. Yes, we've done some long drives to spend time with family, but I'm grateful that we are here to do it. We're usually not.

So, wherever you are tomorrow, I wish you a happy and blessed Christmas. For those we are missing loved ones, perhaps because you're in a different part of the world or because they are no long with us in this world, I hope that you are able to enjoy Christmas nonetheless, being thankful for what you do have, rather than being sad for what you don't.

If you can, remember that Christmas is a day of good news (see Luke 2:10-12). Jesus came that we might have abundant life (John 10:10b). Though that life will never be perfect this side of heaven, we can know a small taste of it by savouring the joy of trusting in Jesus now.