Confirmed: it's an unusual month

Our room. Traditional Japanese hotel room.

Yep, I'm coming to terms with the fact that this is indeed an unusual month. I wrote about our plans at the start of the month here. I'm starting to regret the complexity of our travel, merely due to the number of times I've had to explain our plans for this "summer" to people!

Chocolate fountain at the dinner buffet
each night (sometimes white).

Last week was field conference for five days in Hokkaido. As expected, it was busy and tiring. We were interacting with people most days from 7.30 am to 9 pm, and in a pretty loud environment. It was good, though, to get together with our OMF Japan family. We have many great conversations and interactions. We met many new people and caught up with "old" friends. And I managed to do the piano playing without any major mishap!

At conference, we were part of a small ceremony that recognised our 25 years of service in Japan (actual anniversary is in November). I was reluctant to agree to this because it is only by God's grace that we're still here and the glory (and congratulations) really all belongs to him, not us. We're acutely aware that so many have not been able to stay this long through no fault or lack of willingness of their own. However, it was pointed out to me that it's something of a partnership and that we had to say (and continue) to say yes to God's call in order to stay. But all that aside, it actually resulted in a bunch of interesting conversations with people for the rest of the week!

The conference hotel at dusk. The large windows
lower down on left are the huge dining
room (maybe capacity of 800 or more).

We got home to our own beds on Friday night and on Saturday we did little, just recovering, which was a good thing because Sunday was full of people again and by the end of that I was flagging.

David left for training in northern Thailand on Monday morning and I've been alone ever since. It's weird, actually. Tomorrow I'm flying to Singapore, for a meeting on Thursday and to meet David there on Friday before we fly to Australia on Monday (30th). What's weird is that I'm not used to having no one around while I prepare for an overseas trip, nor being on my own to close up our house for several weeks over summer. I've struggled a little not to overthink things. 

Pancake machine every breakfast.

Packing for a trip like this always makes me nervous...but we're going to Australia, so if I forget something key like underwear then I can at least buy more there (no, just checked, that's packed, but I have forgotten that once before on an overseas trip). But, as always, packing for a different season is challenging: Singapore isn't going to be much different to here (hot and humid), but Brisbane is in winter (19C max and 10C min on Monday).

I think this is the first time I've been on an overseas trip (i.e. not Japan or Australia) something that isn't organised by someone else, like a course or a sporting event. This time I initiated the meeting I have on Thursday and the weekend there is just us catching our breath before we fly to see our kids in Australia.

A lit walkway near the hotel.

Thankfully I've been sleeping well (apart from the night before conference). I hope that trend will continue!

So, my next blog post will either be from Singapore or Australia...we'll see!

Another unexpectedly unusual week

It's Friday and I have to say that this has been an odd week. Looking ahead to June last week, I didn't clock this week as being especially unusual, but it has ended up that way. Here's a few bits and pieces:

Music practice

As I mentioned last week, I'm playing the piano for worship at church this Sunday and also at conference next Friday. Hence, practise was needed. On Tuesday I took three trains across Tokyo to meet with others from our mission to practice for an hour...and then took three back again. Three hours of travel! Because it is such a distance, I usually try to combine such a journey with at least one other thing. This time I managed to snag a friend/colleague for lunch. Precious quiet moments in a tiny Tokyo cafe.

Piano: I've been playing since I was 
four...it's like another "first language".

I also spent an hour and a half practising at school yesterday (the easiest piano for me to access). David found a practise room and I had a great time. It took me back many years to my childhood and teenage years when I spent at least an hour a day practising and three hours a week at my teacher's studio, many times playing the piano in one of her two practice rooms. As I've eased back into playing these last few weeks, I've realised that playing the piano (and reading music) is like a first language to me. I still find it very easy to sight read (i.e. play from written notes without first hearing a piece)...much easier than trying to play chords (what guitarists use). And to extend the metaphor...much easier than trying to operate in Japanese.

Being stretched

This week I've had few stretching experiences.

On Wednesday I took seven trains (after six the day before). My day only contained two main things: I took three trains to met a colleague from one of my teams for a catch-up about work and how he's doing. Then I caught another three trains to meet another colleague who is moving back to Australia. She's newer in Japan and needed a hand with driving a larger vehicle to shift some of her furniture to another new family who live about 45 minutes away. My job was driving! Usually it's David who does things like this, but he wasn't available when they were, so I volunteered. The vehicle was a HiAce, a little bigger than our 8-seater vans that we've owned most of our years in Tokyo. But I managed. Between us we also managed to hire it from a Japanese company. This is no small thing when you struggle with Japanese . . . it wasn't pretty, but we did it. And I didn't damage the vehicle in any way, so that was a relief! 

The van we hired to do the moving. 

When we were done, I took one more train to get home. In contrast to the day before I never left western Tokyo, just took a big train circuit, and never more than about 15 km from our house.

Then yesterday I had my annual Japanese medical. It's pretty much funded by the government. It was not very comprehensive, but they did a urine and took some blood and asked me if I had any concerns. The doctor, nurse, and I danced around in two languages, but, I think managed the basics. I really struggle with starving blood test. Breakfast is mandatory for me to have decent brain function and going without my mid-morning coffee is a double blow to my capacity. Then, having to speak Japanese on top of that . . . it's definitely not pretty. I haven't yet managed to explain to a medical professional how difficult I find it to function in my (very second) language without breakfast or coffee.

My big mistake, yesterday, however, was trying to be efficient. I also needed more asthma meds, so I thought combining that with my medical would be a smart move . . . and it was, until I got to the pharmacy next to the doctor. What I should have done was go and have my coffee and then come back, but I didn't. The pharmacy didn't have enough in stock to fill my prescription. This has happened every time I've been recently, so I shouldn't have been surprised. But this time it seems there were greater difficulties that I don't understand . . . the lady appointed to deal with me spoke loud and fast, but didn't seem to have all the information that she needed. Our interactions (entirely in Japanese) were punctuated with something like "chotto matte kudasai" (please excuse me) followed by her rushing back to talk to someone else (the pharmacist?). 

This back and forth went on for some time. 

I was sitting like a blob on the waiting seats, with a pretty massive headache and brain fog so thick that thinking was hard. 

Eventually she agreed that they could sell me two then and they would mail me the rest of the script later. I had to throw more complications into the conversation as I explained that I was going to be in Sapporo from Monday for five days, then back here for four days, then in Australia (I didn't mention Singapore) from the week after for five weeks!

I think we sorted it out, but now I look back, I'm not sure why it was so hard. Brain fog and headache contributed, for sure, but I'm hoping that it wasn't contagious and that she didn't also have compromised brain function!

The "medical" actually only took around 30 minutes, but the end result was that I pretty much was incapacitated for the whole morning. It was only after lunch that I started to be able to do anything much of value. And then I had a piano practice and staff family dinner at school . . . so yesterday I didn't feel like I got much of value done!

End of year feel

At both school (where David works) and OMF JHQ (our mission's national base) I found an "end of year" vibe. Certainly at school, where the school year ended this week, that was the case. I wasn't ready for it at JHQ. It's not the end of the year there, but with our national conference next week, there is a lot of "get this done before conference". And there are cross-overs between the two organisations. One key leader in OMF Japan has kids at the school, so they are heading off straight after conference on a short home assignment, and so she's been handing over jobs to people to take care of during the months she'll be away. Also so there was an edge of tired frantic-ness (overwrought?) there that I wasn't expecting.

Additionally, in both places there are people leaving after serving in each place for a long time. So there's an edge of sadness to it all as well.

Ah, I'd better stop writing here and get back to the things I need to get done "before conference".

June's a big month

June, how can it already be June? My calendar says it's a so, so it must be so!

My calendar also has a lot written on it this month. It's a month that will contain a five-day OMF Japan conference in Hokkaido, a trip to Singapore for work, a couple of days holiday in Singapore, and flying to Australia for a five-week stay.

The day before we head off to conference I'm playing the piano for church. It's been a long time since I did that! David's also leading the service, which is something he's not done for a long time either. It's a great joy to be able to serve our new church in these tangible ways.

Conference starts on the 16th, and there are many preparations going on. The schedule is pretty much 8 am to 9 pm! We've done many of these over the years and they are really good times, but very exhausting at the same time (though not as bad now as when our kids were little). More than 250 adults and kids will meet together at the pictured hotel for the week.

We've been to this venue on
the outskirts of Sapporo multiple
times. It's beautiful. Our boys 
especially loved the all-you-can-eat
buffet for breakfast and dinner
as well as the water park in the 
basement!

My own small parts are:

• I'm part of a worship team as the pianist for one session, which has required creativity to get the music as well as practise (I no longer have a piano at home and live a long way from others on the team). 
• I'm leading a voluntary session that is themed writing. It's unclear what this will look like and completely unknown if anyone will even come to it...and it's on the last evening, by which time I'll probably be staggering around under the influence of too much coffee, just to stay upright! So, some preparation has been necessary (yep, I stopped writing this blog post and actually did some prep!).
• I think the only other thing I'm responsible for requires almost no preparation, but will require concentration. I'm the designated "conference recorder". Which basically means recording the important stuff that happens through the week and providing a report at the end. I've been given a copy of the report from 2023, and it's actually pretty intimidating. I don't think I'll be able to make my report as pretty!

On June 20, after conference, we head back home for the weekend before David heads to Thailand. I get to stay at home for a couple of extra days before I fly to Singapore. I'm planning on meeting others in our organisation who do similar work to me in social media and we're going to "job alike", which is a new term I learnt last year that is mostly used in education circles. It's when people who do similar jobs in different places/organisations get together and talk about common stuff in our jobs. It's the first time I've done this as an in-person thing in another country. I've talked to various people over video calls, but usually just an hour or so, but this will be larger than that and I'm interested to see how it goes. Our organisation is large and spread over multiple countries around the world. It's not easy to get together with others who do similar things. Social media is a newish kind of ministry and there aren't so many of us around.

After that David will meet me in Singapore where we'll rest for a couple of days and catch up with some Singaporean colleagues from Japan who happen to be "at home" at the moment. And then we'll head to Australia on the last day of the month.

When we left Australia last July we told our boys we're planning to come back this year to see them. As it turned out, we saw all of them in January at our son's wedding, but we still wanted to catch up with them and other loved ones, so we've pushed ahead with this plan.

Our five weeks in south-east Queensland will be a combo holiday/work remotely situation. It's much like July would usually look for us in Japan—with David on summer holidays from work and me still working from home, but scaling things back a little (getting some mid-week sleep-ins for example).

We'll fly back to Japan in early August in time for a couple of annual medical checks for David before he starts back at school.

Phew, I'm tired just writing all that (about June, especially).

Days 6 and 7: a 2nd conference

These two days (18 & 19) we spent at OMF Australia home staff conference.
It was a "day" conference: i.e. attendees were either staying at their own home, or billetted out. We parked the motorhome in the backyard of one of our Sydney-based colleagues and slept there. So the "where are you staying" questions provided interesting conversation starters!

The focus of this conference was on the people who work in Australia for OMF long term (as opposed to people like ourselves who primarily work overseas). They cover a wide range of roles from finance and other admin, to walking alongside people interested in becoming cross-cultural workers and looking after workers like ourselves. Around 40 or so were in attendance, and had come from around Australia. On Monday morning we also had some field representatives from a few East Asian countries, as well as our speaker from Sri Lanka.

For three nights in Sydney we slept here

This was the first time we’d been invited to attend the home staff conference and it was a great blessing. We’ve had time to get to know some of these people who have served us for a short or long time. The conference included worship and teaching times which were welcome encouragements. 

Plus, we “home assignees” were given opportunity to give feedback to the homeside about our experience of their support of us. Moving in and out of the country takes a lot of effort and moving between admin centres (for us, Japan and Australia) can be tricky for all sides of the equation. We were glad of the opportunity to give our perspective on things, including some constructive feedback.

We’re grateful for a quiet, scenic spot to stay in a big city like Sydney, though were still struggling a little to get used to the bed which is quite solid, so I didn't sleep as well as I'd have liked.

We also got lots of walking in as we left our motorhome in situ and instead caught trains and walked.

One of the beautiful streets we walked along

I had good conversations during the conference with a handful of people, including one with another mum of a child who isn't neurotypical. We cried together. And another conversation with parents of kids around the same age as ours who have had to make hard decisions about their ministry location.

There is a great deal of common understanding when cross-cultural workers get together. It really is something we love to do.

It’s common to feel completely exhausted after multiple days of missionary conferences. By the end of these two days I felt like was running on coffee and adrenaline. I was looking forward to some slower days later this week.

This was the end of our sojourn in Sydney and in the next stage of our journey we headed off to another city and our final "ministry" appointments before our long holiday.

Day 4 and 5: a conference

On Friday and Saturday nights we slept in a conference centre, it was an adjustment, even after only three days on the road! We're at the OMF Australian National Conference. I'm struck again at how different a "homeside" national conference is to a "fieldside" conference (for example, the one we went to in June last year). 

At a homeside national conference, there are people attending from many different perspectives. We've met retired OMF missionaries, some currently serving with OMF in various countries, and missionaries on home assignment like ourselves. There are staff who run things in Australia for OMF—they look after things related to us like finance and personnel matters, but also who work with new people interested in going overseas to serve with OMF. And this latter bunch of people are also at conference: people learning about OMF and about the need for the gospel in East Asia, either because they're interested in going themselves, or because they are part of the team that supports those who go. That's a complex group of people!

The conference venue was gorgeous. This is the view 
from outside the dining room towards the ocean.

A fieldside conference mostly consists of people sent to serve in one particular country. So the feel is quite different and a fieldside conference can feel much more focused and "family-like". Also, generally, significantly longer and more intense. Fieldside conferences often fulfil a role of refreshment and spiritual nourishment, a time for missionaries to step aside from their ministries for a period, something that is compulsory and also longer (often five days in Japan).

Quite a few people know our faces at this conference, but it tends to be a one-way street and we don't know them, or perhaps we've prayed for them through the prayer material that OMF Australia provides, but we've never met them in person.

In any case, it's been a great time so far of talking mission with others who "get" this crazy lifestyle. When we're in Australia we spend little time with other people who live like we do, so a missionary conference is a place where we get to enjoy fellowship with many likeminded people.

Our location is in Collaroy, which is on the northern coast of Sydney. We can see the Pacific Ocean from our room! It's been lovely to be fed by someone else who also takes care of the dishes! And to enjoy the facilities, including our own private bathroom.

On Sunday, after the (first) conference ended, we drove 45 minutes to park in the backyard of another missionary. We were really unsure how the afternoon would play out. We ended up having a bring-and-share type lunch at our host’s house along with two other missionaries we’d only just met, then some quiet time (we used to call it SQUIRT time). At 4 pm we joined a video call for a couple of hours with our three sons who were hanging out in our empty house in Ipswich! We chatted and played online board games.

Then dinner was a simple leftovers meal heated up in our little kitchen, short walk to buy ice creams, showers, writing here, and then to bed!

Monday is conference number 2! That's for my next post.

Day 3: a lake, three beaches, and a conference

Can you spot Lake Macquarie in the background?

This day we woke up in a caravan park on the shores of Lake Macquarie. A peaceful caravan park where we only encountered cheerful staff and residents. We're still adjusting to the change to daylight saving that we copped when we crossed the Queensland-New South Wales border on Wednesday (for non-Aussies, Queensland is the only state on the eastern side of Australia not to have daylight saving). The sun got up after 7. It was very weird to wake up at 6 am and find it was still dark!

Cave beach

We packed up and left by 10, and drove a short distance to Cave Beach, where, surprise surprise, there are caves on the beach! Alas the tide was coming in and we could only just get to one of them. The winds were high and the surf pretty fierce, but we walked along the beach for a bit anyway. Then, after it started raining, we hopped back in our vehicle and drove north a short distance, in search of a walk along the shoreline and found another beach (ingeniously called "Coastal") after a short walk through bushland. We then drove to a sheltered spot, read for a bit and made lunch in our portable home. 

Long Reef Headland in Collaroy

Then it was time to face the trip to Sydney. We were surprised by the Pacific Motorway to the north of Sydney. It goes through a lot of uninhabited mountainous area, with large portions of hills blasted away to accommodate the road. I looked it up later (I get travel sick, so I only get away with a minimal amount of reading as a passenger); I think much of the blasting happened in the 1920s, presumably when tunnel technology wasn't really a thing in Australia! In any case, the middle part of our journey was prettier than we'd anticipated.

Lunch in the motorhome

Driving in big cities you don't know is never fun and doing it in a larger vehicle makes it worse. Google Maps is a huge help, but it even got a bit lost at one point and gave us information that didn't match the signs in front of us, so we ended up in a tunnel that took us too far into the city! 

Around 3pm we did stop for caffeine as we got weary, but then powered onwards to the beachside suburb in northern Sydney of Collaroy. We were too early to check in, so we parked and went for a walk up the Long Reef Headland, which afforded beautiful views up and down the coastline, then walked down to the shoreline and back around to where we'd parked, touching the southern end of Fisherman's Beach. I walked a bit more than seven kilometres in the day, which is actually very good considering how tired I felt in the early part of the day!

Dinner was, of course, fish and chips, and then we drove to the conference centre and checked into our room. This is OMF Australia's annual national conference, something we only get to every five years or so. But I'll write more about this next time.

A missionary conference

Time for a mobile post. We’re sitting at Chitose Airport in Hokkaido after five days of the 2023 OMF Japan conference. It’s been an intense week, as expected, but very good. I’m reminded that a field conference bears resemblance to a family reunion. These, in so many ways, are “our people”, though we’re related to none and have few common experiences with any of them prior to coming to Japan. It’s a strange feeling, but nonetheless is truly how I feel.

The view from our traditional Japanese room.

A couple of unexpecteds for me:

• The number of missionaries is about the same as last time we gathered (170), but I felt a distinct shift in balance. At 22 ½ years of service we’re definitely in the “senior missionary” realm now. About half of those at conference weren’t in Japan at our last one (five years ago). Even taking into consideration the short- and medium-term missionaries (about 50 of those 170), there’s a lot of people who have been here many years less than 22! We had a lot of conversations with people who know very little of the recent history of our organisation. It’s shocking to realise that things we experienced in 2011, 2015, etc., are “ancient history”.
• Heaviness. The theme of the conference was four-fold, based on Romans 12:11–12 “Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervour, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.” We spent a day on each of these: Joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer, and zeal & spiritual fervour. The day on patience in affliction we spent time looking at grief, lament, and suffering. This was heavy, but helpful for me personally, as I continue to struggle with the “whys” of some of our parenting struggles.

I’m really tired now. I’m particularly craving quiet. These days have been loud, with conversations often being held almost at shouting level to make oneself heard over the crowd. And conversations were had: at breakfast, at lunch, at dinner, at morning and afternoon tea, before and after sessions, in the baths (yes, Japanese communal baths), in the pools (this hotel has a water park in the basement), in the elevator and in the halls. Many small group discussions, and times of prayer. Much talking and much listening. Wonderful and draining at the same time. We prayed for God-appointed conversations and continue to pray that the words we spoke and the listening we did are a blessing to all those we encountered. I’m so thankful for so many interactions. Possibly even more thankful in the context of being post-pandemic (and very few masks). Three years of masked and online interactions have caused us to value these multiple informal in person interactions much more.

I’m also thankful for much unrestrained singing in English. I’ve been teary most days! Singing in English is something I miss in Japan. The first night especially was precious. We joined with fellow missionaries from over a dozen countries and multiple Christian backgrounds and sang our hearts out. Such freedom isn’t often part of my church experience, in either Australia or Japan.

Conference is a time to step back from the minutiae of ministry and life and remember the Lord who saved us and called us. It’s so important and I hope that as we stand at the intersection between service in Japan and service in Australia, this will help fuel us spiritually as we move forward, helping us to keep the big-picture in mind.

I’m looking forward now to my own bed (a luxury I’ll have to give up in just over two weeks). But it’ll be still several hours before we get there. The reality is that even once we land in Tokyo around 8.30, we’ll still have another 1 ½ hrs at least on trains to get home.

Finally the day has come…

Yesterday was the day we've been working towards: it's the day we decided months ago that we would finish our work (i.e. magazine editing, social media managing, and—for David—teaching). It seemed impossible at times, but alas (or much to my amazement) we actually managed it! The only portion of all that that I will retain is an overall management of the magazine team and general "hard question" consultant.

I'm thankful that I was running ahead of schedule last week. That relieved some stress as yesterday didn't go at all as expected—a simple get-medication medical appointment at a hospital (usually takes under an hour) turned into a four-hour ordeal. 

Being ahead of schedule also meant that I could volunteer several extra hours to help the admin team for the magazine with the manual labour of packing, and this month's mail-out had a wrinkle that's extended the time it's taking to packing all the magazines up several fold!

This week has held other unplanned things: 

• Doing my first ever audio recording of a conversation with a colleague which will go with six articles I've written about home assignment preparation (looks like that recording and the articles will be published over the next couple of months, so I'll be sure to share them).
• Doing some serious culling of files on my computer so that I can transition to my new work computer (yep, my computer lied about how much it held, and we ordered a new computer that was too small). Why this week?
• Starting to hand off my plants to others! Just like with my work, I'm splitting my plants up between several people to care for while we're away. I’d planned to do it, but not as soon as this week!
• A pile of mending has suddenly appeared! Really?
• And various appointments that aren't related to us leaving: mostly medical, and dental, but I do need to remember to make a hair appointment.
• I don't remember when I found out, but not long before Monday I discovered that I was invited to a staff-family dinner that night. First time since COVID (for me). And it was followed by square dancing, which is very closely related to the Australian bush dancing we did as kids and was super fun (even if I was very tired).

And expected things:

• I'm starting to struggle with sleep: nightmares about clerical errors, waking up early with my brain whirring, etc.
• Finishing work today, of course!
• My last work meeting (aside from next week, which is basically a whole five days of meetings at our OMF conference).

After my long wait at the hospital on Thursday I was feeling quite off balance yesterday. I'm really glad that I planned ahead and handed things off early, it's really helped that that hard work of thinking things through to be done before this week!

David also finished work yesterday, and last night he pulled out a whole lot of boxes that we haven’t used in 13 years. They’ve been living in our attic. Now our house looks like we’re moving, even if we haven’t actually put much into the boxes yet. But I’m feeling pretty restless about it all. Probably the best way to deal with that is to get off my chair (and this blog) and actually do some sorting myself. Here’s my secret: I leave the actual box-packing to David who is a magician when it comes to 3D puzzles like this.

Boxes full of packing material

On Monday we leave early to catch a couple of trains to catch a plane to Hokkaido for a five-day conference with OMF Japan. So we’ve also got to pack for that…and so, I’d better get going.

This week is unusual

Tomorrow we are catching trains to our first in-person overnight mission conference in four years. It's 550km north of here, but we get to go on the super-fast Shinkansen, so it's a shorter journey than if we were driving. 

OMF Japan field has usually held all-field conferences every two or three years. We were about to gather in March 2020 when all plans had to be cancelled for the pandemic. Since then we’ve had two online substitutes, but they really have only been “better than nothing” events.

This is the grand dining room of the venue of
our last all-field conference, in 2018.

One of the best things about on-field conferences is actually gathering with other missionaries. It really is pretty exhausting, because not only do you have various meetings and gatherings to attend, you spend a lot of the “free time”, coffee breaks, and meals catching up with people you haven’t seen in a long time, but it's a "good" exhausted. This is our family-away-from-home. The noise is quite something! I think this one is going to be more overwhelming for me than they have in the past, because rarely, in the last 2 ½ years, have I been in a room with more than 20 people who are talking to one another.

Nevertheless, I'm looking forward to gathering with our “OMF Family” in May for the first time in four years. (Incidentally it will be first time in Japan that we've been to a conference without any kids—our boys are staying home.) This isn’t a full-field conference, but about two-thirds of our missionaries will be there. There will be many new faces, and, sadly, many faces missing—people who’ve retired or left the field for various reasons, as well as most of those who don't work on Honshu. It's going to be an all-masked affair, and I'm hoping that wearing masks all the time will not hinder our time together.

I don't get off with being just a participant, either. I'm running a writing workshop for an handful of people on Friday afternoon and playing the piano for a short while during communion also. But I'm okay with these! What I have had trouble with is actually believing that this is going to happen. We've had so many plans cancelled in the last 2 ½ yrs, it seems surreal to actually have something big like this really happening. And we've done our Covid tests, so we're really good to go! I'm packing my suitcase soon.

By the way, if you're interested, this was my blogpost after our last conference, in March 2018: https://mmuser.blogspot.com/2018/03/hokkaido-conference-is-wrap.html This time we're going to a much more bare-bones venue, a youth hostel.

Professional development in cross-cultural ministry

“Professional Development” are words that I knew in my pre-missionary profession. My husband is in charge of this for the staff at the school he works at. But I don't hear these words often in mission circles. I wonder why? Maybe because we don’t think of what we do as a “profession”.

I had to essentially leave behind my former profession, Occupational Therapy—at least in terms of formal registration with a national registration board—when I started down the road of cross-cultural ministry. I couldn't keep up with the professional development  requirements, not to mention afford the costs involved in remaining a legit Allied Health professional in Australia.

So having left something that is fits a narrow definition of profession, I found it helpful to think about what I currently do using those familiar terms. 

What is a profession?

Dictionary.com has a very broad definition of profession:

a vocation requiring knowledge of some department of learning or science: the profession of teaching.

the body of persons engaged in an occupation or calling: to be respected by the medical profession.

My own professional development

Over the years I've gained a lot of knowledge about Japan, the culture and language, I've also gained knowledge about cross-cultural living—especially in Japan, and about many aspects of missionary life. So I guess I've been growing in the profession of missionary. Though I've never thought about it in those terms.

The time at the writer's retreat ten days ago also convinced me that I've grown into a third profession (or a fourth, if you count motherhood as my second profession): that of publishing. It's what I've spent a lot of time learning about and doing over the last decade. It amazed me that I could sit and talk with people about many varied aspects of writing and publishing. It shouldn't have! I've gathered a lot of information and expertise over this decade, none of it official with a certificate or degree, but certain not without merit.

And somehow I've had this mindset: always desiring to learn, and to grow.  Perhaps it is just my curious mind, although I don't discount the influence my university education and subsequent few years in the Occupational Therapy field had on me. 

The location of my first major professional development for
writing: Hong Kong.
Yes, it's not your usual Hong Kong image, is it?

Our mission helps with this by insisting on goal setting and regular reviews with supervisors. But what I do is a little outside the bounds of what many of the workers in our organisation do, so a certain amount of being a self-starter has been necessary. I don't actually know another missionary on any mission field who works as an editor (though I'm sure they exist, somewhere). And I'm doing this as a predominantly English speaker in a non-English speaking country, so there are less resources than if I were elsewhere. Therefore I've had to be creative.

Over the years my professional development in relation to publishing (there's more if you include cross-cultural living) has included:

• Reading books about writing and editing (and buying them, something I don't do a lot for pleasure on a missionary budget, but when I come across a useful professional resource, I'm keen to lay my hands on it).
• Reading many articles online.
• Writing a lot. Over 3,000 articles on this blog and probably over 100 articles published in magazines and a couple of book contributions also.
• Being a part of an online critique group and other online groups over the years has taught me so much.
• Editing and being edited. Nothing like having to edit someone's work to make you think about what good writing is. Nothing like being called on a decision you've made when editing someone's work to make you think about why you do what you do. I've got a great production team with the magazine who don't let me get away with sloppy work.
• Managing a magazine has been another level of learning and growing. Learning how to efficiently put together a quality product with a volunteer and long-distance team and also how to manage a team. Learning how to work with writers has been another, sometimes painful, journey. Much of this has been learning on the job, figuring things out as I went. Not only have I learnt about being a leader, but I've also learnt about how to be a good follower.
• I've had to learn how to use various online tools, that was especially the case when I took on my current social media manager role for OMF Japan. But also tools that I use to help me with the magazine (see this post and this one).
• Attending conferences, workshops, and retreats
• OMF Writer's retreat/workshop in Hong Kong 2010
• Magazine editing training Manilla 2009
• Christian Writer's conference Victoria 2014
• OMF Social media workshop Manilla 2017
• International Christian Publishing conference (LittWorld) in Singapore 2018
• Training with OMF about leading teams Bangkok 2016
• Led six writer's workshops/retreats in Japan
• Completed a couple of small online courses, and in the middle of another with Udemy.
• Attended a hands-on photography course.
• Attempted (and failed) to learn inDesign, the program that our magazine designer uses.

Well that's quite a lot when you write it out like that!

Last month I found this article and it is very helpful. It looks at what we do in cross-cultural ministry from the position of a profession and notes the vital importance of professional development, especially for those who stay a longer time.

When things get quiet here, I sometimes wonder about what the future holds for me with my current skills. I don't know. But I do know that I will not be content to become stagnant. I want to keep growing, keep taking on challenges, keep learning new things.

The writer's retreat I led 10 days ago didn't allow me to do much writing. But it did stretch me professionally. Having to answer questions about publishing and doing one-on-ones with people asking about publishing, writing, and editing issues was hard. This was especially so because there is much more time pressure when you are sitting with someone, if I encounter a difficult editing issue at work I can often walk away from it for a while and come back, or consult a resource or someone else. It was hard, but it was good for me.

What about you? Thinking outside the box, how has professional development looked for you in recent years? What are you looking forward to doing in the near future? What would you like to do, but haven't had the chance yet?

LittWorld 2018: the rest

It's three days since I left the conference in Singapore. It already feels like an age ago, mostly because of what's happened since (we had four deputation meetings over the weekend).

The meeting rooms had geometrical names!

However, this post is about the conference. It continued (after I wrote on Monday) to be a remarkable event. Most people were keen to meet new people and find out what they're doing and why they were attending the conference. I learnt a lot, and not all publishing related.

I talked with a Russian about climate, a Chicagoan about life there and in Japan, I talked magazines with a lady from Nigeria who produces one for teenagers and one from Bulgaria who produces a magazine for ladies, and talked theology and current events with someone from Sydney. I roomed with a lady from Denver, Colorado who is a publisher with William Carey. I sat with the head of Tyndale Publishing and his wife, talked with an author from Costa Rica, learned from an Egyptian editor and translator, and attended talks by a journalist from Nigeria and a deputy managing editor with Christianity Today. I went riding with a lady from Egypt and talked to a pastor from Pakistan. 

Phew! 

Even meals were intense. I rarely sat with the same person or group of people twice, and because I hardly knew anyone, I was constantly introducing myself and what I do. The last day of the conference I was "on" from 7.30am to 10.15pm. At that point, I retreated to my room to have a shower and pack my bag in preparation for my 6.30am bus to the airport the next day (the programme for the day wasn't finished at that point, but I was finished).

The view from the island on our bike ride as the sun was setting.

Conferences are fun and stressful at the same time. This one I went to with high expectations, and only knowing two others. I obviously met many others, but did run into someone I hadn't seen since the mid '90s and was able to joyfully hear the story of his involvement in mission.

One of the lunch buffet tables. Feeding people from
52 nations is no joke. We mostly ate Singaporean
food. (At least I assume that's what we ate...not
being a Singaporean expert.)

There were a number of other missionaries too. A New Zealanders in India, Americans in the Philippines, Nigeria, and a ?British couple in Costa Rica. I met a lady who has worked in the Hong Kong office of OMF and one who works with archives in the UK offices of OMF.

I've never been at a conference with an app. It was brilliant. The go-to place to check the schedule, but also an easy way to check out other attendees, to connect and communicate with them, or ask questions. Here's a screenshot of the homepage:

It was a delightfully international environment. The main focus of Media Associates International (the organisation behind this three-yearly event) is encouraging the writing and publishing of books in local languages. It was exciting to see people from countries where it is challenging to be a Christian, getting training and becoming excited about the potential.

My roommate. A delightful person to debrief with at
night time!

Near our hotel. In the background: apartments, I think.

The venue was quite lovely, though because the programme was pretty busy there were days that I didn't do much other than sit, and change rooms, and eat. The hotel was at one end of Singapore, a bit of a distance from the main city centre (not that anywhere is far from anywhere in Singapre). Close to the hotel was a grassy island/park and a beach. I skipped one main session and went wandering over to the island for some serenity (mid-week it was a very quiet spot).

On Thursday I squeezed in a ride between 5.45 and dinner (complimentary bike hire for an hour for hotel patrons). It's been several months since I was on a bike, and it was great to jump back on. However hopping off the bike wasn't so easy. I'm blaming muscle memory: I usually ride a ladies bike, which are easy to dismount, but this was a mountain bike and in my haste to dismount, I tried to swing my leg in front of me. The end result was rather heavily falling on my knee and quite a large graze that bled rather well.

Knee covered by a bandaid I probably wouldn't have
had with me had I not been a mum-of-boys!

Small touches that make a hotel seem a bit fancy. This was one of the ladies' loos.

 A playground on the island. I sat here for a while soaking up the serenity of not having anyone to concentrate on listening to or questions to answer.

 

You see that I couldn't just leave it at "Australia". With so
many internationals there, I reckon they should have
had an option for two countries on the nametag!

This is a taste of the botanical gardens. That's for another post: our mid-week excursion to these extensive gardens. I took my big camera there and will show you some of my photos another day. 

Enough words for today. I've had a much needed day-off and now need to get a good night's sleep. This week I shold have plenty of blogging time, so hopefully I'll be able to catch-up a little and tell you some more about what I've been up to and thinking about.

LittWorld conference Day 1

A not-so-lengthy post from the conference I'm attending in Singapore. Today is the first full day. I arrived in the early hours of Sunday, but we didn't begin until dinner-time last night.

The conference is a Christian Global Publishing conference. That is, there are people here from 52 different countries (more than 250 people). They include publishers, writers, editors, designers, screenwriters, and marketers. It's quite an extraordinary collection of people.

I've been pleasantly surprised by the Biblical and godly focus of those who are running the conference, but also by the non-Western input we've already had. We've had two worship times already and they've been a blessing to me. The theme of the conference is "the Word made fresh", so a focus on the Bible. Last night we had a speaker from the Egyptian Bible Society. He told us some amazing stories.

Often these "international" events are very US or UK biased, but thus far the only American speakers we've had from the front are the MC and a tiny bit from the President of the organisation running the event (MAI Media Associates International). I'm used to being a part of an international organisation, but the OMF has its limits, as in, our focus is on East Asia and most of our missionaries come from a limited group of countries, countries that have an official OMF home-side presence (though that is now changing). So, there is limited African, European, and South American influences. I'm losing count of the nationalities of people here I've had conversations with. Here's what I can remember: Egypt, Cambodia, Malaysia, Kenya, US, UK, Italy, Costa Rica, Serbia, Slovenia, Slovakia, South Africa, Japan, Laos, Australia, and Hungry.

Here are some things I'm already thinking about: 

• What other value can I add to what we do with Japan Harvest magazine aside from the magazine. Can we do something else that gets people more involved outside of them actually just reading the magazine?
• How can I think more globally about my writing about things local?

What follows are some photographic "thoughts" of the last couple of days.

A largely empty Brisbane International Airport. Middle of the afternoon on a Saturday, I was really surprised! I had a very smooth flight, but I was very tired by the time arrived, having had a 23 hour day (we spoke at a breakfast meeting in Brisbane on Saturday).

Upstairs garden. This was the view outside the first room that I occupied. I arrived at about 1am and was given a single room for 11 hours. After that I changed to a double room for the rest of the conference, I don't know why I couldn't have booked into the second room when I first arrived on Sunday morning, but oftimes when you travel you just have to go with what you get.

Below are more views from my first room.

More view. It's a lovely area. I wandered around here a bit yesterday as I looked for a cheap lunch option.

Gorgeous display that greets those of us who "live" on the third floor.

A street-level view of the local area. This is close to many vendors, but it delightfully thought out.

Lunch. I didn't sit at this table, but most tables have a quite the variety of nationalitities. People are mixing well.  Many people don't know a lot of others. Each meal has been a
buffet with a fair variety of food. We're certainly not starving: for food or conversation.

This is where we are located on the island. Quite close to the airport, but the plane noise hasn't been a big concern.