Unexpected tears

More unexpected joy this week, but you're going to have to bear with me a tiny bit because there's backstory to why I was crying during a two-hour predominantly Japanese-language OMF celebration on Monday.

For a long time I've had a passion to share missionary's stories. It's stories that grab people's attention, and missionaries collectively have some amazing ones to tell, but often not the time or skill or passion to get them out to a wider audience. It's my joy to be pretty much working with missionaries and their stories most of the time these days. 

In 2017 I had a unique opportunity to start a blog for OMF Japan that has become a wonderful vehicle for getting missionary's stories about Japan out to a wide audience. I've had the support of OMF Japan leadership and the field in this endeavour and the last eight years we have published one story a week on our website...that's around 400 stories. At almost the same time I joined with one of my colleagues to start OMF Japan Facebook and Instagram pages as ways to get our website stories seen even further.

Fast forward to today and I'm working with a creative team of five on our social media, and getting stories from across Japan to share with thousands of our followers. In September this year we had the theme "Partnering with Japanese churches" and one of my team members asked one of her colleagues, AJ, for a story about the church that he is planting in partnership with their church. AJ wrote a really good story. As soon as I read it I knew this was important to share with our audience. So, I edited it and then we got it out there (you can see it here).

On Monday, we celebrated the 75th anniversary of missionaries coming to Japan with OMF and 60th anniversary of missionaries going from Japan to other parts of Asia with OMF. It was a joint two-hour gathering in a church in downtown Tokyo.

A portion of AJ's story was shared as a key part of the message presented by OMF International's General Director (GD), in fact, he used it to bookend his talk on John 3: 29, 30.

In particular, this bit:

When we first began exploring the idea of planting a new church, I sat down with our Japanese pastor from Hatogaya and admitted, “I am scared of this undertaking.” . . .

Pastor Oshima listened and I will never forget his response. He simply smiled and said, “That’s okay. I’m scared too. Let’s be scared together.” 

I was stunned, and delighted. And teary. 

Our organisation is very large, over 2,500 people actively engaged in various ways across the globe. The GD is from Taiwan and works in Singapore, I've met him only once and never had a conversation with him. Yet this story had reached him and he used it to encourage his largely Japanese audience (with translation) to push on in doing God's work.

I only had a tiny part to play in this, but somehow God took my "two small fish" and used them for his glory.

To be fair, there were other elements in the gathering that had me pulling out a tissue, before and after this surprise. Most of the talking was in Japanese and the only speech that I really understood was the one spoken in English by the GD. 

But we sang. One of the songs, "One Voice" I first encountered it in Japanese during our first term in Hokkaido. I learned it during a very difficult time in my life when I felt pretty useless and exhausted (two little boys under 5 + trying to work in a Japanese church without much language or capacity). It makes me emotional most times I sing it! Interestingly, the English version doesn't affect me at all!

English lyrics:

Father, we ask of You this day
Come and heal our land
Knit our hearts together
That Your glory might be seen in us
Then the world will know
That Jesus Christ is Lord

Let us be one voice that glorifies Your name
Let us be one voice declaring that You reign
Let us be one voice in love and harmony
And we pray, O God, grant us unity

Now is the time for you and I
To join our hearts in praise
That the name of Jesus
Will be lifted high above the earth
Then the world will know
That Jesus Christ is Lord

After the service they had some refreshments and there was much mingling amongst those gathered. The prayer booklet, Beneath the Surface, was for sale, in English and Japanese, this is another project that I had deep involvement in in 2019/20. I'm always excited to see it "out in the wild" as it's also one of my editing babies! I had just had a conversation the day before with someone from our church who's very excited about this booklet, she's sent it to her mum in New Zealand who is also excited and it giving it away to whoever she can. My friend asked me for 10 more copies!

I was exhausted by the end of Monday. It included four trains and an hour-long car journey and constant interaction from the moment I climbed into the car before 8 am. But also so much brimming with joy at God's good gifts to me that day. Though I periodically feel pretty useless and not worthy of being used by God in Japan, he continues to call me and to encourage me, and even use my "two small fish" (see the story of Jesus feeding the five thousand in John 6).

Moving our sons out (part one)

We're getting close to being able to tell you the "end of the story", the end that we've been working towards and praying about for many months. The story of how both of our boys move out of home. Here's part one.

Last Friday our 18 y.o. moved out into a house near his university that he will share with two other students (24 km from where we're living). The house was found through a real estate agent that goes to our eldest son's church. One of his housemates also goes to that church and so does our 18 y.o. son now! We're thankful that they did most of the work finding the place, sorting out paperwork, and finding a third housemate.

We did the move the cheap way using our car and a borrowed trailer, so it took longer than if we'd hired a big van. But it wasn't a simple move from one place to the other. We picked up stuff like a washing machine and microwave from several places close to his new house as well as a bed and bookshelf from the far east of Brisbane (nearly 50 km from our house). We got home for the final time at 10pm on Friday night after driving around all day. Then we hopped back in the car on Saturday morning and picked up another item, then (because he doesn’t have a licence yet) picked our son up to take him to the optometrist because his glasses frames had started to break the day before. On our way back to his place we picked up one final thing: a two-seater sofa. When we finally got home on Saturday at 3pm we were very tired, but also very satisfied.

Saturday was a very different day to
the rain we encountered on Friday.

Everything seemed to take twice or three times as long as it looked like it should on paper. We encountered heavy rain, bad traffic, an ATM that wouldn't give me a $80 (no $10 in the machine, presumably), a Saturday morning market, parking difficulties, communication delays, and bad directions from Google maps. We forgot things and had to go back again, had to buy a new tarp, and had to take detours to get food.

Along the way we met an Ecuadorian who hasn't seen her family for over five years, a Belgian who has a new baby and is returning "home" via New Zealand, and a lady who works for the RSL (Returned Services League) and is committed to not continue contributing to landfill by helping her adult kids pass on their unneeded stuff. We met people who stood by our sides 24 years ago as we left Australia the first time. And more recent acquaintances who, in 2022, housed members of our family three times (including one emergency stay when a plane got cancelled), picked us up from the airport that same year when it took us 35 hrs to get from Japan to here (usually it's an 8 hr flight), and drove two of us to the Gold Coast to catch our flight back to Japan. We had things thrust into our hands and left on the front step that would help our son set up his new place with his two new housemates. What a wonderful confluence!

It was quite a process, but we felt satisfied at the end. Not only had we achieved a major goal (raising our son to the point where he could live independently from us) but we were able to physically help him move out. So many times in the last 25 years we've been unable to help our loved ones by being physically present. 

We've missed many significant family celebrations, including our eldest son's 21st. And have never helped our parents, sons, or siblings move house. We’ve even missed moving into our own house several times (when we’ve asked people to help set up our newly rented house before we arrived back in the country, so that we could settle the boys into school as quickly as possible). It was a joy to be able to help this time. It was fun to scour second hand shops and Facebook Marketplace, and to make lists of household products to add to my grocery list, all of this to help him get started in this new life.

But I can't finish this post without telling of how we're praising God for his great provision. Queensland has been experiencing a housing shortage for some time now, and people have been very fond of telling us how hard it is to find places to rent (which hasn't been very encouraging). But God's purposes for us haven't been thwarted. At least that's how it looks from our perspective. In order for us to continue to serve God in Japan, we needed him to find places for our sons to move to, and it's happening! 

We've been praying about this for years and many others have been praying in recent months. At our church on Sunday the worship leader reminded the church they've been praying for our sons' accommodation for eight months! So we're praising God for his provision and his ongoing leading. Of course he could have led us out of ministry in Japan and that would have been hard, but hopefully we would have been able to praise him for that too.

We've been watching a season of The Chosen recently and one of Jesus's disciples said, after witnessing a miracle, "I don't know why I continue to be surprised." This is how I feel. And I feel chastened regarding my lack of faith and trust in God. But also just thankful for God's provision.

Psalm 68:19 Praise be to the Lord, to God our Saviour, who daily bears our burdens. (NIV)

Part 2 is planned for next week. It will look different, but you’ll have to wait to hear that story!

Trying to keep my eyes off the problem

Our daily prayers are full of "please God, we need certain things to be in place so that we can do what we perceive you want to us to do, but we're struggling to trust that you're going to come through on this. Please help us to trust, and forgive us for our lack of faith." 

Trusting God for our future is the overwhelming challenge I've got right now, and if you've been reading my blog you'll know that that tussle has been going on for some time. In fact I hesitate to write about it again, because it feels like I'm just a clanging gong, with only one topic.

I know that he's in control and that he loves me and will work out his purposes, that he will never leave us and that whatever happens is will work out for our good and his glory, but I struggle to stay in that posture of trust.

Prayer

Which brings me to the topic of prayer. The ladies at our home church (Grace Christian Church Redbank Plains) have started working through a book called A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World by Paul E. Miller. Someone lent me the book late last year and with all the free time I've had, I've managed to read it all before we began discussing it. Last week's gathering, though, made me uncomfortably aware that my experience of prayer and those of many Australian Christians, is vastly different. I'm not boasting here, in fact I hesitate to write about my prayer life because Jesus told us to be quiet about our prayers (Luke 18:9–14; Matthew 6:5–6). My purpose here is just to show you what being a missionary with a Christian missionary organisation can be like.

Prayer is everywhere in our work. It's part of almost every meeting: large or small. It's not uncommon to be in the middle of a gathering and be asked to "turn to the person next to you and pray about these matters". For a few years I used to attend up to several prayer meetings each month with other parents at school (CAJ).

Additionally, I write a prayer/newsletter each month and are often asked by several different geographical (Japan, Australia, Queensland) branches of our organisation for prayer points. We receive regular prayer letters and prayer documents from those same branches, as well as from several missionaries who we pray for in more detail.

It adds up to a lot and boils down to an overall expectation by our organisation that we'll be personally praying for a lot, including our 120+ colleagues with OMF Japan and 70+ colleagues at CAJ. Not to mention 100+ OMF Australian colleagues. David and I have a system that enables us to pray for a good number of these people (though not everyone every day) and we do this before breakfast most days.

In addition to all the above, I have three friends who I can shoot a quick request: "Please pray, this is happening..., or "Please pray, I feel..." I have a few others who I sometimes will ask for specific prayer. And they do the same to me.

Over the years, steeped in this prayer-full environment, one of my first reactions when something difficult happens, is to ask certain people to pray, to share the burden, even if I can't find the words or energy to pray for myself.

From what I've observed, I don't think the above is the experience is common. It makes me feel amazingly blessed. People sometimes say, I don't know how you do what you do. Well, I would say it's primarily because of all this prayer. Yes, we pray for others, but we also have hundreds of people (potentially) praying for us, many of whom we've never met.

Right now a lot of people are praying for our sons. The prayers for one of them has been answered: he's found a house in a good location and housemates, he's also got a short-term job that will bolster his bank account. But we're waiting on answers for the other son, the one who has had an especially rough road over the last few years. Our hearts ache, but we're being bolstered by many who pray for us. And wait . . . and wait . . . and wait . . . to tell you, and many others, the answers to those prayers.

Like a grasshopper

Image by Marc Pascual from Pixabay

This morning I was reminded of a Bible story that impacted me at a camp in my last year of high school. We spent time looking at Numbers 13 and 14, the story of the 12 Israelite spies that were sent to check out the land that God was taking them to. They came back bearing amazing fruit from the land, but also stories about how impossible it would be for the Israelites to invade the land (which is what they assumed they'd have to do). They emphasised how big and strong those living in the land were. They used this metaphor: "We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them."

Two of the 12 men, Caleb and Joshua, opposed the others, saying that if this was God's plan, he would do it: "The Lord is with us. Do not be afraid of them." They focused on God, not on the problem. So often I focus on the problem!

The story continues with all the Israelites latching onto the bad report and complaining, suggesting it would be better to go back to Egypt (and, one assumes, the captivity that awaited them there). The Bible records an interesting interaction between God and Moses. God complains to Moses about the Israelites, a cites a plan to destroy the whole nation and push on with Moses and his descendants. Moses pushes back and points out that the nations would see what's happened and assume that God couldn't do what he set out to do. He appeals to God's character and asks him to show his strength by forgiving the Israelites. God relents, but his new plan is that none of those 20 or older who were counted in the census earlier on their journey would enter the Promised Land, except Caleb and Joshua, and that it would be 40 more years of wandering in the wilderness.

When Moses reported this to the people, they mourned, said they'd sinned, and decided to go to invade the Promised Land anyway, the very next day. Much like when I was a kid and tried to get out of a punishment after being caught. And yep, they went and got beaten, because God wasn't with them.

It's an extraordinary story. I feel like a grasshopper just now. I did back in year 12 too, when I was facing the end of high school and all the unknowns of the following year. I rather think God prefers that we feel like grasshoppers and so rely on him for strength, rather than our own.

It's a story that shows us how serious God takes grumbling against him. But also shows how a plan won't succeed if it's going against God's plans. For sure there's a lot I don't know about God and his guidance and leading, I'm no expert at all, just a lay person reading my Bible. But also a person seeking to follow God's will. I'm prone to be impatient and to grumble about God's timing, yet I'm also trying to trust God in the midst of it all. Keeping my eyes focused on God instead of the problem is probably the key, just like it was in this story as well as the story of David and Goliath!

Are you facing a giant of a problem right now? How do you keep your eyes off the problem and fixed on God?

Figuring out what God wants me to do

A close friend recently sent me a link to a very helpful Facebook post. It’s written by Martyn Iles, an Australia Christian who has had an unusually public profile in recent years (in Australia Christians don’t typically get much press). Who he is isn’t as important as the wise things he’s written, so I won’t write any more about him. He wrote this in a Facebook post, but sharing a Facebook post is only helpful if someone has a Facebook profile, so I’ve copied the text here (for my future reference, if nothing else):

How can I know what God would have me do?

When I speak to people personally, some variant of this question is possibly the most common question I am asked.

There is a four principled decision making framework which has never failed me yet.

Importantly, all four principles are to be discerned in the context of sincere prayer about the decision.

1. Circumstances

Your circumstances will change (or not), without your manipulation or control, in a way that enables or reveals the right course of action. Because God is sovereign and works providentially.

2. Scripture

If you are a habitual student of scripture, it is likely that your reading and study will speak into your circumstances in a way that confirms the right course of action. Because God speaks to us reliably in His word.

3. Peace

It may take time - it's often the final confirmation - but ultimately you will be at peace about the right decision. That is to say, it may be hard or daunting, but your conscience will quietly confirm it. Because the Spirit of God works in our conscience.

4. Patience

Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait!!!! STOP RUSHING! The scriptures are packed full with exhortations to "wait on the Lord." There are countless examples of God's slowness in the face of our hurry. Learn the discipline of patience or you will constantly make bad decisions. And you will *never* be worse off, or miss out, because you were patient. If you do, it just means it was never meant to be.

Now, you can be mistaken on one of the above - misreading circumstances, wrongly applying scripture, etc - but it is utterly unusual to be wrong about all four at the same time, especially in the context of patience and prayer.

When all four line up, that tends to be when I act. But often they don't, so I simply resist action, which is very hard.

Now, for matters of very great importance, I may have thought that all four principles were in alignment, yet the gravity of the decision was such that I was still reticent to make it.

In such circumstances, you can do a Gideon. You can pray for special confirmation and clarity - a "fleece." In His grace, God is ordinarily willing to provide it.

The alternative to the above is to plan your own way and make your own decisions, and expect God to catch up. That simply is not a life of faith. (End of the quote)

_____________

(Very annoyed right now because I've just lost several paragraphs here that I'd written here the other day...so on to to remembering what I wrote...)

What we see on earth is but a poor reflection of
what's truly going on (a much worse image than
we see here in a photo of the pond in the Japanese
garden at Mt Coot-tha).

I imagine that many people think that the decision of becoming a missionary must be one of the biggest we've ever made and that other decisions would be easy in comparison. While I could write much about the original decision, I will just say that there have been quite a number of times since then where decision making (and waiting for God's plan) has been hard.

A sample of times when this has seemed especially true in the last 25 years:

• When we were working towards to come to Japan and it took longer than we’d hoped
• When there was no teaching position for David in Japan for five years after we made ourselves available for that
• When my Japanese language ability never made it to a level suitable for working in it
• When I spent more time with sick kids than in doing any kind of outside ministry (or language learning) in our first term in Japan
• When our attempts to help our eldest learn Japanese language and culture by enrolling him in a Japanese primary school failed (we had to move him out after just 15 months)
• When we nearly didn’t get back to Japan in a timely fashion five years ago due to financial reasons
• When one of our sons encountered difficulties significant enough to derail our plan of moving him to Australia in 2021

Right now, as I've mentioned before, we're walking through the situation of seeking affordable rental accommodation for our younger two sons so that they can carry on their lives here while we head back to Japan. For various reasons we want to do that sooner rather than later.

What adds to the difficulty of this is not just that the rental system is under great stress here, but that our "public" lives mean that we've asked lots of people to pray about it, including our church. And people keep wanting updates. I want to jump straight to the end of the chapter and tell them a "success" story . . . but it's taking a while.

I really appreciated the wise older gentleman in our church who asked me last month, "Are you making progress?" 

This was a gentle and discerning way to ask and I could answer a wholehearted "YES". I felt encouraged, rather than needing to explain where we were up to and why we hadn't "succeeded" yet.

Back to the earlier quote, I really appreciate the emphasis on "wait". I am not naturally good at that, in general I tend to barrel ahead at considerable speed. Though I'd have to say that I have grown in this area in the decades since I became an adult. This particular waiting seems to be trying my patience and trust in God more than usual. But I'm trying hard to keep my eyes on Jesus.

I had coffee with a new friend this morning and we reflected on how we often don't know why God is doing something, or what his timing is, but we need to trust him regardless because he's so much wiser, more loving, and more powerful than us. That his thinking isn't the same as ours is clearly seen throughout the Bible, but perhaps no clearer than in the book of Job.

Here are a couple of verses I found along this line:

God’s voice thunders in marvellous ways; he does great things beyond our understanding.  (Jobe 27:5 NIV)

‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the Lord. ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.' (Is. 55:8–9)

So, we still await the end of this chapter of transitioning our sons to accommodation separate from us. It's going to be a good one! I can't wait to tell you about it!

A couple of admissions

I've had lots of space for thinking recently. Sometimes it feels like too much space.

We enjoyed the simple pleasure of catching
up with "old" friends on Saturday.

A shocking truth: not trusting God. Yep, that's me.

After we moved here in July, I re-joined our home church's Friday morning Ladies Bible study. They had been studying Trusting God by Jerry Bridges. Of course, coming in more than halfway through the year was a disadvantage. (For my northern hemisphere readers: Much of Australian life runs on a calendar year. Many things, including school, start in mid or late January after the long Christmas/summer holidays and finish in November or December. So arriving in July or August often means you've missed half a year of something.) 

One of the ladies gave me a copy of the book they were studying, one that I have actually owned since I was a uni student, but I think it's in storage in Japan. It's a long time since I read it, so I've gone back to read from the start of the book. 

It really is basic stuff that I know, but stuff that I keep forgetting, or maybe "forgetting" is too strong a word, possibly "lose sight of" could be better? I am still not really good at applying truths I know in my head to my emotions. Emotions grab hold of me and before I know it my body is showing signs of stress. When I take a step back and think about what’s going on, more often than not I realise it's because I've stopped trusting that "God's providence is his constant care for and his absolute rule over all his creation for his own glory and the good of his people" (Trusting God, p. 13).

So, I was encouraged to read Bridges write (about his own pilgrimage of seeking to come to a place of trusting God at all times), "I am still far from the end of the journey." It is good to remember that it is a journey, and one that won’t be finished until we’re in heaven.

Entitled thinking 

Additionally I've been thinking about how easy it is for missionaries to slip into entitled thinking. A few weeks ago a close friend caught me thinking that way—my guard was down because she is such a good friend, and I was shocked to hear what came out of my mouth. I still feel ashamed as I see how easy it is to slip into thinking that because I'm a missionary I deserve certain things and deserve better things. And then complaining when I don't get them! And then I saw this quote: 

"You cannot possibly have a sense of entitlement—thinking you deserve only good and beautiful things–when you truly realize that you don't deserve anything good if not for God's grace, extended from his throne."—Mel Caparrow, Enough is Enough

Ouch!

I think "truly realize" is one thing, but always remembering it is another. The dictionary.com definition of "realize" is to "become fully aware of (something) as a fact; understand clearly". I really do understand these truths pretty clearly, but, as I wrote about earlier, applying them to my heart is another matter.

Need to be careful where I put my focus

I need to be more thankful, and more repentant when I notice thoughts like this entering my head. I'm thankful my friend caught me in this. She didn't rebuke me directly, but what she said made me stop and think about what I'd just said.

In the end I think many of the issues that we deal with (anxiety, entitled thinking, anger, fear, discontent etc.) stem back to not trusting God. And this reminds me of a favourite book of mine (that’s also in storage in Tokyo), Awe by Paul Tripp that traces the things we struggle with back to our lack of awe of God, our forgetting how amazing and completely capable and loving he is. I wrote about another book by Jerry Bridges a few years back (here), which also traces what he calls “hidden sins” back to a lack of trust in God’s character:

“The importance of a firm belief in the sovereignty, wisdom, and goodness of God in all the circumstances of our lives. Whether those circumstances are short-term or long-term, our ability to respond to them in a God-honoring and God-pleasing manner depends on our ability and willingness to bring these truths to bear on them. And we must do this by faith; that is, we must believe that the Bible's teaching about these attributes really is true and that God has brought or allowed these difficult circumstances in our lives for his glory and our ultimate good” (Hidden Sins, Bridges, p. 76).

“When I refocus, I take my eyes off my problems, and shift them onto the Lord — and I choose to trust him. Trust him even when my situation looks black. Trust him that he is working for my good. Trust him that he knows what is best.” (From here.)

Remembering this is so important: "No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly" (Psalm 84:11). 

In the last two weeks we received disappointing news on two fronts. Not devastating news, just what felt like setbacks to our plans. But obviously our plans weren’t God’s plans and we need to continue to trust he’ll guide us as we seek to work our way through settling our younger two sons in Australia so that we can return to Japan next July. So I return to one of my favourite passages from the Bible:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart" (Heb. 12:1–3, NIV).

Ah, it is so easy to lose heart. I'm feeling flat today and I think it's partly a losing-heart symptom. Life is hard. God didn't promise us anything else. So the only option is to keep our eyes focused on him.

I've rambled on long enough, it's time to publish this now (I've been writing it for a couple of weeks as I tried to process the rollercoaster of emotions I've been riding).

Transition reflections

We are inching closer and closer to home assignment. It's less than five weeks till we fly out of Japan and while I know there is a lot yet to be done, I'm also getting impatient for it all to be over! I feel a bit overwhelmed by all the anticipation! 

This week I've been slowed up considerably by the miserable cold I mentioned last post, complicated as usual by my chronic asthma. I've gotten a lot less done than I'd expected, but nonetheless, I don't appear to be terribly behind, which is a great relief.

Yesterday morning I had my last "handover" planning meeting. Gradually the puzzle that I've been working on is being solved. The question that's been heavily on my mind for months now was how I was going to take leave from my various roles in Japan for 12 months without having those ministries collapse (not because I'm indispensable, but because I have been a key leader of both my main ministry teams). 

The goal I've been working towards is officially finishing most of my roles next Friday. After that we have our OMF field conference for a week in Hokkaido and then three and a half weeks to pack up our house, pack our bags, move, go to final medical appointments, say farewells, dispose of stuff, and hop on an aeroplane.

Forgive my unbelief

One of the stresses of moves like this one are all the unknowns compounded by many, many decisions. Most of the unknowns for us now are problems to be solved in Australia: like where we're going to live and how we're going to get around. 

We sent out our June prayer letter this week and in that we made an appeal to borrow furniture. We don't know where we'll live, but chances are that it will be unfurnished. We have only a very small amount stored in Australia and almost none of that is furniture, so each time we've got back for home assignment, we've asked our network to help us out. They've never failed in 20 years and I can't remember ever having to buy any larger (or even medium) household goods. God's provided in the past. But I still succumb to anxiety, which, I realise, is basically rooted in not believing that God will supply our needs (despite what I say with my words). In the case of the furniture, only an hour or two after I sent out that prayer letter, a good friend messaged me with news that she can supply most of those needs! Wow. Thank you Lord, but please forgive my unbelief! And help me to apply that faith to the other needs we have!

Quietly rebelling

What most people don't realise is that we really do like what we do in Japan. The essence of home assignment is that we have to give up what we really like doing here to become public speakers in Australia. And neither of us really enjoys public speaking.

I find myself quietly wanting to rebel against what we’re required to do over the next twelve months. Most of what we do in Japan is usually in the background. Neither of us feel comfortable being in the limelight. But home assignment puts us firmly there. We morph into speakers, workshop leaders, and Japan experts. My quiet rebellion is because I don't really want to be considered an extraordinary human being, one that needs to be pointed out as something special, someone who we invite to speak about their amazing experiences. That sub-text is contrary to what I want to communicate: that we are just ordinary humans, doing pretty ordinary stuff (just in an extraordinary place). We appear "special" because not many people do this, but it's not because we are inherently special. All we have and are is from God. It's because we serve an extraordinary God that we can do this, and keep doing it.

Translators?

I'm reading a book at the moment called Uncommon Ground, a collection of essays brought together by Tim Keller and John Inazu with perspectives from people thinking deeply and working daily to live with these times. What I didn't expect was to gain some perspective on what our role is during home assignment.One of the authors, John Inazu, calls himself a translator, though he is a lawyer and teacher. He says each of us is called to the task of translation: making words and ideas accessible to audiences unfamiliar with them. He describes his role as translating for and to each of the two worlds he occupies: the church and the university (he teaches law). "My vocation of translation means translating the university to some of my church friends and translating the church to some of my university friends." (p. 115)

In the case of a missionary on home assignment, we have to "translate" overseas mission and Japan to Australians. In general people we encounter there don't clearly understand what we do or where we do it. If you've followed my blog for a long time, you'll know that our work in Australia is composed of answering a lot of questions.

Much patience and diligence is required in translation. Much attention to detail as well as sensitivity to the wider picture. My work as an editor is also translation to some degree. I have to ensure that the writer's intent is accurately and appealingly translated into words that the audience will understand and not stumble over. And of course, as a writer who writes about cross-cultural life, I am translating my experience, life in Japan, and missionary life, into words so that others can understand. Pretty similar, in a way, to what we do on HA, except that as a writer and editor, I can hide behind my screen, rather than have to engage people face to face, or stand up in front of an audience with no time to edit my answers.

This is an interesting, helpful new thought for me. The author's thoughts on how we all need more humility, patience, and tolerance, are challenging, but helpful as we head into a different season of translation.

My writing journey

And to demonstrate how fried my brain is, I'm also
sharing a photo that is completely unrelated to this
post. But it is my most favourite sunrise experience.
Photo taken when we were camping on the banks of
the largest lake in Japan several years ago. It was
an accidental sunrise sighting: I'd merely gotten up to
use the toilet facilities (at 4am) and found this outside
our tent!

This is the second week that I'm helping facilitate a workshop for our organisation. It helps workers prepare to go back to their home country to connect up with those who've supported them and, very often, report back about the work they've been doing. This week we're focusing on spoken communication, in particular, a modular system of putting a presentation together that involves telling two-minute stories. I've had the privilege of sharing some examples of stories from my own life with the participants. Here's one I shared today, and I thought you might be interested to read and a portion of my journey:

Do you enjoy hearing people’s stories? Most people do. I have the privilege of working with people to share their stories.

Early in 2007, I was questioning my calling as a missionary. I spent most of my days at home with three kids under 8. Not just that, but I barely knew anyone locally besides the Japanese mums at my son’s kindergarten. We’d moved to Tokyo less than 3 years earlier so that my husband could follow his calling to teach missionary kids. I was happy for him, but I found myself without the capacity to do much—not only was I busy with three young boys, but my Japanese was pretty terrible.

I asked God: why did you bring me to Japan and yet I can’t do anything like what I imagined a missionary could do? That was a turning point.

That year David gave me a CD from a guest speaker at the school, one of the songs called “Seize the Day”, spoke to my heart: I should be seeking what God had for me to do that was in line with my gifting, limitations, and life stage. A colleague volunteered to take care of our kids so I could go to a three-day missionary women’s retreat where the theme was writing your story. By mid-year I‘d started exploring the writing world. I’d joined a small international writing group, entered a writing competition, and wrote an article about one of our experiences in Japan. Later that same year I did a one-on-one online writing course with an experienced Christian writer.

Three years later, in 2010, I went to an OMF writing workshop in Hong Kong. There I realised that my heart’s desire was not to write a book, but to tell the stories of ordinary people who happen to be missionaries. Someone prayed at that time that God would bring people across my path whose stories I could tell. Forward twelve years to now, and I spend most of my time working on missionaries’ stories as an editor. As a magazine editor and OMF Japan’s social media manager I’ve helped get hundreds of stories out to thousands of people. I’m so thankful that God has led me to serve him in this unique way.

Surprise in the mail at just the right time

In recent months I have mentioned a friend going through a rough time. I have her permission to tell you an amazing story from this month.

She is part of a trio of friends we call RAW. We've been friends for many years, but only in the last 18 months have formed this group and keep in almost daily contact via Messenger (they both live in south-east Queensland). Not long after we decided to be more intentional about staying in touch with one another we each encountered significant difficulties, including: our family who were told we couldn't return to Japan at that time and my friend's 12 y.o. son was diagnosed with brain cancer.

In mid-January this year, just after his 13th birthday, he transitioned into palliative care. We've been walking with her (virtually, in my case) through this horrid, yet incredible journey.

On the morning of March 4 she wrote to us that she'd been reciting to herself out loud in a car journey on her own: "He's dying, he's dying" to try to grasp the reality of it all. That really hit hard for me. She and I both have over 20 years of parenting under our belts and we've always seen our kids recover from illnesses, but it clearly wasn't going to happen (aside from divine intervention) at that point, and that was hard to get our heads around.

That same day I drove into the mountains with a van full of ladies for a two-night retreat. I fear that they wondered if I'd be able to cope with the two-hour drive, as I was a bit undone when I picked them all up.

That evening at the retreat I was able to spend time in prayer about this situation with a missionary colleague. She is no stranger to watching loved ones die and we poured out our hearts together (with no lack of tears on my part). 

Later I wandered over to the area where a small jewellery stall was set up. This is no ordinary jewellery. It is the outworking of a ministry called Nozomi Project. (I wrote about it a couple of years ago here—this link included a TED talk video by the founder.) "Nozomi" means hope in Japanese and it is a project set up "to bring sustainable income, community, dignity and hope" to women who suffered great loss in the 2011 triple disaster. That disaster claimed, that in a matter of minutes, the lives of around 16,000 people and destroyed or damaged over a million buildings, leaving hundreds of thousands displaced. The jewellery features broken pieces of pottery left in the wake of the tsunami and other up-cycled pottery.

Their tag line is "beauty in brokenness" and fitted the situation with my friend so well that I thought it would be fitting to buy her a present.

I tucked the earrings away in my bag to deal with later and got on with that retreat, and then the writers' retreat that followed straight on afterwards. I got home from those four nights so exhausted that it took a week to recover, meanwhile the earrings sat in a pile waiting to be dealt with. I asked my other RAW friend what she thought I should do: send the earrings as a surprise, or let her know they were coming. Her response was: 

"Surprises are always nice...I'd go with that...We can pray that they arrive just when she needs a nice surprise in the mail...God can arrange it."

On March 16, more than ten days after I'd bought them, I finally got to the post office and mailed them.

On Monday this week (23rd) my friend's son died. Great sadness as well as great relief. He testified to his strong faith in God until he could talk no longer. A great joy and challenge to all who watched this journey.

On Tuesday, while our family were camping, I received a strange photo from the friend who had suggested we pray for God's timing. It was of our friend opening a small parcel. On closer inspection, I saw it was about the size of the parcel I'd sent eight days earlier.

And yes, not only had the beautiful earrings arrive a day after my friend's son died, but our mutual RAW friend was present to witness it and tell her the whole story.

We cried tears of joy "together". She wrote:

"A gift that kindles a flame of joy for all of us in dark times . . . just wish I could give you a real hug to express it! . . . I love the symbolism of a God using fragments to further his story of gracious blessing to us in our frailty."

When I asked permission to tell the story here, she wrote: 

"Sure. Go for it. Whatever you think needs to be told to give glory to the Great Orchestrator."

So, trusting him in the small things, and the big things. This was such an encouragement to the three of us. It amazed me that I, who couldn't be there to hug and help my friend through her struggles (I only was able to be with her once during those 16-months), could even be somewhat "physically" present and an encouragement. I know that our prayers have helped and encouraged her, but this miracle of God's timing was an extra special blessing to us all. And another memorial stone to look back on when we doubt God's care for us.

God's ways aren't our ways

Yesterday I wrote this: My next blog post might be about "God's amazing economy" in us being so dependent on others. It was one of the themes in an unusual sermon on Sunday and has come up in other conversations recently too. So stay tuned.

Today's been another crazy day: final decisions in magazine article proofreading, applying for rental properties in Australia (much more details than I thought would be necessary), two extra teenage boys in the house (sleep-over for our youngest), editing, scheduling for the latter half of the year, etc.

So it would be good to step back a moment (though that is hard...my head is full of housing possibilities—please pray that just the right house would be available for us) and think about the topic I proposed yesterday.

God's economy
I remember a conversation many years ago with a couple who were thinking of full-time ministry but shied away from the idea of other people supporting them. Their plan was to save up enough to support themselves. Since then, other things have happened that foiled that plan, but the original conversation remains in my mind. For many independent middle-class people it does seem like a strange way to live: dependent on others.

The true God doesn't live in houses like this.
This makes me sad.

"God's economy" is a phrase that a friend used the other day when we were talking about how her helping us practically (she's helping find a house, car, and furniture for us for Australia) has actually helped her. She has a lot of uncertainty in her life right now, so being able to focus on the practical details for us has been helpful to mentally. 

This article uses "God's economy" to mean a lack of social barriers, and especially those who have more sharing with those who have less. Which is a slightly different meaning to how my friend used it.

Whatever the precise definition of the phrase is, there is a sense that God goes about organising things not in the way we'd do it, but usually way better. Our friend agreed to help us many years ago because she wanted to and a long time before she knew that she'd be helped at this time by being able to help us.

I wrote a post about dependency three years ago, just after we returned to Japan last time. It is something that is a constant theme in the life of a missionary, whether it is negotiating these international moves, or relying on others' generosity for our income, or just getting around in daily life in our host country. But, as I wrote above, it is something of a foreign concept for many of our peers in Australia: middle class professionals.

In any case, it apparently is a weird way for us to bless others: by giving them a chance to serve us in our inability to carry all our own load. We are blessed to live this lifestyle, never feel tempted to pity us!

My words and thoughts are getting confusing. I'm sorry if this is hard to follow, but it's about all I can manage right now.

Isaiah 55:8-9 about sums it up:

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
    neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways
    and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Social media workshop in Manila

Seven years ago this week I was in Hong Kong participating in a week-long writer's workshop. This is one thing I wrote on my blog:

Even better than reading our writing, we got to pray for one another and be prayed for. I confessed my struggle to find a way forward from here. My vision of what I'd like to do with my writing, but the difficulty of getting there. I long to tell the stories of ordinary women who happen to be missionaries. It was encouraging to have someone pray that God would bring people across my path whose stories I could tell. We'll see what becomes of this passion. 

Eleven months before that I was at a magazine editing workshop in Manila. It was still a year before I started working with Japan Harvest magazine. This is where I was at (from my blog):

My future with Japan Harvest is not totally clear. Probably it will be an evolving role. Mission work is different from a paid job; boundaries and responsibilities are often less clear and often it is up to you how much you pour into something. I am excited, however - magazine editing is something I definitely have an interest in and has much room for learning and growth. I can see the current editor needs help and we'll see how much I can do.

Both events were significant preparation for what was to come. I wrote a post in March about my journey of becoming a magazine editor and managing editor leading a team.

I'm not writing other people's stories, but I am helping a lot of people get their stories out there, as an editor. Interesting indeed!

Now my journey includes another curve that I didn't anticipate. As I wrote earlier this month, I've been tasked with starting a new blog for OMF Japan. It's well on its way. I'm also now an administrator for the OMF Japan Facebook page.

And in ten days I'll be winging my ways back to Manila, this time for a three-day Social Media and Web workshop, representing OMF Japan. The invitation said:

It will be an opportunity to learn about a range of different media and communication tools, how to use them together as a part of a cohesive mobilisation strategy and measure progress.

Learning more about social media! Sounds like fun, right? A couple of Japanese friends were shocked to hear about this. I explained that it is common for a mission like OMF to use social media to spread the word about what we do. The trick, apparently, is doing it with a cohesive strategy...

I'm not OMF Japan's mobilisation coordinator, nor am I overall responsible for media and communications, but I was the available party and have my toe enough in the water. Not unusual for me: it seems like I never really fit these workshops' "perfect audience". I'm usually on the edge:

2009 (Manila) Magazine editing: I wasn't yet a magazine editor, though planning to be. It was useful preparation, though.
2010 (Hong Kong) Writing: much of it was related to writing books, which I had no intention of doing and made me unusual among the participants. However it was a useful workshop.
2016 (Bangkok) Teams: most of the teams they envisaged were church planting teams that physically worked in the same place. Not what my teams are like, but still a useful workshop to think about leadership.

So, we shall see how a social media and web workshop goes. I'm sure that it will be helpful (for me as well as for OMF Japan). And if past experiences are anything to show by, God probably has things in mind that I don't know about yet.

In the meanwhile, I'll continue to hang out on the edge and see what comes next!

Uncertainty over hard decisions

This weekend a friend shared a helpful article on Facebook about searching for God's will and why it isn't always clear what we should do. It resonates with me as we made a couple of hard decisions last week. Decisions that I don't want to talk about here, but required us to choose between two good and important things and also required us to not be concerned about what other people thought (please don't worry, these decisions don't have long-term implications regarding our current ministries in Japan).

Jon Bloom writes in the article:

But conformity to the world or to Jesus is most clearly seen in the pattern of decisions we make over time. That’s one reason why God makes us wrestle with uncertainty. He wants us to mature and have our “powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil” (Hebrews 5:14). (from here)

 He also writes:

Shouldn’t we expect God to direct us more explicitly in these [big, life-shaping decisions]? 

The answer is no, not necessarily. Why? Well, the short answer is because he is God, and we are not. “It is the glory of God to conceal things” (Proverbs 25:2). His wisdom and knowledge are unfathomably deep, his judgments are unsearchable, and his ways are inscrutable (Romans 11:33). Considering all the factors in play in the universe, it is likely no exaggeration that there are trillions of reasons for why God directs the course of our lives, and he prefers to carry out his purposes in ways that confound, surprise, and humble humans, angels, and demons.

Good points. We're simply not equipped to deal with making decisions with all the knowledge that there is to have, so we have to do what we can with what we've got. And in the process we will, if we allow God's spirit to work in us, be gradually transformed into people who are more like Jesus. (Romans 8:29 and 12:2)

It is helpful to remember, though, as we go out into another week and daily wrestle with uncertainty, that God wants us to wrestle with these decisions, but also that he is right by our sides throughout it all.

Here's one more Scripture to ponder:

I was senseless and ignorant;
    I was a brute beast before you.

 Yet I am always with you;
    you hold me by my right hand.
 You guide me with your counsel,
    and afterward you will take me into glory.
 Whom have I in heaven but you?
    And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
 My flesh and my heart may fail,
    but God is the strength of my heart
    and my portion forever. (Ps 73:22-26, NIV)