An overflowing week

Last week was huge—such a contrast to a usual work at my desk at home. I'm glad for all the people I interacted with, though, so thankful.

Monday

Monday was the monthly missionary gathering of OMF missionaries in our area, involving around 50 or more people. This is held at our Japan headquarters on the other side of Tokyo and typically I spend between three and four hours on six or more trains to get there and back. Once I'm there, it's encouraging, but the train journeys can be a bit fraught if you get stuck on heavily populated trains.

The morning's schedule was:

9.30–10.00 arriving, chatting, and coffee/tea

10.00 singing, devotional, announcements, welcomes and farewells.

11.00 morning tea

11.30 prayer time

12.30 BYO lunch

From 1.30 we had a working bee (cleaning/gardening to tidy up the Japan headquarters building).

I got home after 4 pm feeling pretty weary.

Tuesday

At 8.30 I met a friend I said goodbye to in 2016 when she moved back to the US. She's part of my magazine team, so I haven't lost touch with her, but having 1½ hours to sit and talk one-on-one with her at a cafe was such a joy and encouragement. In the few years that she lived in Japan we spent many hours together at prayer meetings and volunteering at school. She's just one of the multitude of friends who have passed through my life in this cross-cultural life. It felt like a redeeming moment to reconnect last week.

The rest of Tuesday was spent working hard at my computer to ensure I could be away from my desk for the rest of the week.

I climbed into a hammock leaning
over a stream!

In the evening I picked up a young Australian friend from the train station who'd be staying with us that night. She'd travelled a long way from western Japan and then gotten a bit lost on Tokyo trains. We were all pretty tired by the time she arrived, so we fed her and then went to bed.

Wednesday – Friday

I did some more desk work in the morning before gathering a carload of ladies around midday to travel to the annual Women in Ministry retreat. Our houseguest was one of my passengers, as well as a missionary neighbour and a friend from church (these days I drive a small car with only four seatbelts).

I also climbed into a tree (with help
from a taller friend)

From then on it was almost constant interaction and activity until Saturday! But, as usual the retreat was a great blessing. 

The worship times were a highlight for me. There's something about singing God's truth into our hearts that is very precious. The worship leader didn't mess around by talking: she lead us through song after song, so the flow wasn't interrupted. I found that it gave me helpful contemplation time. This retreat has been a big "lily pad" in my life over the last 20 years. It's a notable "memory handle" when I think back over those years—I remember various times in my life that this retreat has coincided with other challenging events. 

For example, the retreat in 2011, just days before our lives were sent into turmoil (on this actual day, 11th March) with the triple disaster north of of here. 

I remember the retreat in March 2020 when the magnitude of the pandemic was just starting to dawn on us. I arrived at that particular retreat with the heavy weight of one of my best friend's son who was terminally ill (at 13 years of age) and straight after that women's retreat I hosted a writing retreat that was both incredibly fulfilling as well as incredibly taxing and exhausting. 

Speaker, worship leader with two
visiting Biblical counsellors

I remember the 2021 retreat held online, just a couple of weeks after some devastating news in our family and in the midst of our middle son's traumatic last year of high school.

And 2022, when I was numb after a couple of years of almost no in-person time with people, and when a friend confronted me after noticing my unusual demeanour, I fell apart in her room as I told her about some very heavy stuff within my own family.

That's a sampling of the memories that were coursing through my brain as we worshipped. It was actually pretty therapeutic to reflect on those things as I sang about the goodness and faithfulness of God. Annual events like these nowadays are reminders to me of the friends who are no longer there (usually moved away) and the underlying grief that accompanies me now through life. Remembering, though, that God is still with me and has walked with me through all of the above, and more, was very special.

My other take-away from the retreat is diving into Ephesians 3:17–19. It's a rich passage where Paul's words start to run away from him a bit. Here it is from the Amplified version (not one I usually use, but it was helpful in thinking this through):

And may you, having been [deeply] rooted and [securely] grounded in love, be fully capable of comprehending with all the saints (God’s people) the width and length and height and depth of His love [fully experiencing that amazing, endless love]; and [that you may come] to know [practically, through personal experience]

Meals were plain Japanese-style.

 the love of Christ which far surpasses [mere] knowledge [without experience], that you may be filled up [throughout your being] to all the fullness of God [so that you may have the richest experience of God’s presence in your lives, completely filled and flooded with God Himself]. (Eph. 3:17-19 AMP).

I was particularly noticing that my head knowledge of Christ's love is far surpassed by his actual love for me. I come from a theological background that doesn't emphasis personal experience of God's love, but I think that that is only part of the story in the life of a Christian, a part that I'm still growing in my understanding of and desperately need when I have doubts about my own worthiness and value.

Friday

On Friday at noon, we headed back to Tokyo, and ordinary life. But those in my car got another three hours of enjoyable fellowship in my car. I wasn't the most reliable of drivers, though, because I was tired. I pour myself into interacting people when I get the chance and it wears me out. It was actually hard to concentrate on driving as well as talking with those in the car and I took two wrong turns and one "dodgy" last minute turn! Two stops for caffeine later and I was pleased to finally park my car outside our apartment without any serious incident.

Our Australian guest's flight wasn't until the next day, so she stayed one more night with us. We were a little sad, because, though she'd physically been present at the retreat, she'd missed the entire programme on Thursday as she stayed in bed with a cold. Thankfully she was feeling a bit better by Friday and even able to play card games with us that evening (taught me a new game too—not easy when I was so tired).

Saturday

After we said farewell to our guest and had lunch, we rode our bikes to do a small errand for some other OMF missionaries at the mission's storage facility about 2.5 km from here, and then got groceries on our way home. It wasn't a fun ride: the wind was horribly strong and cold. But this was actually a much needed rest day, so we spent the rest of afternoon and evening lounging in front of the cricket (a rare women's multi-day cricket match, Aust. vs India).

Sunday

This was a pretty usual Sunday: left for church on our bikes at 10 am, ate lunch there, and got home by 3 pm—in time to hang-out online for a couple of hours with our kids.

I'm glad every week isn't like that, but also glad that some weeks are!

A week in the life of Wendy

I'm glad to say that I'm feeling much better. Which is good, because I've had plenty going on. Here are the more interesting bits: 

Friday gathering

On Friday I went to a prayer gathering in a Chinese friend's home. It's a gathering of expat and Japanese mums who have kids with special needs. Our kids range in age from 6 to 36, but it doesn't matter. These ladies understand the unique challenges of being mums to kids who don't match the norms of their peers and who have extra challenges to overcome. We shared, and cried, and prayed, and talked. We only gather six times a year, and it's always special. It was great to be back in person with them, in Australia I joined via Zoom a couple of times, but that was difficult. 

One of the questions that they each carry with them is what will the future look like for my child. It was great to be able to share some of the big successes we've had with our sons over the last year. One of the mums reminded me that last time I was with them in person I was a mess, it was the week we moved out of our old house. I was stressed and tired and was facing a lot of unknowns in the months ahead. I'm in a much better place now and we were able to praise God together.

After I got home I did some quick email checks and then hopped on my bike to get groceries for the weekend.

Saturday fun

Preparing our house for guests. A table cloth
on a folding table makes all the difference!

Saturday morning I hosted an online magazine team meeting with the express purpose of having fun together. It was the first of four meetings we're having this month as part of our annual planning process. And it was fun! I love the energy of these colleagues.

Saturday afternoon was also fun. This year there are four families from our mission living in our little city (12.88 square km). We invited them all over for afternoon tea and games. If everyone had been able to come there would have been 15 in our little place, but we ended up with only 11. And it worked! I feel like our place is a character in our lives and we're just working out how it best works for different scenarios (the previous week we hosted dinner for a family). I'm excited. This is tapping into the extrovert side of me that has been a little repressed in the latter years of our boys years at high school (and the pandemic, of course, had an impact).

Sunday

Church in the morning and video chats and games with our sons in the afternoon. It was a full, but good day.

Mammoth Monday

Monday turned into a 12 hr work day for me. I left in a car full of male colleagues at 7.30 am, we travelled to the other side of Tokyo for the monthly OMF Kanto prayer and fellowship day. All these guys are married, but none of their wives could come (and David had to work at school too). These are the same families we spent Saturday afternoon with.

It took over an hour to get there, and then there was lots of chatting and catching up with people before the meeting began at 10 am. The acoustics in this room are pretty bad which means that when a large group gathers and everyone is mingling, it's really loud. I didn't count, but I'm guessing that there were probably around 50 people there. We had to shout to make ourselves heard!

It was a good time of worship, pondering God's word, sharing, and praying for one another. After the meeting we stayed and ate lunch (again loud). Not long before 2 I left with a good friend to have coffee somewhere else that was much quieter. We spent about two hours together. It's the first time I've seen her in over 12 months, and though we've kept in really regular texting contact, it was wonderful to have the time to sit in person and ask the questions that don't get asked or answered otherwise.

Then I jumped on a train and headed home (the car that came from our city had long left). Four trains later and a 10 minutes walk, I got home around 5.30. David had dinner organised and we ate. At 6.30 we jumped into a Zoom meeting with a group in Australia who pray each month for Japan. We spent the next 45 minutes talking about what we do and answering questions. By around 7.15 I was fading and pleaded for mercy. They prayed and we logged off around 7.30.

Tuesday desk day

It took me some time to get going the next day after waking with a headache and general fatigue lingering from the day before. I did email and other desk work in the morning. After lunch I dashed out for some much needed grocery shopping and then had a two-hour meeting with the OMF Japan social media team. I love their enthusiasm and "youth", so helpful in this particular ministry! After the meeting I dashed off a few more emails pertaining to things we'd discussed or decided in the meeting.

Wednesday more desk work and an outing

I spent Wednesday morning and late afternoon at my desk, but after lunch I did some light cleaning (it takes 15 minutes to vacuum my little apartment) and then took the car to pick up the same friend I had coffee with on Monday. She was on our side of town meeting with other missionaries, and really wanted to see our new place. So I fetched her and we spent another 45 minutes together before she had to head home. So lovely to have friends in our place, especially when they're so pleased with how it looks!

Thursday

This is another desk day. No meetings or shopping. My only outing today will be walking after dinner. I enjoy these quiet home days in the midst of other busy days. It gives me a chance to get some momentum on various work that requires good thinking. I'll also take time over lunch to listen to a church service from home, my long-time habit to help with my nurturing my own faith because I regrettably (still) get little out of a Japanese-language service on Sunday.

It's been a good week. I'm still gathering threads of life after being away for 12 months. It's a significant period and stuff has happened in that time. But in general I'm getting into a good rhythm. Each week looks different. None of the above happen on a weekly basis (except Sunday)! Some weeks are busier than others. Home assignment often felt like we were treading water waiting for things to happen. I'm glad to be back here doing the things...and now I don't know how to describe it. We spent a year in Australia talking about what we're currently doing. It's good to be doing them now, not just talking and thinking about them?