Change is in the air

The dominant theme in my week has been transition planning at work. Yes, I know, I've been thinking about this for months, and rightly so, it's more than one complicated problem that I've been trying to solve. But this week I feel like I made it past a tipping point in the planning and was able to get some plans rolling. Each day I've been juggling my usual work with communicating with people (via email or video call) about jobs I'm going to hand off to them, or how their particular job will change with me stepping back. 

It's exhausting and has come a bit to dominate my thinking over the last months. And, while I'm happy to be making visible progress, I think I'll also be happy to make it past the planning stage into the execution stage and see a visible reduction in my workload on this side of the ocean, to make room for new things.

End-of-senior-year pressure cooker

I'm very happy this is my last time as mum of a senior at high school. It's a lot of pressure and life is moving like a rocket for these kids at the moment. There is so much going on in these final weeks of school (graduation is two weeks from today), that it's hard for us parents to keep up. 

I'll be very glad for these two weeks to be over, but there's a bitter-sweet note too, as these friends with whom they have forged something very special, will be scattered around the earth, literally. Kids growing up outside their passport culture find "home" amongst other people like them, so at an international school the bonds are often stronger than you'd usually find in a school. During times we've spent in Australia it's their school and friends from CAJ that they have missed the most, even more than Japan itself. This is a much more "permanent" goodbye to that relatively safe place. Our youngest has been at this school since kindergarten, barring three home assignments, totalling 2 ½ years. During his life he's said goodbye to a lot of good friends, but usually one at a time, this time it's much bigger. So grief hovers below the surface of the craziness that abounds at present.

My experience of orchestral concerts has 
always been people dressing fairly formally.
It wasn't so on Saturday, but we had fun
nonetheless!

Something different

David and I did something totally unusual on Saturday night. We went to a symphony orchestra concert downtown. It was a suggestion I gave him for my birthday present. This is something really enjoyed doing when I was much younger: I have fond memories of my mum taking me to concerts as a young teenager. It's not something David has done much of, in fact, we have only once before done this as a couple, way back when we only had two kids, nearly 20 years ago! 

The concert was held in NHK Hall, which has a
capacity of 3,400! It was about ¼ or ⅓ full. NHK
is the national broadcaster in Japan, and the 
concert was recorded for TV and radio. Not sure
when they'll broadcast it. And yes, we were 
towards the back (there was a tier above us).

It proved to be a great experience, one that is very accessible in Tokyo. We can see concert-going in our future. We're definitely thinking about how life will be different as a couple and pondering how we can make that a rich and full experience, rather than the rather negative "empty nest" tag that it's often given.

Surprised by a book

I'm currently reading a book as research for writing an editorial for Japan Harvest on a topic I know little about: singleness. The book is called Sacred Siblings. Two people recommended that we publish a review for it in the upcoming magazine, but no one volunteered, so I decided to use it to help me write an article that I feel incredibly ill-equipped to write.

The book is not what I expected. It is very applicable to all people in ministry, but especially overseas ministry (their stated audience). I've been surprised to find that my experience as a married mother has come up many times in it. Married women with young children and single women have very different stories on the mission field, and not always in ways that you might imagine if you've not lived as each. It's interesting to have that written out in black and white, I'm not sure I've ever seen it acknowledged in print. 

I was struck by a story shared by one of the authors about two teams she was part of: one had a majority of married couples and the other had a majority of singles. She noted how the majority (no matter the makeup of that group) had a lot of difficulty seeing and accommodating the minority.

I'm nearly halfway through the book, but am already glad I've picked it up and hope that by writing about the book in the magazine it is picked up by others in the missions community too, especially the majority in leadership (largely married men with children).

My role is about to change in this area too with the remainder of my children leaving home, I'll soon be a married woman without children in Japan. I guess we've been living in the middle-ground for nearly six years now: with one of our sons living in Australia. I expect that this change to just the two of us here will give me a different perspective from that which I've had up till now—I've never been in Japan without children at home.

And such are the thoughts that are rushing around in my head at the end of this week. I'm also keeping an eye on the weather. I usually do a grocery run on my bike on Fridays and we have a rain front approaching us, so if I want to do it and stay relatively dry, I need to hop on my bike very soon! In fact . . . it's already raining, which is not what the forecast said . . . so do I don rain gear, or wait a little, or take the car?

New adventure: Japanese driver's licence

Tomorrow our 19 y.o. starts on a journey that we know little about: getting a Japanese driver's licence from scratch. He's taking a gap year after high school and is not sure about what he wants to do after that. 

One thing he can do now to prepare for the future is get a driver's licence, and because Japan and Australia have a cosy mutual relationship over driver's licences, arriving back in Australia with a Japanese licence is a distinct advantage (especially when you don't have parents living in the same country as you). He'll be able to get an Australian licence without doing 100 hours of driving or taking a test. It'll mostly just be a paperwork challenge (translation of licence included).

However, getting a licence in Japan bears only a vague resemblance to what we've seen his older brother do in Australia. And so we walk alongside him and learn together. Here is the chart the school has given him. 

It seems as though most of the learning will happen at the school, we're unclear as to whether he'll do any "learner driving" with us at all. Having been a little bit involved with our eldest in "getting his driving hours in", I think this method, though expensive, will definitely be good for our stress levels (and probably our relationship with him too). 

An integral part of the process is 26 lectures, which is not something done in Australia. I guess it's good to learn these separately from the stress of actually driving? Perhaps safer?

The other advantage is that they coach you specifically for the test, so there is little chance of failure, apparently!

We're thankful for God's provision of the finances to do this, because we didn't budget for it and it definitely wouldn't fit in a usual missionary budget.

We really feel like, even after 22 years of this parenting journey, that we're still feeling our way along. There have been so many unexpected challenges and there's no map, especially within the missionary life. And even more so with transitioning young adults to independent post-school life. At times it's agonising and it certainly drives us to our knees pretty much on a daily basis.

Borderlands: on the edge

Here's an excellent 15-minute video by a TCK that was originally a TED talk. It fits so well with my blog's theme of "on the edge of ordinary" that I just had to share it with you. Joshua Tan calls this edge "the borderlands" and explores the theme biographically, looking back over his 20-something years as a missionary kid and then as a young adult seeking to find his way.

He's studying a post-grad degree in Art Therapy. From about 13:00 (my paraphrase, not quite an accurate transcription): 

"I like this concept of the mental health continuum....we're not just well or unwell. We're constantly moving throughout the day, sometimes we feel a bit more well, sometimes we feel less well. 

I think this is similar to belonging, to moving through the borderland. We're constantly moving up and down through the course of the day. In each new group, we're going to be at different stages. Maybe we see a friendly smile in a strange place and we move up the scale, or a colleague makes a remark that makes us feel a little bit uncomfortable and we feel as though we don't belong as much in that workplace."

I'm seeing my own TCKs find their way through these borderlands, but at the same time have my own borderlands to negotiate. Living a cross-cultural life has a lot less security, in terms of belonging, than we otherwise would have experienced in our home country. I have to say that I probably "belong" most right where I am at present, being the longest I've stayed in any one place since I left home at 17. We certainly don't belong as much in Australia anymore, though that would grow if we stayed there for a length of time.

I do like the way he ends:

It's important to know that you are not alone...The borderlands aren't a bleak wasteland...they are rich with potential, filled with the colourful vibes of so many other people. You will find your own place in your own time.

This is true for adult TCKs, it's also true for us. The borderlands are a constantly changing landscape, but with keen eyes it is possible to see and appreciate all the beauty of the diversity and change there.

What does a young man who grew up in Japan look like?

Our eldest son mentioned to me that he's had some interesting reactions to people in Australia finding out where he grew up. Mostly people don't guess that he grew up outside Australia. For one person, however, it went the other way—she'd been told about him and that he was "from Japan", perhaps even "a missionary kid from Japan", but was surprised to find that he was Australian. I'm not sure what she expected, or for that matter, what anyone expects.

Sometimes when we're in Australia it feels like we're a zoo exhibit. "Come and look at this rare species: the missionary family from Japan." My kids have never said that, but I wonder. People wonder what kind of weird we'll be, they invite their kids over to meet the missionary kids. I've had people wonder why I don't have an accent (to which I point out that I do . . . if I'm speaking Japanese words known to Australians, like "kimono", "karate", or "Kyoto").

I found this at a homeware store yesterday.
We've always said, when we're travelling,
that "home is where your toothbrush is".
But home is especially where
those you love are. This, of course,
is messy when your loved ones are
scattered about.

"From Japan" is a funny label that we get slapped with. Because, just like "home", where we are "from" is complex. Our youngest was introduced as "from Japan" when he first went to kindergarten in Australia. No other parents talked to us for months until he finally got an invite to a party and we had opportunity to explain what "from Japan" meant in our case. They thought that their four-year-olds were telling weird stories and they didn't know what to do with our obviously non-Asian faces.

But it has been interesting to watch our eldest son try to figure out what home means. Up until he left home to go to university last February, it was pretty simple. Home was where we were, though that got stretched a little whenever we were in Australia on home assignment. 

Last year, when we were in Australia for six months, he didn't spend as much time with us as we'd anticipated. The house we were living in didn't represent home to him, but later in the year he realised that "home" was really more about the people he felt most at home with rather than the place. And that even though the context was unfamiliar, he felt more at home with us than anywhere else.

Then he visited us in Japan a few weeks ago. Back in the house and context where he'd lived from 2010 to 2018. That really felt like home. Back in his old bed, old routines. Though there were some key things missing, like most of his friends from those years.

So yes, it's messy. Our lives are messy, if you view them through certain monocultural lenses. But we're actually pretty comfortable with our oddities. Perhaps in Japan it is just normal to be odd, as an expat. It's in Australia that we feel more uncomfortable, especially as we have to go around talking about the oddities of what our lives look like.

Australian bushdance

Our eldest son's church has an annual bush dance, that's where he spent last Saturday night.

I never thought about it being an Australian thing, one that our kids hadn't learned. But then, I think it is also somewhat of a historical thing that many kids growing up in Australia haven't experienced either. It used to be a big social gathering for the local community, especially in rural areas. Even growing up int he 70s or 80s in a largish-town, it wasn't a common thing. Our church went through a stage of having quite a lot of them, and I've also done it at various camps and possibly at school (memory's a bit vague on that point). In any case, when our youngest heard where his brother was last Saturday night, I had some explaining to do.

Wikipedia tells me that Australian bush dance is similar to the American line dances or square dances, but actually mostly came from various folk dances in the UK and Europe. 

"...in that all dancers know certain steps and execute them together. Partners are often changed in the course of the dance".

Here's a video I found showing you one of the common dances: 

I don't have photo or video evidence of our son dancing—but have heard from an eye-witness that he did a pretty good job. I would have loved to gone myself, but we were otherwise engaged. It's been a long time since I've attended an Australian bush dance!

I'm typing this in the departure lounge of Brisbane airport, boarding a plane soon to fly to Singapore for the week. Hopefully, I'll get some time there to write at least one blog post.

Thoughts on home

After our recent camping trip we drove back to David's sister's place for a few more days. As we drove in the front gate we said, "We're home." That quickly got edited by the family into: "We're back at our home away from home away from home."

Our home-away-from-home-away-from-home.

Does that make sense? If you trace it back, Tokyo is "home" and Ipswich is our "six-month temporary home-away-from-home" and their aunt's place was our even more temporary "home".

Yes, "the question of where is home" is an ongoing theme in our lives. We were on the receiving end of a Q & A session at the church we spoke at on Sunday. It's another church that has been journeying with us for nearly two decades now. A wonderfully mission-minded bunch of people. We fielded many excellent, thoughtful questions. One was related to the question of "home". David quite simply stated that "We have two homes now."

It's very true. They are different in so many ways, but each has enough of a quality of "feeling at ease" in it that we can call them both home. We have spent enough time in both places that we have significant memories stored away for both. 

But the "home away from home" feeling that our boys expressed about Australia is revealing. Australia isn't a place that our boys feel so much at home in. They have spent much more time in Japan than Australia and don't have the years of memories of growing up here that we have.

At another time recently I was reading a passage in John and noticed Jesus using the word "home":

Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them (John 14:23 NIV).

What a wonderful thought: that God comes and makes his home with me . . . which really means that no matter where I am, no matter where I call Home, I'm "at home" with him!

Heading back home (which is where?)

This morning I'm blogging from the airport. Again! I'm in shock, actually. I've never gotten to a boarding gate for an international flight so fast. I arrived here less than 45 minutes  after was dropped off! I'm usually a bit of a mess before international flights, especially in and out of Australia, but today I'm feeling calm. And that's after having said goodbye to my son last night! I was even able to eat a decent breakfast at 6am, and that's almost unheard of in my history of flying internationally! I'm in quite a different emotional spot to when I wrote this blog post at Narita airport just two weeks ago.

This whole trip has gone remarkably smoothly. I'm so thankful. Have I said that before? When  big things like this work so well and I'm at peace in my spirit, I really know that people have been praying and that God is very present in the situation (and gone before, preparing so many things). What else can I do but praise him?

I read Psalm 98 yesterday morning and it starts like this:

Sing to the Lord a new song,
    for he has done marvellous things;

Indeed, I echo the psalmist's words today.

Mums in Australia have said to me about leaving our son here for uni, "I can't imagine doing what you're doing." But in many ways that is our life, we do a lot of things people who live in Australia can't imagine. But for those of us who live outside our passport country, it is expected that our children will leave and go to another country to study or work after leaving high school. So this really isn't as unnatural as you might think, and it certainly isn't unexpected. We've been thinking about this time for many years now. 

So I won't say it is easy, but it isn't as hard as you might expect. It's been made much easier by being able to see our son settle into a good living situation. He's with a Christian family who also have other university students living there, one of whom is very connected into the local church and a good Christian group on campus. Knowing that he's secure in his faith is another huge joy. Also seeing the steps he's made just in the last two weeks towards being independent, has been a big confirmation that this is good timing. He's ready for this challenge. (He had a difficult last time he was in Australia, I didn't write much about it on my blog, but just a hint came out here: https://mmuser.blogspot.com.au/2015/02/difficult-days.html That year really distressed me in regards to thinking ahead. What I didn't realise, though, was how much more maturity would come in the following 2 ½ years!)

So, here I sit. At another boarding gate. Preparing to go back to the rest of my family, and not feeling so bad about that at all (it will be nice to be in my own house again, though I've enjoyed all the meals made for me over the last two weeks). It's a new chapter, the next six or so years, as we gradually transition all our boys through their final years of school and into life as young adults. And once again, we're "making it up as we go".

One boy thinking about home assignment

I found one of our younger two boys making this table the other day. He's processing what home assignment this year means in his life. I asked his permission to share and he asked me to block out the items he'd listed.

It is, actually, not too different to how we decided if going on home assignment in July for six months was going to work for our family. Following on from my post yesterday about making it up as we go, this is part of it: weighing up the pros and cons of any decision according to the information you have. The key difference, I think, to parenting in your home country is that you often have a lot less information to work with and a lot more unknown variables.

What's interesting about this list that you can't see is that some items appear on both the pros and cons list, for example "food". Yep, there are things about both Japan and Australia that my boys enjoy and food is one. But when we're in one country they do miss the other!

Making it up as you go

"Making it up as you go."

Yep, that's what we're doing!

Often parenting as a missionary feels like you are all alone with little
to guide you. It can be scary. We're praying for this young man as he
transitions to the next chapter of his life: settling in Australia for university.

This was a phrase that an experienced TCK (third culture kid) mum said to me recently about an excruciatingly difficult decision that she and her husband had to make last year. 

I can't imagine making such a decision, but the experience of making it up as you go rang true. It is, indeed, what we've been doing our whole parenting journey. All, of which, has been done in the context of mission. We began applying to be missionaries with OMF before our eldest son was conceived, so when we announced my pregnancy there were questions from spectators. Even though we were still in Australia.

So this week as we head relentlessly towards saying goodbye to our son as he heads off to university in Australia, we especially feel as though we're making it up as we go. Questions like these have arisen within our family:

• What will we do about his birthday in May?
• Can we text him in Australia?
• How much should he take with him? 
• Should he take his wrestling trophies?
• When will he next be in Japan?
• Should he take all his shoes, even the grubby work ones since they still are in otherwise good condition?
• What kind of farewell should we have on Sunday? A family one? One with a bunch of friends?
• What food would he like in his last week here?

Parenting, I suspect, even in a mono-cultural situation is always about "making it up as you go", however there are many less cues to call on when you're doing this in a country you  didn't grow up in with a child who is having a very different childhood than you had.

I remember talking to a Southern US dad last year at wrestling. He said if he was bringing his son up in the US, he'd know exactly what sport his middle-school son would be doing. It would have been the same that he did when he was a boy (baseball?), and the same as a lot of his son's peers. But he was raising his son out of that context and to his surprise found wrestling had entered the mix and he was scrambling to catch up, to find out what this unknown sport was all about.

We've made lot of different decisions to what our parents made, purely because of context, not because our parents were wrong. I'm sure they've looked at what we've been doing, at times, and wondered at our wisdom.

The additional challenge to making it up as you go, is that you have to "back yourself" (an Australian phrase? Meaning "to have confidence in one's self"). Despite others, yes, even other missionaries, around you making different decisions you have to make the best decision you can come up with and stick by it. Getting to know our kids as well as we can has been important here. For example, knowing that some of our boys hate rapid change has informed lots of our decisions, for example not taking short home assignments.

As any parent knows, there is no laboratory for testing your decisions either. You may never know if you've made the right decision! That's hard.

Making this big change means that we're making it up more than usual in the next month. We're praying that we "get it right", which, of course, is what we always do: praying for wisdom and then doing the best we can.

Explaining is a key part of parenting

It's a relief to finally be sitting at my desk during a work day with (almost) everyone gone from the house and with energy to work. It's been more than a week since that happened!

I also did this on the weekend: supported our two younger boys at
cross country. Parenting is hard. Parenting TCKs is also hard, with an
extra layer on top that we wouldn't have had if we've brought our kids
up in the country of their passport. Interpreting elements of both cultures
they are a part of is one part.
Another is that we are their only family in
the country, though I know that many children in their passport countries
never have extended family at important events (I never did).
But we do feel it's important to be there for them at events like sport.
TCKs have more transition in their lives than I ever did and we, as their parents,
are two of people in their lives that don't move in and out of their lives.

Here are some slightly random thoughts from the weekend:

Interpreting
As a parent you're always teaching. But I wonder if parents of third culture kids spend more time explaining? I've mentioned this before: helping them explore Australian food and translating for soft drinks.

Yesterday in a short period after church I found myself explaining to them several other people's reactions to them.

This month our oldest son has started playing guitar for the singing part of the service at church. Yesterday I chatted briefly with one of the young mums who told me that there was a lot of admiration for him from the young parent's group. 

When I passed this on to our son he was a little confused. First of all he didn't understand the Japanese word used by the lady, then he was thoroughly embarrassed by the attention and didn't understand why they admired him. We explained that parents of young children look at families with older children who are "turning out okay" and wonder if that will happen to their own kids. Even hope desperately that it will. That's why is it great to have friends in a variety of stages of life, it is a great encouragement to see that the stage you are currently in ends and there can be better things ahead. Once we'd explained this, he understood and was happier about it, even slightly bemused as he pondered what we'd thought of him when he was younger and looked at older kids.

We've also received a lot of positive comments from the staff at school about him. He's working 28 hours a week there on the maintenance team, doing all sorts of things from shifting heavy things around, to weeding, and cleaning air conditioning vents. Apparently he's really appreciated, not just for the work, but for his reliability and quiet, but thoughtful nature. I'm thankful that he's not only earning money, he's making himself useful and genuinely helping others. Not to mention that obviously he's encouraging others by his general character. 

I'm also thankful that he has this meaningful work to do in this period of waiting. It's good for his brain to have a rest before embarking on the next stage of the journey, which is going to be far from easy. I talked this afternoon to a Japanese CAJ mum who's son graduated with ours. He's gone to Canada and is finding life and study there very challenging.

Why are they staring?
The other reaction of our kids that I fielded after church yesterday was this:

"Why must old Japanese ladies stare at us?" 

In fact the boy that said this was quite upset. We were sitting at Mister Donuts waiting for our order and a couple of older ladies were having quite a stare at me and my three white boys. I politely greeted them and they replied in turn. Sometimes someone would want to have a bit more conversation than that (where are you from etc.), but yesterday these two just looked. It's an age-old problem for foreigners in a land where you don't look like the locals. 

I said, "Just smile and wave." But that seemed to upset him more. This did surprise me. I thought that they were used to this by now, having grown up here, but obviously this is something that is bothering this boy just now.

So there you go: my random thoughts for the day. Thanks for stopping by. I'd love to hear how explaining is a part of your parenting. What have you had to explain to your kids in recent days, about other's reactions to them?

Are they Asian?

We had an interesting conversation at lunch today. Someone mentioned that there were a large number of new kids in sixth grade. One boy commented that "they're all Asian".

A rock we found on the west coast of Japan these holidays, a grand
thing for a boy to climb and contemplate the sea.

I asked "Are they Asian on the inside?" 

This brought some confusion, but led to an interesting discussion that included such tit bits as: 

Me: "What about our friends, the X family, they look part-Asian on the outside, but are quite American on the inside." (This family has one Japanese parent and one American parent.)
Boy: "But they don't look Asian at all!"
Me: "Oh yes they do."
Someone thought out loud: "They're probably considered American in Japan and Japanese in America." Ah, yes.

Another boy: "I was once called Japanese at school in Australia." 

To which we all laughed. This boy has dark blonde hair, grey-green eyes, and an abundance of freckles on his fair skin. He also has a modified American accent. (What a confusion my kids must cause in other people's heads!)

I love to hear my kids' impressions of the international world and hear how it differs to what I think I thought as a mono-cultural kid. They really have different perspectives, but they don't realise that they do. I'm guessing that it won't be until they try to live as young adults in their passport country that they'll realise how different their thoughts are. 

Like any parent raising third culture kids, I hope that they are able to find their way, find a community where they are known and valued for the complex perspective that they have, and find a place that they are happy to occupy.

A piece of the puzzle

The thing that has been looming for the last few years is getting closer all the time: the day our eldest moves to Australia. I feel like we've been talking about it for an eternity (well maybe only four years, but still...) University starts late February, so he's currently here, working part-time and enjoying a break from study.

Two big questions need answers:
1. What will he study (and where)?
2. Where will he live.

Of course the second depends somewhat on the first. But it seems as though God has provided somewhere for him to live. A family we've known for many years who live in a convenient location have a room available for him and we've come to a verbal agreement! [Add large shout of celebration here.]

David and my Alma Mater:
University of Queensland.

It's what we'd hoped for, that he'd be able to board with a family, at least initially, to help him through this huge change: not just moving out of home and starting university, but changing countries too.

Phew! God's provision indeed.

Next step is already underway: figuring out what courses he wants to put on the application form (there are six spaces available). 

For my non-Aussie readers: university application is a centrally controlled thing in Australia, so local Australians just have to fill out a form with their preferences. An international Australian has things a tiny bit tougher, in that they have to figure out how to get their grades and scores to the tertiary application centre (QTAC or Queensland Tertiary Application Centre for our state) so that they can be allocated a "rating" that allows universities to decide if they want to accept them or not. Yep, all numbers, no essays or references or interviews (unless you're going into something like fine arts).

That all needs to be done in the next month. After that we sit back and wait a couple of months to see if he gets accepted. Particularly, if he gets accepted at a university that can be easily accessed from where he's potentially got a place to stay.

Home: a slippery concept

The current place we call home. We don't
really talk about "going home" to Australia
anymore. It certainly doesn't represent "home"
to our kids who have spent many more years
in Japan than in Australia.

Home is a tricky concept for us and for our kids. I've written about that before. I saw a heart-rending post today Velvet Ashes' "The Grove". It's based on kids who are much younger than mine, but illustrates a couple of the challenges younger kids face in understanding a mobile lifestyle. Our older kids have different issues, but these are fed by those early insecurities of changing homes.

One of our boys clings to home like crazy. He hates being away from whatever our current home is, for any time more than necessary. It's hard to help him with this struggle. I'm praying that with maturity, especially spiritual maturity, he'll feel less of a need to control his environment and be more flexible.

Our eldest is starting to look forward to moving out of home this time next year to go to Australia for university. That will be a huge change for all of us. But it is a natural moving on as our boys grow and find their own way in the world. Our home will never look the same again because the people in it will have changed. Home is not just the house you live in.

Sometimes it is helpful to remember that our homes are
really only as temporary as a tent.

I was at CAJ's special chapel meeting again this morning. The speaker emphasised to the students how important it was to have God and his Word at the centre of our lives. They are the only unchanging things in this life. Such an important point to make to a group of TCKs.

The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer;    my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge,    my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold (Ps. 18:2, NIV).

And my favourite Psalm: 139. These verses made me cry as I put my first baby boy to bed one night not too long before we left Australia the first time. I told him this:

If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
    if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your [God's] hand will guide me,
    your [God's] right hand will hold me fast (vv 9 and 10 NIV).

My TCK ministry?

I had a "penny drop" moment this morning. I've been putting together our monthly news/prayer letter and the theme that's emerged this month is TCKs (Third Culture Kids). This morning I had some doubt about the content of the newsletter, it seemed to be full of "us" as opposed to what you expect from a missionary prayer letter, and that's about "their ministry".

But later as I looked at it again, I realised that the line between "us" and "ministry" is quite blurry in some ways, especially in this wresting season. I also suddenly realised that I am "doing TCK ministry".

Now I know that "doing ministry" is very much Christian-ese, but hang with me for a moment. When we started applying to become missionaries, we didn't have a nation or people group in mind. David felt called to teach missionary kids. That's what he thought God was telling him he's made him to do. So that's what we put on our application. I've never felt called to teach, or to do ministry with missionary kids. In fact "kids ministry" really isn't my thing at all.

OMF does not just accept one member of a married couple and then let the other tag along. They want to know that each are called into this challenging lifestyle. Which is a very good thing, because sometimes it is only that sense of calling that keeps you here and if only one of us had it, we'd be in trouble.

So of course during our interviews before accepting us they were asking me about "my calling". What would I do? My answer, if I remember correctly, was along the lines of "I can put my hand to a lot of different things, I don't really mind, but I think it would be more along the lines of support ministry rather than front-line evangelism or church planting." I definitely sensed that God called me to a missionary life (he'd been pursuing me since I was about seven), but not to a specific people group or ministry.

Periodically, even now, people assume that I also teach at CAJ. But I'm simply not interested in teaching there. It isn't my gifting or my passion. 

However, this morning I realised that I, too, am inadvertently "ministering to TCKs". It's happened through having my own kids. Of course I am "ministering" to my own TCKs. But I'm influencing other people's kids too. How did I miss it?

Maybe like this:

Despite living close to school, we don't have lots of kids hanging out in our house, like some people do. That's mostly due to the personalities of our older two boys, who are on the introverted side of the spectrum. While we would love to have more kids (though not tonnes) in our house from time to time, it hasn't happened. 

I'm not formally involved in any kids/teen ministry. I don't have a formal role at CAJ or at church.

However, this is happening:

I regularly attend prayer meetings at school, where we pray for our kids, the staff, and other parents.

It is hard to see, but we had the wrestlers, coaches, and supporters from
13 schools squished into these stands from about 9 to 5 last last month.
Lots of opportunity to be with wrestlers and their parents.

I'm friends with many mothers from school (and quite a lot of other mums too). I try to be an encourager, because I know, from the trenches of motherhood, that it is tough.

We've had boys involved in sports all year long for years now and that means we've made friends with a number of other parents. We support and encourage one another, again, from the trenches of parenthood.

I'm hanging out all season with the two wrestling teams. That is more than just cheering them on from the stands. To do this, I usually travel together with the team or some of their parents and siblings and then sit cheek-to-jowl for a whole day with them. I get opportunity to encourage the wrestlers, to congratulate them, instruct them, console them, and even admonish them (eg. you need to eat something or you need to make sure you give that uniform to your mum to wash).

Here are some stories from the past weeks to illustrate:

On Tuesday afternoon I went with the high school team to the other side of town for a wrestling dual: an hour-long competition between two teams. I was the only spectator there for our team (it was in the other team's gym, so they had over a hundred spectators). While the guys were warming up, I was able to spend time with the four high school girls with the team. Two of them are wrestlers, but this was a boy’s school, so they had no bouts that day. The other two are student team-managers. They help the coach out with a bunch of things including recording matches, writing notes about the bouts, cleaning mats, managing equipment, etc. We sat together for at least half an hour before any wrestling began. It was fun to chat. My favourite question was, “So how do you cope as the mum of only boys?”

This guy has stayed at our house numerous times during
the last two wrestling seasons. He lives too far away
to make it in time to catch the team bus early on
Saturday morning, so he stays with us.
His mum works on Saturdays so is unable to make it to
meets, but I always feel like God has given us the freedom
to be there to cheer, not just for our own boys, but for
those whose parents can't make it.

Last night I heard that one of the wrestlers had been very busy, almost hyperactive at training last night. Today I dropped in to a special chapel service at school (another story, but it is what they call Spiritual Life Emphasis Week at school this week). I happened to see that guy and asked him about last night, he said that he'd overdone it on the coffee because he'd not had enough sleep the night before. But it was nice to just make a mid-week connection.

Last week at the middle school meet we had a girl get concussion. She was devastated and didn’t want to quit wrestling because she’d been undefeated in the season up till that point. I was able to tell her there was no shame in having to bow out with injury.

On the same morning I was able to pass on eating advice to another wrestler. He hadn’t been listening to his parents, but I told him that he needed to eat between bouts, especially protein. His dad was sitting there cheering me on!

Being with the middle school team has been interesting, because I have a little bit of status as the mum of our eldest son, who is a little bit of a hero on the team (he is undefeated so far this season). I clearly remember the struggles he had as a middle school wrestler and I’ve been able to encourage them a little, I think, in telling them that our son has persevered through all that to get to where he is today.

Not to mention that I just love sitting on the sidelines cheering for these hard-working kids.

I'm so thankful that, through being a mum to our own boys, I've been able to be a part of so many other kids' lives, even though "ministry" to this age group isn't really my gifting.

Teaching the boys about their passport country

You might know that I like to read to the family after dinner. I generally read fiction, but a few times I've read non-fiction. Almost always about Australia. 

Some time ago a friend sent us this selection of books from a series called "Australia's Best". It's getting a little dated now (it was published 11 years ago), but I've picked it up for another read through with the guys. 

The books are pretty simple, one- or two-page biographies of famous Aussies. But It's been fun, more fun than they anticipated (groans from one boy in particular at the start). Last week we were reading about musicians and it was fun to Google songs by these famous Australians. One day we read about Slim Dusty and AC/DC! They realised they know songs from both. There was lots of reminiscing when we got to The Wiggles!

Reading about sports stars just after the Olympics was timely too. 

We've just started with scientists. The first two in the book were women who became doctors in the latter half of the 1800s when women couldn't study medicine in Australia. Both travelled overseas to qualify. One, Constance Stone, returned and became Australia's first woman doctor in 1892. The other, Agnes Bennett, also returned, but struggled to find work in Australia (and also England). She eventually took over another woman's practice in New Zealand.

I love reading to my kids like this and being about to learn about Australia at the same time is a huge bonus. 

Did you wonder about my title? I've had people say "Passport country: that's cumbersome!" But it is the standard when talking about kids like ours who have grown up outside their parent's home country. Australia isn't home to them in the same sense it is to us, but they do have ties there. They've grown up with parents who grew up in Australia and have many ties there, plus that's where their citizenship lies. Yes, it's a little cumbersome, but it is also descriptive without assuming too much.

The Castle from a TCK perspective

I'm sorry to my non-Aussie readers today. You've probably never heard of the movie The Castle. It is an iconic Australian movie, a comedy-drama of the little guy (or a battler, we'd call them) against the big guys. A David and Goliath story, even. 

The story is of a tow truck driver and his family who own a house on toxic landfill right next to the airport. A big company is claiming they can compulsorily acquire land for expansion of the airport. The land they pursue acquiring includes this family's home plus three others, all lower working class-type families.

Darryl Kerrigan, the father of the family, believes his life to be especially good. Wikipedia puts it this way: "The sweet-natured family patriarch believes that he lives in the lap of luxury. Blissfully unaware of his family's lack of style or sophistication, he busies himself by driving his tow truck, racing greyhounds, and constantly adding tacky renovations to the house. The rest of the Kerrigan clan shares and supports his enthusiasm in every way."

It is a laugh-aloud movie in many places. It also has some great lines that are often quoted in our house, including "Tell him he's dreaming", "Dad, I dug a hole", "That's going straight to the pool room", and "It's the vibe". 

The last of those was the summary in the Federal court of the rather incompetent lawyer's argument about what law prevented the large company from acquiring these houses. If we are desperately in need of some humour in a situation I can say, "It's the vibe" and I can often break up a tense situation.

And this memorable exchange: 

Darryl: "Oh Steve, could you move the Camira, I need to get the Torana out so I can get to the Commodore." 
Steve in reply: "I'll have to get the keys to the Cortina if I'm gonna move that Camira." Darryl in reply: "Yeah watch the boat mate." (For non-Australians, these are all car models.)

Aside from the humour it shows a lot of love between the family. A husband who thinks the world of his wife and isn't ashamed to say so, he affirms his sons and daughter too. A wife who adores her husband too. They also have a lot of concern for their neighbours, including some recent immigrants.

Anyway, we love this movie. It's very Australian. This week we showed our boys the movie.

I didn't expect the theme of "home" to resonate so strongly with them. I think of the movie more as a comedy than anything else, but they came away thinking about how they appreciate our humble house as a home. How they really want to stay here as long as they can. 

We have another year-long home assignment coming up in 2018 (less than two years away!), and the boys wanted to know if we would be able to get someone to house sit for us again. We'll certainly try!

It's interesting because we don't own the house we live in, but I guess ownership doesn't make a place a home. They've only lived here five years out of the last six years. Our eldest has lived in seven other places, our middle son in six, and our youngest in four other houses. This is the longest they've lived anywhere, if you don't count that we essentially moved out for the year we were in Australia and then back in last July.

I've written before (for example see here) about how "home" is a tricky concept for kids like ours who are living in a different country to their passport country. It's tricky for us too, living in different country to where we grew up and where we want to retire.

It's great, though, that our guys consider our place home. I hope that we'll be able to stay here at last as long as it takes them all to graduate from high school (another seven years for our youngest). But only God knows the future. For now, I'm thankful that our house is a home and is considered so by our whole family. So thankful.