Exciting and scary

I think I'm pleased to report that we booked more plane tickets on Saturday. I have to say that after our journeys last year, I wasn't keen, but I'm also glad that it's done. At least this time there are no passport or visa dramas, and no Covid regulations either! I've also booked accommodation in three different locations (one in Japan and two in Australia) that will help us have places to lay our heads between July 10 and August 2. After that, only God knows!

This transition represents the next stage in our journey: the start of our 5th (!) home assignment. It's also a significant journey as we take our sons back to Australia for good. As I keep saying, we're not bringing them back to Japan next year.

I'm also pleased to say that this week I was able to submit the 4,500-word project I'd been working on since November last year. That felt both very good, but also nerve-racking even though it was something that I'd been commissioned to write. I'm glad to have gotten it to this point and to shove it into someone else's hands for the time being. I think all editors should periodically take a turn at being writers whose work is submitted to editors, I think it would help us all to have a good deal of insight into what writers feel.

Then on Wednesday, I found enough free space in my schedule to ride to the park—my usual haunt—to spend time with the blooming sakura (alongside hundreds of others). Last Friday we sent the latest magazine to the printer, and this week I only had one meeting on my calendar and no out-of-the-office responsibilities during work hours. So, from several years of experience, I knew that this week I'd have a little extra time and that a ride to the park was viable. It was a shock to realise I haven't done that in five months! It was definitely time and yesterday everything lined up: time to spare, beautiful weather, and sakura blooming. Ah, it was a blessed couple of hours. I relaxed enough to even lie down and read a book under one of the pink trees!

This week it's been delightful to have more time to think about home assignment preparation . . . though I need to stop writing now! I've probably already got sufficient "story modules" written for our rounds of speaking. Noting that we're often only given 10 minutes between us to talk about Japan and our ministry over the last 4 ½ years, and we rarely speak to the same audience, it's not too hard. Because I love to write and "stories" are my hobby horse, it's the easier part of HA preparation for me. The hard work of upending our lives and moving will be much worse.

So, now, I think, a story is warranted. Smile! Writing for publication can be a scary thing, but it's also an exciting thing. For the same reason: you never know where your words are going to end up. Editing and publishing are the same. I feel a little like a midwife, sometimes, in the various publishing that I'm involved in. 

A couple of weeks ago at the women's retreat I went to I saw one of my "babies" on a table. I think it was for sale. "Beneath the Surface" is a prayer guide I spent several months working on in 2019 and 2020. I wasn't a writer, but I laboured over the editing! Oh, I did write the initial draft of the "From the editors" at the beginning, but it was heavily worked over in one of the most intense "team editing" sessions I've ever been part of.

I've just done some intense searching, and I can't believe that I never wrote here about this big "baby". It was a huge project (that involved a lot of collaboration across organisations) to undertake on top of the other day-to-day responsibilities I have at work. Probably one reason that I never wrote here about it was that it happened in the middle of the pandemic, at least the end part did. We had planned a post-publication party for the three of us editors who conceived and worked together on the project, but we never ended up being able to do anything. In the end, in November 2020, the only thing that marked this going out into the world was an online launch party for the contributors. 

In any case, I'm still very happy with this amazing booklet and feel a little possessive whenever I see it around somewhere. I'm unsure how many copies have been sold around the world, but it's many thousand. And it's been translated into a few other languages as well. The Japanese version is currently being worked on.

I think the unique thing about the booklet is not only that it is not about the work of any one mission, but also that it delves into some really deep and difficult topics, but makes them accessible to many people because as much as we could we tried to utilise stories. Oh, and you can buy it here.

But that actually wasn't the story I was planning to tell you. I've got another one. I received an email early in March from someone in the UK. He's a Christian student worker (IFES), and specifically, he works with music students. One of the authors in the Winter issue of the magazine that I manage Japan Harvest happened to be in the UK and gave a copy of the magazine to this man. (This issue was themed "Arts in Ministry.") This man in the UK read the whole thing and wrote: 

"I found [it] fascinating—I've known for quite a while that using the arts in mission is something that is done to particularly good effect in Japan, and so it was eye-opening, encouraging, and inspiring to read so many articles documenting the thought and practice of so many missionaries in Japan."

He was particularly taken by one of the articles and wanted to reprint it on this website. https://musicnetwork.uk/.

The website is the "chief online resource for equipping music students here in the UK to live for Christ in the world of music. We are always trying to give them deep theological foundations for their musical practice, as well as actively trying to encourage them to think globally and missionally, and the article certainly did both of those things I feel."

You can check out the article that's now been republished here.

I was so encouraged by this little exchange. The magazine is primarily for people ministering to Japanese people, so to think that this went halfway around the world into the hands of someone working with quite a different audience is pretty cool.

I like my job. It is indeed both scary and exciting. Who knows what God's going to do with my words or the words I help into publication?

I'm also excited because we've got a camping trip planned for next week! So my next blog post might be a camping one!

Good memories, no regrets

Is another wrestling post warranted? I do want to document that my youngest son was crowned Far East Champion of the 215 lb weight class on Wednesday. He wrestled very well and none of his opponents could find much of a chink in his armour. 

It wasn't our first rodeo, as you may know. We went to Korea to watch our eldest son compete in the same competition six years ago. Each of their journeys was quite different. Our eldest did a lot of off-season wrestling in non-school clubs, and also had a two-year rival who he had wrestled many times and not always won (though his rival didn't beat him during our son's senior year, he did make him work hard for the victories), so when they faced off in the semifinal and again in the final, the result was definitely unknown. 

Our youngest son hasn't been able to do anywhere near the same amount of wrestling during his high school years, for various reasons, including injury and a pandemic. He has spent a lot of time in the gym, though, building up strength and body mass. At the start of the tournament he was also unbeaten so far in the season, but it's also not his greatest passion, so in some ways the stakes didn't feel as high. 

Although no one told my body that. I had the same physiological reactions: lost sleep, messed up digestion, raised heart rate, general shakiness and difficulty concentrating. When I'm at a wrestling tournament, I can't read (and I'm a reading addict), nor can I even feasibly play a game; we tried to play Scrabble on the second day, but struggled. Two nights of waking at 2am and not really falling deeply back to sleep, plus two days of sitting in a noisy gym, really did a number on me. I was glad to not have an international flight and then travel on trains back from the airport like I did six years ago, but it's been hard to get back to work these last couple of days.

One way to tell that you're at a gym

hosting a wrestling tournament...

you find this on the back of the toilet

cubicle door.

It was fun to go away with David, even if it was for two days of wrestling! We enjoyed doing this together, and shared passions are important as you move towards a time when your kids all leave home. We made great memories and I have no regrets. Oh, and it was fabulous being able to support our son like this.

One fun memory centres around hair. Our son's hair is now wavy and long (below his shoulders), definitely tricky for wrestling, where you can't use anything but hairbands and product to secure it. His brothers have always kept their hair short, so we've never dealt with this before. I've never had much to do with my boys’ hair, actually! But on Monday one of the first things our son said to me when we saw him was, "Can you braid my hair?" Wow! I've had short hair for nearly 12 years and I can't actually remember if I've ever braided someone else's hair . . . I wasn't that kinda girl. 

Neither of us had a comb and my first go at it was straight after he'd warmed up, so he was sweaty! We didn't have hairspray and only two hair-ties, so it got messy pretty quickly after he helped a teammate warm up for a match (they use their heads quite a lot). He wanted me to redo it then, but we weren't sure when his first match would be, and I was already shaky. Braiding hair with shaky hands isn't recommended. 

I was particularly nervous that I'd get partway done and he'd be called up for his match. There's no waiting if you're called. It's something that new wrestlers (and their parents) have to learn about a tournament: there's no timetable, you simply wait for your name to be called, and it can be excruciating (and hard to figure out when to eat). Once you're called, you've got to hoof it to register that you're present and ready to go, with all the gear you need (in your wrestling singlet and shoes and warm-up clothes, plus a water bottle and headgear). This tournament was well organised and had wrestlers waiting "on deck" about three bouts ahead. A bout can last 20 seconds or over six minutes, but they don't tolerate delays.

In any case, I couldn't see myself doing a decent job of braiding his hair in that situation, so I went for a "first aid" solution. My networking came in handy: I knew the mum of one of the female wrestlers, so I went to find her and ask if her team (which had several girls with long hair) had any hairspray. She went right to work and found a girl quickly who dug around in her bag, pulling out not just hairspray but something that looked like mascara. It had a wand that you pull across the top of hair that is "done" to glue those flyaways down—I had to ask her how to use it. Her coach, who I also know, was sitting nearby quietly laughing as I explained how I only had boys and needed help here. She was great!

Well, it worked, and he made it through his first match without distracting hair in his face. Then we had time, and I had another go at braiding it and did slightly better.

The next morning when we met in the gym (our room wasn't near the team), I had a third go, before his final. This time I brought a comb I'd snaffled from our hotel bathroom and handed him some "action" hairspray that I'd bought the night before at the mall near the hotel, and instructed him on how to use it. Our boys haven't grown up with sisters, and he was only six when I cut my hair short . . . there are some things they just don't know!

It's a good thing the braiding was for practical purposes, not aesthetics, but I was pleased that because I was present I could do this one thing for him. In fact the whole couple of days was very much about being wholly present for our son (and his teammates). It was a joy to have the flexibility to do that.

Oh, and giving my sweaty son a shaky hug after he'd won gold was a highlight too. And he didn't pick me up, like he did his coaches!

These moments when we get to intensely invest in our kids are soon going to get more difficult to find. I'm treasuring them.

Getting traction

It's another "getting traction by writing about the past couple of days" post.

Last week
Last week was a flurry of meetings and aside from that I mostly only got to the most urgent of things here at my desk. Lots of excitement as we ramp up towards transitioning our eldest to Australia next month and the rest of us to Australia in July. But enough to de-rail me from my usual fast, but somewhat efficient pace. It was like my brain had gone into manic mode and I found sleep difficult: either I struggled to calm down enough to get to sleep at the start of the night or work up part way into the night and struggled to get back to sleep.

Ah, the fun of having other wrestling mums to share the joy. So much
better than doing it alone!

Saturday
Then came Saturday. It was a usual Saturday for this time of the year—we got up early and went to a wrestling meet. But it was a slightly unusual wrestling meet, with the middle schoolers joining the high schoolers for a joint meet for the first time we've ever experienced (in seven years of being on this wrestling circuit). That meant they expanded to three mats running during the day, one mat in an adjacent room. So even though our team was small (only seven wrestlers in total), we often missed seeing them wrestle.

It was a fun, but frenetic day. I loved being back in a bigger group of parents and hanging out all day with them was fun. But the gym is an echoey one and eight hours of that was exhausting.

Watching friends watch their son introduced for his regional final.
I was sitting in their seat the last two years. It was nice not to have that
personal pressure, but rather to support others.

It was great to see our middle-school son have success. He won all three of his bouts and got gold in his weight bracket. Great encouragement for him as he's struggled in the last year or two a little with injury and "a lot of knowledge but not enough practise applying the knowledge and not enough strength to do what he wants to do".

It was also exciting to cheer for the son of our friends. We've camped with them and spent numerous other times with them (sharing meals, sharing cars, attending sporting events). It was great to see their son excel on Saturday, even if he did give us a bit of a scare in the first half of his finals match by being way behind in points.

I talked, or felt like I talked, for 12 hours! Certainly the only time I wasn't surrounded by people was in the toilet cubicle. Talking over the noise on top of cheering loudly for certain wrestlers meant my voice was strained at the end of the day.

I loved being with other parents, and was able to touch base with a couple of mums from other school that I already have an acquaintance with. Sharing the disappointment with one of them as her son lost his final.

I had an opportunity to sit with another mum-friend in an unusual situation. I'm not ready to write about it here (and I may never, because I want to respect her privacy), but it was an opportunity to have a ministry of presence to someone in need. She described me as being a real help to her and that was a great encouragement, though really I was just available to her need to have someone to sit with in a crowd and listen and I didn't do a lot other than that (and answer/ask questions).

Sunday
It was a much-needed rest day. Church as usual in the morning and then nothing much else for the rest of the day. I did sneak some baking in later in the afternoon.

Monday
This was a staff work day (or student-free day, as we used to call it in Australia), so the students were at home and got up late. David went in for a leadership team meeting and then did other teacherly work at his school desk in the afternoon. I took the opportunity to get up a bit later too (having lost sleep last week, I figured this was looking after myself in a way that I needed to).

The big elephant yesterday was that snow was forecast. Our eldest's job was to go into school to help with snow clearing and he hung around until it looked like it had started to "stick" to the ground and pile up late morning (it began snowing around 10). He worked there until dark last night and came home wet and tired.

We also had an overnight guest last night. One of the couple who we visited at the end of November. He was supposed to have a meeting at school this morning, but it got cancelled last night once they realised the extent of the snowfall. Alas he'd already made it to our house for the night, so he stayed and went home this morning after the craziness of rush-hour.

With boys at home and people coming and going yesterday I didn't get much traction on computer work and that was frustrating. But I did have some good quality time with boys. Two conversations particularly that I wouldn't normally expect during a usual week. One was especially important regards how the younger two are processing their big (and favourite) brother leaving home in just two weeks.

Tuesday
Well it snowed well into the evening and this morning we woke up to a winter wonderland. There was a good 20cm of snow on our front doorstep and I went out after breakfast to shovel our entry and the piece of road that functions as a footpath. It is all on the northern side of the house so doesn't get sun at this time of year. From experience, if it isn't shovelled as soon as is practical, it tends to melt on a warmish day such as we have today (around 6C) and then freezes to the road as the sun goes down, turning into slick ice that is hard to remove in future days.

The advantage of shovelling is that you get to meet your neighbours. Though one of my neighbours gave up shovelling almost as soon as she got out there. She rightly said that there really is nowhere to put the snow (our road only just accommodates two cars passing slowly). I shifted our snow slightly to the edge, piling it against our wall and behind the telephone pole that sits in the gutter (our front wall sits on top of the gutter, there is no verge at all). I also shovelled a short path at my elderly neighbour's entry (the one who is fanatical about gutter-sweeping).

Our overnight guest left mid-morning and I've been trying to get some traction on my computer-based work. Not so successfully, but just chipping away. 

But it's time to get back to chipping away at it.

Another (exciting) piece of the puzzle

In the ongoing saga of transitioning our eldest son to the next stage of his life, we've had unexpected news. 

Good news. Unexpected, because it's come about two months earlier than we thought it would. But very good news.

On Friday night, while I was cleaning my teeth, my husband called out in a curiously upbeat voice, "[Our eldest son] has got a letter."

I knew he'd not gotten snail mail that day, so at 10pm, how could he have gotten a letter? I poked my nose into our bedroom where my husband was folding clothes and raised my eyebrows (my mouth occupied by a toothbrush). He pointed to the big boys' bedroom next door.

I poked my nose in there and couldn't see anything, because our son's desk is tucked away behind a bookshelf. So I went all the way in to where my son was staring at his computer. He pointed at the screen. There, I could see an official letter from the University of Queensland that said something along the lines of, "we are offering you a place in the course Bachelor of Mathematics and Science."

"Wow!" I spluttered, barely keeping the toothpaste inside my mouth. "That's amazing! Congratulations!!!" And I high fived him.

Our middle son was wandering around saying, "Mum's in my bedroom cleaning her teeth?!?"

Our eldest son said the understatement of the month, "You seem excited mum."

It was his first choice and one that we wondered if his score would be high enough to get. Not to mention that we weren't even waiting for such a thing at this time.

For years we've been wondering, and answering questions from other people wondering, about how easy it would be to get an Australian child from an American-style school in Japan admitted into an Australian university. It all seemed too easy in the end, though. It hasn't cost us much time at all and gone very smoothly. I kept waiting for the hitch.

But it seems he is now accepted into university (a double degree with a high entry mark at a university ranked in the top 50 in the world, 4th in Australia, no less, oh and our alma mater too). And it's getting real.

I guess soon we'll have to make it even more real and spend some money to buy tickets to take him to Brisbane in February (school year starts in the third week).

My storytelling adventure

Christine and I as I guided her on her first journey through
the Tokyo train-subway system from the airport to our house.

I'm always fascinated with encounters leading to unexpected outcomes, especially when it's clearly not designed or planned.

Ten days ago we had a missionary-friend guest from Taiwan. Christine Dillon is an Aussie missionary and author. She's passionate about evangelism via biblical storytelling.

The main reason she came to visit us was for her to see some "real" Japan before she dived into teaching an evangelism and discipleship course from Monday to Friday. That was mostly to be a long bike ride with me. On the way out of our city we stopped so I could show her our church. While she was taking some photos our pastor came out and introductions ensued.

She had planned to go over to our headquarters on that afternoon, but began to think about staying another night so she could come to our church with us the next morning. It turned out later that that was the best option (her next host became unexpectedly busy on Sunday morning). So she stayed an extra night.

The next day at church she was introduced to everyone at the end of the service, as is the standard custom in Japanese church. Almost immediately the service ended the most extroverted Japanese person I think I've ever met, a long-term member of the church, came over and introduced our guest to a Taiwanese lady who's been coming for a few years to our church. It also transpired that a long-time Japanese missionary to Taiwan also was coming to the church that Sunday for the next service and lunch (something we hadn't known).

Anyway, Christine ended up talking with the Taiwanese lady and her Malaysian friend. While we waited for the missionary to Taiwan to turn up, Christine offered to tell these two ladies and me a story, a Bible story. So, standing near the entrance to the worship area she told the story of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar (Gen 16). The ladies were excited, but were clearly not as familiar with the story as I was.

After returning home we did what often happens these days when meeting new people: we connected up via social media. The Taiwanese lady was a new friend who I'd planned to connect with over this month anyway, so I messaged her asking if she had time to meet, suggesting maybe her friend could join us as well.

After we'd organised a time I dropped the suggestion that we could learn a Bible story together. This wasn't something I've ever done before, so I was a little shocked but pleased when they both responded enthusiastically.

While washing up our lunch dishes Christine briefly told me her method for learning how to tell a short Bible story in a group. What particularly encouraged me was her exhortation that I didn't need to do any preparation. She gave me six question cards to use after we'd learnt the story (you can see them here).  What basically results is not just learning how to tell a story from the Bible from memory, but a simple Bible study.

I'm glad there was no preparation required, because as it turns out, it was a crazy weekend for me. We met, spent time getting to know one another, and learnt Genesis 3:1-15 together in English (that is our best common language).

What blew me away was how enthusiastic both ladies were. They've done Bible studies before, but not one like this. They really liked this and are keen for much more!

The other thing that amazed me was their answer to the sixth question card: "This week, who could you tell this story to?" They both had people in mind, but neither encounter was going to be in English, these multilingual ladies had Japanese-speaking and Chinese-speaking people in mind. 

So I was not only able to help them learn a story and improve their understanding of Scripture. But they were going to go out and do what I couldn't do. Not only do they have language abilities that I don't have, but they obviously have many friends and colleagues I don't have. It seems almost too basic even to write this out. But if, in my little way, I can equip these ladies to tell people stories from the Bible, and continue that so they get all the way to being able to tell the gospel, it doesn't matter if my language and evangelistic skills aren't great (the things I always beat myself up about).

Exciting and not at all in my usual scope of ministry! But something that's landed in my lap that I intend to follow through with. We're meeting next Wednesday to learn the next story in the series of eight to give a Bible overview that seems to be the current "best practice".

The whole thing reinforces to me that what we're doing in Japan is not of our own making, God has a plan for using our willingness to serve him here and sometimes we get a glimpse of his plans.



If you're interested in this method of ministry, do check out Christine's website: storyingthescriptures.com. If you are on FB you can ask to be accepted into the "Storying the Scriptures" FB group dedicated to supporting each other and asking questions about this.

Exciting gloom

Today is gloomy. It's heavily overcast and when I went out earlier I wondered if I should take an umbrella just in case. It is rainy season. That doesn't, however, mean that it rains every day, in fact it doesn't. I gave this official definition in two years ago in this post:

The rainy season is caused by the collision of cold northerly and warm southerly air masses, which results in a relatively stable bad weather front over the 
Japanese archipelago for several weeks

My indoor garden is looking good in this light.

At that time I also listed several things I really like about rainy season. One of the best is the light, believe it or not. My parents rejoiced at rain (they both grew up on farms), and in dry Australia, gloomy rain-prone weather was not usual, but rejoiced at in our house. I still enjoy it. Even better if it is a day off when I can curl up on my bed with a book.

Something I've realised later in life is that the gloomy light brings out beautiful colours. The greens of leaves are greener and flowers just glow. The hydrangea photo at the top of this page was taken at this time of year. I love blues and greens and they look fabulous on a gloomy day.

The temperature at this time of year is wonderful too, in the high 20s, and pretty stable. The clouds keep the blistering heat at bay just a few weeks longer. Just perfect!

I'm in a good period right now. I'm feeling creative and stimulated, excited about possibilities and new projects. Frustrated that I don't have the time to pursue all the possibilities, but excited nonetheless. 

One of the possibilities is related to the photography course I attended last Saturday, and will continue this Saturday and the next. I felt frustrated on Saturday at the end of the day because I had to leave the camera at school. My slightly sophisticated point-and-shoot just doesn't have much that you can adjust, not like I was learning, and I longed to get my hands back on a fancy camera to take more shots. So I started looking at cameras online. How much could I get for how little?

Unrelated to that was an email sent round on a group email in our mission a couple of weeks ago, it was the offer of a free Nikon DSLR camera to the first respondent. I responded quickly but not quick enough. Then a couple of days ago I heard that the camera was available again as the first person wasn't able to collect it. Wow, all of a sudden I will have a fancy camera (a bit old with some oddities, but still functional). I'm excited and I guess that's shading everything else which seems a little rose-coloured.

So just like the gloomy day makes all the flowers and leaves glow, so my general mood of anticipate and excitement makes life at the moment seem full of possibilities.

Another camping adventure

We're off on another camping trip tomorrow (Friday). I'm excited. It's been 20 months since we last went camping in Japan! 

Just before we left for Australia last June a colleague of my husband offered to sell us some of their gear that his family had barely used. So I'm looking forward to seeing how it fits with what we already have (especially the Coleman camp kitchen bench).

We're also going to an area of Japan we've never been to: Niigata prefecture. 

It's an adventure! A four night adventure, it's been over two years since we camped longer than three nights.

And we get to see some fireworks on Sunday night, while sitting on a beach, with friends!

Ah, I can't wait to get back and tell you all about it.

Internet is going to be an issue when we get back, unfortunately. We won't have it at home until early August (much faster than we got it in Australia, though).  Thankfully I can post from my phone, but the posts might be a bit basic on the formatting side of things.

Checking in from Asia

Our missions conference has ended, with many wonderful memories. This morning we're preparing to hop on aeroplanes again, this time we're headed "home" to Tokyo. This time we'll be able to unpack our suitcases and put stuff away. After the next 24 hrs, the only overnight travel we're doing in the next few months is for holidays: six nights next week and four nights camping at the end of July.

The last few weeks have been hectic and I'm paying for it now. I've had diarrhoea for the last 24 hrs (but not painful) and have struggled with headaches on and off over the last week too. The rest of the family is exhausted too. David's had a cold and the boys are also tired (making for some "messy" behaviour moments).

But it has been an amazing time of meeting with people from different parts of the world, some of whom we had no idea we would meet. I had lunch with an Asian lady we met in Indonesia in the early '90s. She had no idea David and I were married, let alone doing the work we do. She's also been on an amazing life journey.

Yesterday I met someone I last also knew in the early '90s, at my church when I was at uni. Except he was a little boy back then. He's now also working in Asia. He's the sixth young person I now know of from that church and era working in full-time cross-cultural ministry.

This is the largest missions conference we've ever been a part of. The kids programme alone included 100 teens and 260 younger children. The singing has been amazing. We know that we're not alone in the mission-work, but so often we work alone or in small groups. Indeed in the last year we've been the sole representatives of mission in most churches or groups we've visited, that can be discouraging. It's been exciting to be a part of an event this last week full of people who have a similar life experience as us, even if they're from different home countries to us and are working in hugely different situations and countries.

One special memory we'll take with us is the free-time activity we did on Saturday. We went up into the hills and did a 32 zip-line course. It was an amazing experience. Certainly an exercise in trust as we were totally reliant on our tour guides' and our harnesses as we glided among the tree-tops many metres above the ground. At times not even able to see the end of the cable we were flying along (one was 400m and the longest 600m).

But I have to admit I'm over this travel business. I want to settle in my own place and not see another airport for a good long time. Exciting adventures are nice in their place, but they are exhausting. So are goodbyes. I'm ready to say some hellos in Tokyo (although I'm not looking forward to the Tokyo heat).

Reluctant but excited

The pin indicates where I'm going. Car-train-plane-bus outlines
tomorrow's journey. Leaving at 7.30am and getting to the
conference eight hours later (with a couple of hrs wait at
the airport), I'm going to be travel weary...again.

Tomorrow I'm hopping back on an aeroplane. I'm actually not that keen to do that, but it isn't an overnight flight, thankfully. I'm just flying to Melbourne, about 2 1/2 hrs.

On the other hand, I am keen to go. I'm attending an Australian Christian Writers Conference for the weekend. As an Aussie who spends most of my time in Japan, I'm rather isolated from other writers in Australia, actually writers in the English-speaking world in general. 

I wonder if it will mostly be people who write or have written books who will go? There seems to be writers of books and then other writers. At this point in my life, I'm the latter, but quite happy to learn from the former.

Having organised, led, and taught at five small writers workshops in Japan it will be interesting to see what a larger event looks like. Perhaps I'll get some ideas.

What am I saying? I'm sure that I'm going to come home full to bursting with ideas. Many of which will probably lay dormant for months or years because now isn't the right time to activate them.

I hope that this will also be a good time of networking. Perhaps some further publishing opportunities will present themselves. I know that at events like this publishers are present and you are supposed to present them with book proposals. I have no such thing in the pipeline. But you still never know who you'll meet or opportunities you'll encounter when you put yourself into a situation like this.

So despite my reluctance to travel interstate again so soon, I'm bursting with anticipation to see what God is going to do with this weekend away.

Awesomely Answered Prayer!

I wrote this on Oct 28, two years ago on this blog:

The fourth exciting thing is an answer to prayer. Back a couple
of weeks ago while we (the editorial team of Japan Harvest) were rushing to put together the latest edition, God impressed upon me to pray for a new team member to join our team. This seemed an unusual thing at the time, these sorts of impressions don't happen to me very often. However I did, and, hey presto, on Sunday I had a somewhat random in-the-pews conversation with someone after church. It almost accidentally (of course, no accident, but it wasn't directed by me) turned to editing. To cut a long and detailed story short — we had a meeting yesterday and we have a new team member, at least for a trial run on the Spring Edition next year. I'm excited, I'm very excited. (See the whole post here.)

The designer who's just stepping down has done an
awesome job on the magazine. I'm sad to see her
leave as I depended on her for many things. Here's one spread
in our latest magazine. Love the creativity, and the professional way
that she approached her work (despite severe limitations
on her available time to work on the magazine). Plus, she's
become a good friend. Thankfully she's not moving away, but
I'll miss the regular interaction we had about the magazine.

Another exciting thing happened this past week. The amazing thing is that it is almost the same story.

Last Monday I wrote here about how our magazine designer (yes, the one I recruited above) had told me she needed to step down. I've been asking God daily for someone to quickly fill in this important role and wondering how much to advertise this need vs whether to just leave it in prayer and see what God does.

Well, in the end I felt very restless about the whole thing, and last Thursday and put this up on Facebook:

I'm praying daily for a new designer for Japan Harvest. Our designer has too much on her plate and needs to step down. Do you know anyone (particularly an English speaker in Japan) who has these skills?

That night I received a message from a friend from our church here in Japan who has both the skills and the (expensive) program to do the job. After talking with him at church on Sunday, he's agreed to take on the role from next month.

How awesome is that? You've gotta love Facebook when things like this happen (I also recruited our Associate Editor from my Facebook friend list). I didn't know that he had this hidden skill. But it seems as though he is God's very timely provision. An answer to our prayers.

Today I'm so thankful.

I'm also recommitted to praying for other big needs that we have coming up, for example:

• Someone to manage the magazine while we're on home assignment from June next year.
• A couple more associate editors to share the editing load.
• Some people to take over the lease on our house here for the year we're in Australia, so that we're able to come back to live in this convenient house.
• A house and car in Australia from July next year.
• A teacher/teachers to cover my husband's jobs while we're away.

If you like, you can join me in prayer!

Feeling encouraged

There's too much going on here. Much of the "juicier", more emotional stuff I can't write about here, though!

Today I've done a couple of things in my professional and personal life that have felt a little like stepping off the sixth rung of the ladder, and hoping the landing will be okay. So far, so good.

But I've spent all morning on the phone or Skype, not quite what I expected of my stay-at-home and get-stuff-done day. Nonetheless, they were important calls this morning.

David with his new bus licence.

However, that doesn't help the fact that I feel like I'm drowning in work and responsibilities just a teeny bit.

On the family front we've had some exciting times this week. Here's some of the news:

Youngest son did actually move up a level and a belt in karate (there was a mistake and communication issues for a week that caused confusion for a couple of weeks).

Middle son got his own email address for the first time (a school email address). He's excited. He moved up in karate belts too, but he skipped a belt, so is feeling quite accomplished.

He also gets to put in his preferences for an instrument to start learning for 5th grade band. He's decided on
1. Percussion
2. Percussion
3. Trombone.
We'll see what eventuates. He also is looking forward to a birthday next week.

Eldest son got a tentative invitation to go with the school cross country team to Guam. I didn't even know where that is...have had to look it up. (It's an island about halfway between Australian and Japan, it's a territory of the US.) We didn't expect him to do this well in his first year in high school cross country (only the top five runners of the school go). But if he gets selected and we say yes, that will cost quite a bit! Tomorrow he's also getting orientation on how to use the weights in the training and conditioning room at CAJ. My teenager is going to look even more muscled!

David gets to drive the new school bus next Friday. Fun, fun, fun!

As for me, my list of what I have to do seems to be getting longer and longer. Magazine editing is a relentless occupation. On top of that we've begun a publishing project called 31 Days of Prayer, for OMF. It's a second edition, but not much of the previous one is useable, so I'm busy with trying to recruit writers from busy missionaries for each of the 31 days.

Most of my excitement at present is second hand—enjoying other family member's excitement. But we did get some great magazine feedback last week. I think that God engineered that, as it arrived in the midst of the trouble I wrote about on Sunday.

This was one email:

Thank you for your ministry to us missionaries in Japan.  We love your magazine Japan Harvest.  I read it thoroughly. 

I especially enjoyed your articles on MKs, rural missions, language learning, and Japanese culture.  Please keep up the good work.

The other person ordered more magazines because they'd given all their magazines away to volunteers and in training.

I'm so encouraged by this! And I'm encouraged to see my boys all thriving in their various interests. It's worth sitting down like this and counting your blessings one by one.

Excited about an answer to prayer

I really need to get down and do some editing before my time runs out and the weekend is upon me again. Yesterday was the deadline for article submission for our next issue and there have been a lot of emails flying around (I've written about 130 of my own since Monday).

But I can't neglect to shout out about an unexpected answer to prayer that I've just received. I wrote this in our prayer letter that I sent out only yesterday:

Pray...For the Writer's Workshop that Wendy is running this month (Feb. 21-22): for safety (she'll be driving five hours each way, a small portion of that in the snow), for good interaction between attendees, and that the workshop will run smoothly.

Would you believe, this morning, I have someone who'll share the driving with me! Unbelievable. Except that I believe in a God who does things way and beyond what we expect!

Organising this workshop has been an experience of stepping out in faith and praying that things will come together. Things have indeed been "coming together", sometimes in the most unexpected way (like a babysitter for my production editor's toddler for three days, so she can join us too). I'm looking forward to seeing how this all pans out. What else is God going to do with our prayers?

Our First Day

Toowoomba to Tweed Heads (Gold Coast) and back (Friday 13^th July)

Yesterday we drove from my parent’s house in Toowoomba to the Gold Coast to pick up the motor home we’d hired for our 16 day trip into Australia’s outback. We were excited, the many questions that we’d been waiting for answers for were just about to be answered.

We’ve been planning this trip for over six months, and dreaming about it for I don’t know how long. Many Aussies think about going out to see places like the Stockman’s Hall of Fame in Longreach, to see the Northern Territory, and Uluru. Certainly many non-Australians go there every year. It is ironic how many of our international friends have been there compared to the large number of our Australian friends who haven’t.

Our questions were about to be answered, but we weren’t prepared for how many questions we didn’t have that would be answered too. In our nearly two hour orientation session, we learnt about all number of things we hadn’t even thought of in relation to using a motor home. Like how to turn the fridge on! How to manage all the difference sources of energy the motor home relies on (battery, gas, electricity, and solar power). By the end of the orientation my brain was overfull! Information was bouncing around in my head to the point of feeling discombobulated.

Our day was far from over, however. We then split up. David and the two younger boys drove in the motor home back to Brisbane to pick up something we’d left at our house sitting situation. My eldest son and I took the car we’d been borrowing back to Brisbane, to pick up my new glasses (green!) and some perishables to put in the motor home. Then we met up again at the place where we dropped the car off.

Unfortunately it all took longer than we’d anticipated and we were on the road way too late. We aren’t supposed to have this 4.49 tonne vehicle on the road after dark, well I’m afraid it was quite dark by the time we’d gotten back to my parent’s house where all our belongings waited to be loaded up into the motor home.

Thankfully mum had made us a delicious tea and we were able to eat as soon as we got there and put the kids through showers then into bed. As tired as we were, for having driven for about six hours, we still had to get all our “stuff” into the motor home for an early start the next day. I was surprised at how much fitted into all the little nooks and crannies around the place. It has a great deal of “overhead” cupboards (in inverted commas, because they really aren’t over our heads!).

By 10.30pm, though, I was exhausted. And just a little bit scared. With all the information about how to take care of this massive vehicle sloshing around in my head plus all the little decisions about what to take (like , “Do we need a table cloth?”) the new kinaesthetic feeling of being in a vehicle that swayed and rocked more than the usual vehicles we travel in had me a bit concerned. The knowledge that I’d have to take my turns at driving this massive vehicle tomorrow left me feeling worried. You know, worrying about all the things that could go wrong. It left me in a not-so-good state of mind for sleeping.

It's happening!

"I feel absurdly happy." That's one phrase that's been floating around in my head today. But is isn't correct: it isn't absurd that I feel happy today.

The other phrase is related: "It's happening!" Today we've started packing for camping on Monday. It's been a while since we've been and I'm excited to be going again. It's been a crazy week. Hundreds of emails received and over a hundred written. I'll be happy to be a long way from a computer next week for a few days, a break definitely is needed.

I'm also happy because the cause of a great number of those emails is the Summer Issue of Japan Harvest, which is in the final stages of being put into magazine format by our production editor. This morning I saw a partial "proof" (which is like a draft, it looks like the magazine will look, but is on my computer). It is looking great. I'm excited . . . and happy.

But I did remember last week, with a shock, that we are going camping in the "rainy season," not that it seems to rain an awful lot more than most of the rest of the year (it rains 117 days a year in Tokyo). I checked the weather this morning on several websites. They generally conclude that we could see thunderstorms on our first day, and a moderate chance of rain on Tuesday, with less of a chance of rain on Wednesday and Thursday. I did come across a bit of an error. I don't know if it was bad English or just a typo. But one site suggested we'd be in for "tons of rain" on Tuesday. David suggested it probably should read "times of rain"! I hope so.

David bought a new plastic box with a lid yesterday for storing stuff in while we're camping. Here's what it said on the label: "Create for smartly space with freedom." Hmmm.

The weather report also told me that the sun gets up at 4.28 on Tuesday. Good thing I bought some eye masks at the 100 yen store the other day. They also have some great English on them: "The surface is soft and used nappy material." Used material? And here's me thinking that they were new! They include earplugs and have some nice instructions for them:

1. Though you make an ear plug revolve by a fingertip, please make it thin.
2. Please insert an ear plug slowly while putting it in badly and playing attention.
3. An ear plug is full and it will fit in about 20 seconds.

Hmmm. I must tell anyone who intends to use them that they need to make sure they make them thin, don't make them revolve, to be sure to put them in badly and count to 20 slowly!

The 100 yen shop is always good for finding funny bad-English. Here's some more I found on Wednesday:

Love the "A double zipper does not express water". As a bonus
it has "a scale to understand quantity of water"!

This is priceless.

It says: "when the box is used to keep coldness,always put refigerant (other selling) together in. (sic)

You've just got to laugh.

In the meantime, I'm happily anticipating camping, whether it rains or not, next week.

An extrovert's dream

Estelle and Teresa, two of the wonderful
ladies I love working with at Thrift Shop. It
is an extrovert's dream – heaps of people to talk to!

This week is Thrift Shop week again. The giant twice-annual garage sale that our school runs in the gym. Two and a half days of setting up, one and a half days of selling and half a day of cleaning up. It is huge. Lots of work, but lots of fun too. I've enjoyed seeing people I haven't seen much of in recent weeks. You can read a post I wrote about last year's Thrift Shop here.

I'm feeling pretty exhausted already, more tired than usual. I'm glad I put some food in the slow cooker this morning before I left.

So, instead of writing something insightful here, I'll leave you with a link to an article and video clip called

Japanese Scientists Regenerate Human Hair on Bald Mouse

Enjoy, I'll be back tomorrow.

An unexpected journey

So often it is hard to see God's hand in your life, how he is directing and guiding. Occasionally, however, it is much clearer, albeit after the fact.


Without going into too much detail, (I tried, and realised I was writing a long article, not a blog post!) let me show you what I can see has happened for me in the last five years.


In 2007, I unexpectedly was able to go to a missionary women's retreat. There I received challenges from two different people about pursuing writing more actively. (I'd written the occasional thing, but not made any attempt to be proactive in improving my writing or get it to a wider audience.) Soon afterwards I joined a couple of internet writer's groups. And via one of those I happened to be invited to join a small internet based international writers group who critique or edit one another's work. I've written about the group before here. They've not only improved my writing and given me confidence, but they've provided much editing experience, which came in handy later.


All this happened within a couple of months. Then I did a short writing course over the Internet. On that course I wrote an article that I eventually submitted to Japan Harvest, the magazine of the Japan Evangelical Missionary Association (JEMA). The editor of the magazine was impressed enough to imply he'd like me to be involved with the magazine somehow.


A couple of years later I took him up on that as I pondered what my ministry in Japan would look like once I had all the boys at school. After discussions, he decided to appoint me as the Associate Editor of Japan Harvest. In 2008, prior to taking up that position when we returned the next year, the editor and I attended a Christian Magazine Editor's conference in Manila.

Hong Kong Writer's Workshop

Not long after that I received an invitation from OMF to attend a Writer's Workshop in Hong Kong in August 2010, just weeks after we returned to Japan and days after the boys began school again! It was a fantastic week. I'd do it again in a jiffy. One of the things I took away from that time was an easy plan that could be used to facilitate a Writer's Retreat.


Then I got back to Japan and began the steep learning curve of editing a real magazine. I'd only walked through one cycle of the magazine when Japan was hit with a massive earthquake and suddenly I ended up with a whole magazine to produce almost by myself! By God's grace that didn't end up a flop, but actually turned out really well. We had a print run more than three times our usual size and even made a profit.


After that all settled down again, I returned to the thought of doing Writer's Retreats here in Japan. My editing boss was a bit leery about the idea until he saw how easy it could be. Our first Retreat/Workshop was held in November last year (read about it here). It went well, we had three participants.


One reason this whole thing comes to mind this week is that I've edited an article by one of those participants and it is going into our Spring issue. Like a whole lot of dominoes, God has worked behind the scenes to weave an incredible story and take me on an amazing journey. And as they say, it isn't over yet! 


We have more Workshops planned. I'm taking on more responsibility for the day-to-day production of the magazine. And I cannot wait to find out what the next exciting part of this journey will hold.