Library, lamington, and love

Raspberry lamington that
one of the library assistants
gave me for helping them this week.
The school has an Aussie chef
in their cafeteria and he regularly
makes his own lamingtons for the students.
Yum!
For those who don't know: these
are Australian, in fact from
Queensland (though origin stories
differ as is common with food). They are
sponge cake chunks covered
on all sides with icing and coconut.

This week school started. It's a marker in our lives, even though I am not employed there and have no kids there, and David's already been back at work for nearly two weeks. I've enjoyed seeing CAJ-related friends over the last week. On Friday we had the staff-and-families dinner at school. On Monday I had lunch with a US friend who lived in Brisbane for a number of years. And then I went to school two days for an hour or so to help with shelving books in the library. They are understaffed at present (no librarian-teacher), so some help was appreciated. I always love spending time in a library and this one has been a special place for 20 years now! The social interaction was also fun. I love working at home, but sometimes it gets a little lonely.

At my desk I've been working with text and authors to get the next Japan Harvest magazine into the "Design phase". Sometimes this is easier than others. This time there have been some tough challenges that I'm still trying to find my way through.

As usual, I'm juggling the magazine work with the social media team work and in the background have other projects that are waiting on my finding some spare time and brain space.

My office is a great space, except in the midst of the worst of summer—it has no air conditioning or ceiling fan. When the days have been over 35 C for the last week or so, I've been able to funnel the air con from the main area down the hall to my office using a couple of standing fans. Yesterday I didn't start doing that until I got back from school at lunchtime and my office stubbornly remained over 30C until we had a fierce storm that cooled things off. I'm a Queenslander and don't mind low-30s too much if I'm just relaxing, but trying to get my brain to work on complex editing and writing matters when the room is stifling is hard. It's amazing how much clearer my head is at 28/29 C!

One of the exciting things this week has been to get some big details sorted for another social media team retreat. Venue and dates have been up for debate for a few months, but we've finally nailed that down and I can get to work on the finer details prior to our end-of-October retreat.

It's no surprise to you that I spend a lot of time reading. I read for pleasure and I read for work, if I'm on my own I read while I'm eating and while I'm relaxing. My work is in the space of mission and Japan, and my reading reflects those spaces. I also read to grow in my spiritual life. This week I saw a blog post called "More than enough" published by Thrive, a largely online ministry to Christian women working cross culturally. You can see it here: https://thriveministry.org/connection/devotional/more-than-enough2

One of the things I've struggled with in Japan is comparison. Actually I think it's a universal problem that women experience, but somehow doing what we do and where we do it, cross cultural workers end up with very high expectations of ourselves which we inevitably fail at. 

It's something that maybe I've gotten better at—I'm more comfortable in my skin now than I was 25 years ago...but still every now and then those cursed comparison thoughts shoot through my head and I feel useless and unlovely. So this little article was a good reminder. The author writes:

I stumbled upon John 15:9, that says, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.” The lightbulb clicked on. Jesus loves me the way the Father loved Him. I am loved completely, without surprise, without reservation, and without disappointment. I had no business comparing myself to anyone but Jesus. I would never measure up to the fake standards I could put on myself. But since God loves me, I could throw those standards away and rest in His love. 

"I have no business comparing myself to anyone but Jesus" and those standards I have set up are fake. I don't know who needs to be reminded of this today, but I did. And I need to go forward into the rest of the day resting in God's love!

Books: another one of my hobbies (and a book review)

I told you a while back that I'd discovered that cooking was one of my hobbies, though I'd struggled a little to identify it as such. Another such hobby I have that I often forget to mention is reading. It sounds so pedestrian and yet it's been such an integral part of my life for as long as I can remember, that I don't think of it as a hobby very often. I can barely go to sleep at night without spending time reading (usually 30 to 40 minutes, depending on how tired I am). I never pack a suitcase to go away without including a book or many more!

I've just this last week or so made a very exciting discovery. You see one of my chronic problems is running out of books to read because I read quite fast. It's not a problem in Australia because there's always a library to turn to. People think about various things that missionaries sacrifice when they go overseas but rarely do they mention access to a library. And we live on a limited budget, so buying many books, even eBooks, is not a good option either.

Don't feel too sorry for me, because for the last 14 years we've had access to the school library. But recently I've noticed that I am having much more trouble finding fiction there that I haven't read and also like (there's lots of fantasy and SciFi, but they aren't my genre).

So, back to my exciting discovery: our Australian library card allows us to borrow eBooks! I can't read them on my old Kindle, but a free app on my phone has turned that device into a  huge source of free books! I'm so excited. And instead of filling free pockets of time with too many phone games, I've been reading instead. Oh the joy!

But today, I want to do something I do very rarely and share with you a book that I read recently. A hard-copy book! It's by a friend of mine and fellow Aussie OMF missionary— Christine Dillon (author-signed copy!).

Grace in Deep Waters is Christine's third book in this realistic fiction series. The previous two are Grace in Strange Design and Grace in the Shadows. They are Christian fiction, which I am often a little tentative to touch because Christian fiction can be a bit unrealistic or predictable (with the inevitable romance thrown in). But this series is none of those things. The family that is at the centre of this series faces some very challenging, yet realistic problems in their faith, health, and relationships. And yet the grace of God shines through in remarkable and unexpected ways. So much so that it's hard to put the books down because you want to see how God's going to work in and through these flawed, yet realistic characters.

One reason it's hard to write fiction reviews is the danger of "spoilers" as my son would say. I don't want to wreck your experience of reading this. Though I wouldn't recommend starting this book while your loved one is in surgery, as I did. My heart was a little too raw that morning to deal with the difficult emotions at the start of this book. However, the book moves from a dark and difficult place towards much better things.

It's a treat to read an Australian book with a Christian "heart" by an Australian author. If you have not picked up this series, I highly recommend it! Christine is working on the fourth in the series, and I can't wait to get my hands on that, because the end of this book leaves you hanging, and hungering for more of the story.

(And no, she didn't pay me to write this, neither did she give me the book.) 

Unexpected changes

It's been over a week since I posted here and a lot has happened. Instead of listing all that out for you, I'm going to give you a story that might answer some questions, or maybe will produce extra questions.

I'm typing this in a library that doesn't look like a library (we're still waiting on internet at home). It should be a familiar space—it was our local library for the last two times we were back in Australia. One of the hardest things about coming back to Australia is finding that things you thought would be the same as you remember them, have changed, and we're finding this one quite unsettling.

The area that we've moved into is similar to where we've lived before: in 2009/2010, and 2014/2015. It's an older area that is rapidly expanding on the edges. I vaguely knew, through social media, that there were library changes, with a new library opening up in one of the newly developed areas, but I didn't know what those changes looked like.

I now know this familiar library-in-a-park has turned into a place that looks more like a bookshop. The decor is black and grey, the space we can use has more than halved, and there is no sign of Dewy Decimals. Most disturbingly, there are very few books here. The ones that are here are on free-standing bookshelves with little backboards amongst the books announcing things like "Pop science", "Award winning", and "War".

It's great if you're just looking for something to catch your eye, but if you're searching for a specific book or topic, you'd be better off staying at home and looking up the online catalogue and reserving the book you want. I'm very much in favour of online catalogues, but I do feel a little short-changed here, like the comfortable social experience of wandering around in a library has been pulled out from underneath me.

We woke up this morning in our newly rented house, the fourth morning in a row that we've done so. It's getting to be a familiar place. We know where many daily things are, we've had a few showers, and the washing machine has done some loads. I've been able to comfortably cook a couple of evening meals there, and we have all we need to basically function, physically. 

But it takes longer to feel "at home". Outside of the house we feel a bit like we're in a foreign country, like strangers looking on. Of course we blend in better than we do in Japan, so it isn't easy for others to see that we're feeling a bit unsteady on our feet.

Starting work?
One question we're fielding is: "When are you starting work?" Well, I guess in a strange way, we've already started work. Work on home assignment is a multi-faceted thing that doesn't have clear boundaries. We've already caught up with more than half a dozen friends/supporters. How do you define that: work or pleasure? It's part of the purpose of home assignment, but we'd never like any of our friends to think that catching up with them was work-only. I've been answering email and dealing with work-related editing/magazine management stuff online, though much less often than usual as we don't have wifi at home, other than via our phones.

Other work-related things we're doing in these two and a half weeks between arriving in Australia and having our first official "appearance" at an event includes medicals and debriefing with OMF and psychologists.

Stepping into the library this afternoon was disturbing and we struggled to hold back our exclamations about the changes. One boy struggled to hold in his anger. But for me, at least, one short exchange helped. 

The librarian found us blundering around and asked if she could help. I explained that we'd been away and were struggling to take in the changes. She explained what was going on and then offered to change our membership details. As she changed our details, she vaguely remembered us, remembered this family of three boys who usually live in Japan who were here before.

That made it feel like I had come home, at least in a small way. That I could be something of a local here, even if temporarily.

Snooping in the library Part 1

Several years ago we played detectives in someone's house. We snooped around trying to discover who it was who'd let us stay in their house.

We were visiting another city while doing our rounds of churches as missionaries and the local church put us up in someone's house. Except those "someones" were away for the weekend and no one had told us any more than the names of the home owners and that they had little boys, just like us.

It is a strange feeling — to tread on a someone else's private space with their permission or presence.

The main thing we did, on the snooping front, was look at their books. It is amazing what you can tell about someone from their book collection. As it was, we found out these two people's profession, the sorts of things they like to read, and that one of them had their Ph.D.

It isn't the only time this has happened to us, by the way. I guess people figure they can trust missionaries? But it is always a slightly weird experience.

Anyway, I'm going to show you a bit about me by showing you my library!

For starters, it isn't large, at least it isn't as large as it would be if we were living in Australia. We tend not to acquire books that we won't read more than once. We often rake through our collection looking for books to offload at Thrift Shop.

Because we live close to an English library (CAJ's), we mostly read library books, so our shelves are biased towards non-fiction, reference-type books.

So, let's have a snoop:

 Here you can see that I like craft. Actually, I think I like the idea of craft more than the actual getting around to it. I haven't done any stamping or quilting . . . yet! I do really like paper craft, and we have a number of origami books around the place. Japan's a great place to live if you like origami, the paper is so cheap here in comparison to Australia!

You can also see quite a number of music books. I don't play as much as I'd like either, but I'm happy to still have these on my shelf for those times when I do.

Now a bit of my Australian side comes out. Colleen McCullough is an Australian author and I'm a bit of a fan. This is only a small selection of my collection of her books.

And I'm an OMFers, note the J. Hudson Taylor biography!

365 TV-Free days is a great book. So many ideas. I think this one will be coming with us on our 7,000 km road trip to Uluru.

And one non-book element here is Nessy. Can you see her? We once had a short-termer visit from Scotland who gave us this cute ceramic gift.

Not the best photo, but we have more Colleen McCullough, plus a Scrapbooking and cardmaking book (more craft-type projects that I rarely do), cross-stitch book, Japanese Fairy Tales, and some coffee table books from Australia.

For Janet, there are some Footprints magazines stowed there on the left and a Bible Promise Book that has come in handy when writing cards for people.

Now here's a shelf that I frequent when I'm writing and editing. There are a number of books there on the right that are fabulous. In the middle are some more coffee-table type books that we love to show visitors. On the left of them are a whole pile of magazines that I frequently flip through when thinking about various editing and layout issues. On the left are some more cross-stitch books as well as some Occupational Therapy assessment forms. Phew, this shelf is stacked!

And here we have some Bibles, including our Japanese-English Bible. Plus various "helps", including a large Japanese character dictionary, and our Australian dictionary. Can you guess what we like to do in our spare time?

The non-book item is a plastic origami case. Terribly useful.

I think that's enough snooping for now, I'll do another snoop another day.

Surprised by anything? I think I was surprised at how many crafty books I have on the shelf. Now I'm wondering if I really need all of them . . .

Australian books at CAJ?

An old photo of CAJ library

I really appreciate that we live close to a library, an English library. The CAJ library is a wonderful place where parents are most certainly welcomed and catered for. A little unusual for a school library. However, yesterday, when looking for biographies for my grade two son (an attempt by the teachers to get them to read different genre), I realised that the vast majority of people featured were Americans. Now I have no problem with my boys learning American history, but I just felt like a little balance was necessary.

Well, me, being me, voiced my opinion to the nearest American (who happened to be a friend). Actually we ended up with several Americans involved in the conversation. My friend asked me for five Australians I'd like to see biographies of (just quickly off the top of my head). Between my husband and I, we came up with these:

Captain Arthur Phillip (not Australian, I know, but he was the first governor in Australia when the British colonised the nation in 1788)

Mem Fox (children's author)

Colleen McCullough (author of The Thorn Birds and many other books)

Howard Florey (scientist, Nobel prize for work on penicillin)

Donald Bradman (cricketer)

Now I've had time to think (and do a little, not extensive research), I might add some others like:

Dawn Fraser (swimmer)

Margaret Court (tennis player)

Douglas Mawson (Antarctic explorer)

Edmund Barton (first prime minister)

A.B. (Banjo) Patterson (poet and writer, Waltzing Matilda and The Man from Snowy River - the poem)

Robert Menzies (longest serving prime minister)

Dame Nellie Melba (Opera singer)

Betty Cuthbert (Olympic athlete)

Victor Chang (heart surgeon)

Carolyn Chisholm (social work in the early days of settlement)

Nancy Bird (aviator)

Bert Hinkler (first solo flight from UK to Australia)

Fred Hollows (eye surgeon)

Ned Kelly (outlaw)

Rolf Harris (artist and entertainer)

Probably my husband would like to add some more scientists, but this is just a rough list.

Some modern famous Australians which non-Australians might recognise are:

Nicole Kidman

Mel Gibson

Ian Thorpe

Cathy Freeman 

Steve Irwin

Okay, this is a good one for comments. 

Australians - who would you like your kids to know about as they grew up? 

Non-Australians - which names do you know in the above list? What about other famous Australians, who can you think of?

Christian bookstores

I went to Koorong today. For non-Aussies, this is the largest chain of Christian book stores in Australia. It's been over two years since I visited an English Christian book store. I very quickly developed the same glazed-eye heady feeling I experienced a couple of months ago when I first visited our local library and browsed in a mainstream English bookstore. Many a bad word has been said about Koorong, but I have to say for me that is a little bit like saying to a thirsty man just back from a sojourn in the desert, "I don't like this brand of water." To have easy access to a huge range of Christian books is such a wonderful privilege. Yes, they might not have all the books that you might like them to have, but hey, there are books you can buy and read, they have music you can listen to and understand. There is material here which will nourish your soul. Praise God!

Cheap family excursion

Yesterday the local Brisbane newspaper had an article about families not being able to go on an outing under $100. Nonsense, of course. We went on an almost free outing this morning - to the local library (again) and nearby playground. You'll be pleased to know I let myself drool and get out two novels, two cookbooks, two magazines and a software program I've been itching to try out. I'm going to enjoy trying out some new recipes and using the slow cooker that we've been given (or lent - not sure which). I was able to find some books on Australian basketball (not possible at CAJ - all American basketball) for our basketball-mad 10 y.o. We've also managed to find a club where he could possibly train and play. He and his dad are going to check it out on Monday. As I type, my four guys (big and little) are catching up on some culture. They're watching a DVD we found at the library - TMNT. The big guy is marvelling at how much better it looks than when he was a kid. After lunch we all read books (to varying degrees - four y.o. listened to an audio book for a while and six y.o. enjoyed some maze books). All from the library. We've managed to gain more than one day's enjoyment from a free (not including petrol costs) excursion to the library.

Drooling at the library

I love libraries. Unreservedly, unashamedly love English libraries. We visited our local library here for the first time today. Had to restrain myself, however, from gushing all over the librarian when we arrived, maybe I drooled, I'm not sure. As we signed up for our new library cards, we could also hear sounds of general approval coming from the kids section, "Oh cool", "Mum, look at this" etc. Pity I already have a lot of book to read for work. Work being deputation. Yes, our job now we're back in town is to go to various groups and tell them about Japan and our own stories from the last year, but also to thank many for praying and giving. Usually we take some Japanese 'stuff' for general interest and our mission asks us to promote (and hopefully sometimes sell) books on mission. But, how can I promote or sell a book I haven't read? So, got to get down to one of my favourite genre - mission bios plus other mission related books. A bit of a pity, because the library today had a lot of potential, but I just couldn't justify getting books out that I shouldn't spend time reading yet. I did get lots of picture books for the younger boys and long book for our reading-addicted 10 y.o. I also spied in their catalogue a number of movies that I've read about, but never had the chance to see. Plus there were so many Australian books, can you belive? Oops, better stop before I drool on the keyboard.