Living in Japan is very different to visiting during cherry blossom season

Recently I saw an article about a former Australian model, Anton, who has gotten into real estate in Japan. We're periodically seeing news about really cheap (or free) properties for sale. I don't know how much they are promoting them overseas, but certainly for young Australians who are a little bit obsessed by Japan and also facing crazy real estate prices in their home country and also high costs of living, it's a temptation.

As an aside, David and I ate a light dinner last night for a combined total of 1,250 yen or AU$11, we could never do that in Australia. Yes, the exchange rate yen to Australian dollar is good at present, but it is definitely much more possible to eat out affordably in Japan than it is in Australia.

This is where we formerly lived for 13 years.
They knocked the house down a year after we
moved out of it and built a new one.

But where am I going with this blog post? No, I am not looking to invest in property in Japan (or Australia). I'm sharing because Anton had some insightful things to say about Japan:

“Japan has an ageing workforce and historically a 'scrap and rebuild' culture rather than a renovation culture. Houses built before 1981 are often considered outdated due to seismic code changes, which affects financing. Banks are less willing to lend on older homes, which is part of why they’re cheap.”

We'd long noted that renovation is much less common here, although perhaps that's changing. 

He said the biggest risk was the misconception that cheap equals opportunity.

It's important to understand why the houses are cheap: 

“Many of these homes are cheap because towns are shrinking, demand is weak, demolition costs exceed structure value.” He said in many cases, the land has value but the house itself may have negative value.

A house can also be cheap if someone has died in it. 

“If someone thinks they can renovate and flip like in Sydney or Melbourne, they will likely be disappointed. Appreciation works very differently in Japan. You must buy for lifestyle or long-term strategy, not quick resale profit.”

Then he says more about life in Japan: 

“Ownership is easy,” he said, but “living here long term requires planning”.

"Living in Japan is very different from visiting during cherry blossom season. Japan rewards patience, cultural respect and long-term thinking.”

Living in another country is very different to being a tourist. I think this is where I run into difficulty talking with people who have only ever travelled overseas as a tourist. It is harder, but in many ways also easier to live in a country rather than be a tourist. When you live somewhere you get insider knowledge. You learn how (some) things work, you start to understand the unspoken rules. You start to operate in ways that create less waves around you. You find a dentist and a hairdresser, you have a source for regular medication. You know where to go to find what groceries you want to buy.

In any case, I read many things during my week and I take notice of the ones that my mind returns to. This was one that had some great wisdom, though admittedly it was buried way down at the bottom of the article where many would never see it.

See the full story here.

Ordinary obedience is overlooked

I've continued thinking about the same topic I wrote about ten days ago: what to share during our home assignment. Some friends have been encouraging me to talk about ordinary life-stuff. One of them wrote: 

"...real impact often grows out of ordinary obedience, lived out over time." Just read this sentence in Martyn Iles' intro to his latest "At the Crux" podcast episode....referencing Daniel whose "faithfulness, integrity, and consistency were already visible" from the beginning (not just in the lion's den incident).

It's thought provoking, but also encouraging—that if we are faithfully seeking God and seeking to serve him in the everyday, it will shine through to others, even when we're not specifically speaking about our faith.

Here's an "ordinary" meal we had one 
night. I did make the bun from
scratch, though.

Therefore, I need to ponder: is it meaningful, as a missionary reporting back to supporters, if we talk about the ordinary things we do? Do we actually need extraordinary stories, or is reporting back about our daily life and work actually more meaningful and more encouraging? I'm thinking it might even be more relatable to those we speak to. After all, we're doing work that is more like what the majority of Christians do: working as a teacher and administrator, an editor and team leader, not church planters or evangelists. And on Sunday we're just a part of a church, much like most Christians are on a Sunday.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote this in our monthly news/prayer letter:

Here are some small ways we served others in March:

Wendy drove a car full of people to a women’s retreat. During the retreat she helped her roomie who was sick and held a colleague’s baby while she went to the toilet. She listened to a friend talk about her concerns about her boyfriend. The nights before and after the ladies retreat we hosted a young Australian lady who rode to the retreat with Wendy.

David drove a bus full of students to an athletics meet, hung around all day and into the night, before driving them home again.

We attended our church’s Wednesday prayer meetings, listened to and prayed for various church members.

David led worship on March 22nd and Wendy played. Later in the week one of the other pianists told us that the song “Meekness and Majesty” had been playing through her head all week (it was new to her and most in the church).

We spent several hours with a colleague in OMF leadership, enjoying fellowship and sharing one another’s burdens over food and games.

Wendy baked for our monthly church morning tea (David washed up).

David helped missionaries access the storage facility OMF rents not far from us to help meet the furnishing needs of various missionaries who were moving.

Wendy listened to a lady at church whose husband has recently had significant surgery and another lady who is seeking God’s leading in her career and personal life.

Most of this doesn’t seem all that significant. We’re not bragging about these things and definitely aren’t looking for applause. You have probably done similar things this month. It is good to remember that Paul told us to “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfil the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2 NIV). John Stott’s commentary on that verse is, “To love one another as Christ loved us may lead us not to some heroic, spectacular deed of self-sacrifice, but to the much more mundane and unspectacular ministry of burden bearing.” Let’s continue to love another in the small things. 

 Most people can relate to the above fairly ordinary activities. It's not all we did in March and I haven't listed the things that fall under our usual job responsibilities. But these aren't extraordinary and it's almost embarrassing to list them out like this.

What do you think? I'm sure that most of us don't realise how much of Christ is shining through to others and in many ways it's probably good that we don't, otherwise we might think it's because we're pretty special and get big heads! 

But it begs the question: are we metaphorically putting some actions on a pedestal and hiding others away in a drawer? That kind of dichotomy is unhelpful, I think. It encourages us have a dualistic system in our head: going to church and talking to someone about my faith is more important than faithfully serving my friends and family in practical ways. 

And it probably also means that we think of some jobs are more important than others: that a pastor is more important than an electrician, that a worship leader is more important than the church cleaner. And thus "missionaries" are elevated unhelpfully...ah, but now I'm heading into my own hobby horse territory, a topic that I'm writing about in my (possible future) book.

And so, we continue to ponder what we're going to share during our 11 weeks in Australia, when we take on the temporary role of "missionary speaker."

Early home assignment plans for 2026

In the last few weeks we've been working on putting a new-to-us plan into action. We've spent 4 ½ years of the last 25 years on home assignment in Australia. It's a requirement of our organisation to periodically spend time in our passport country visiting supporters and supporting churches. Yep, we did that in 2004/2005, 2009/20010, 2014/2015, 2018, and 2023/2024. Three of those five times we packed up and moved out of our place in Japan. That adds up to a total of ten international moves.

The bookmark we gave people before we
left the first time for Japan

I've written here a lot about the strange institution of home assignment. If you've seen some of that you'll know that it's an exhausting, stressful, all consuming thing. The purpose behind it includes you getting rest in your passport country, but an awful lot of work goes into getting there to get that rest.

But I'm at risk here of not toeing the party line . . . Home assignments have numerous good things about them, including staying connected with family and friends. After our only six-month home assignment in 2018, I wrote a post pondering: Was it worth it? It was a difficult home assignment (we had two teenagers still at home, just for starters). The blog post was pretty brutally honest, but I did come up with some really good things that happened because we took the time to go to Australia.

The world is changing, though, and short home assignments these days are far more common than six- or twelve-month ones. And we're feeling quite jaded about these huge international moves. Now that we are in a season where we don't have to consider the schooling (or mental health) of our kids and it's just two of us moving around, we've decided to try out a short home assignment, one that will last 76 days, or just short of 11 weeks.

This has numerous benefits:

• we don't have to move out of our beautiful apartment in Tokyo (massive benefit, I hate moving)
• we don't have to find somewhere to rent in Australia or find a car (also massive benefit)
• the above two points means that moving between countries will be smoother with far less exhaustion and practical details needing to be arranged
• we have minimal handover to others for our jobs in Japan (also a huge benefit)

One of the downsides is that we'll be moving faster in Australia and have less rest there. We'll also have less time to spend with our home church, family, and friends.

So, I've been contacting our main supporting churches and getting some 'big rocks' in place. David's bought plane tickets and we've been communicating with key people. It's actually been amazing—since the start of the year the following things have fallen into place quite easily:

• dates to visit eight churches in Queensland and Western Australia
• places to stay throughout our visit
• cars to drive
• a place to have a holiday and a motorhome
• time to visit both sides of the family (and hope to see our granddaughter)

We're arriving in Brisbane on May 21 and then fly to Perth on July 24. Then onto Tokyo, arriving in the hottest, most humid part of the year on August 4.

Closer to the time we'll decide on some "open day" type events where people who live in SEQ and Toowoomba can meet up with us, rather than us racing around to see many people in such a short time.

But for now, we need to put our heads down and live here and now. This morning I've set aside for writing, especially putting time into a first draft of this book project I'm working on. So I'd best move onto that now...but I'm looking forward to seeing some of you who live in Queensland and Perth in a few months time.

Grief...again

Right now my head is a little bit all over the place. The last couple of weeks have been fairly quiet at my desk, but all of a sudden this week my work has exploded and there's plenty to do. So it's not very helpful that I'm having trouble mustering my brain this morning. But I think the main reason would be grief.

Image by Michaela 💗 from Pixabay

Sometimes it's getting hard to write here because there are themes that just keep coming up and I wonder if I've said all I can say on them? Or if I'm boring my audience?

But then I run into a new-ish missionary who asks questions about the same themes I've experienced and I remember that they are also on a journey of learning, though perhaps not as far along as me, and that perhaps I can continue to speak on these themes helpfully...

This week it's grief. On Tuesday, part of my job was to write a short obituary-like piece that was used in our mission's social media yesterday. Just doing my job, but it's about someone about my age who I knew, someone I had lunch with in Brisbane last home assignment, someone whose daughter is around the age of my kids, someone who comes from the same part of the world that I do, and who was a missionary like me. Last night we attended his funeral (online). [Link to the post I wrote is here.]

In 25+ years of service more than half-a-dozen of our missionary colleagues have died (i.e. pre-retirement age, currently in ministry when they first became ill), mostly because of cancer. It's always a shock and the questions arise: Why Lord? Why now Lord?

Even if we didn't know some of those colleagues really well, it's still a shock and a grief, and I'm often surprised by how much I get affected by each one.

But I've come to understand that the missionary life is laden with a lot of other grief, so many goodbyes and losses, many more than most people encounter this early in their lives. And that grief piles up.

This week I Googled "missionary grief" and this nine-page article came up in my browser: https://www.emsweb.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/OB_Winter_2014.pdf I've yet to steel myself to read the whole thing (I'm pretty busy this week and also not good at reading longer articles on my computer), but these points from it grabbed my attention:

"HIDDEN LOSSES are crippling many on the missionary field and they don’t even know how to identify where it all began."

The article lists typical losses missionaries experience when they first go to the field, and, I would argue, ongoing losses:

• language (the ability to communicate)
• identity
• a place in society
• life skills
• sense of safety (less in Japan)
• family (knowing the wider family and seeing them regularly, and these goodbyes happen again and again)
• friends
• intellectual and professional peers
• places (e.g. favourite places in home country)
• things (e.g. favourite foods, familiar furniture, house)
• pets
• smells (familiar scents from home country)

Many of the above are "hidden" losses, many of these we often don't identify or notice. 

The difficulty with many of the losses of a missionary life is that there is no funeral, no socially acceptable way to acknowledge our loss. And indeed, it might even seem that we don't have permission to admit that we are grieving these things.

I am attentive when a younger colleague mentions a sadness that is in the list above, because I know that it is not going to get any easier, if they continue to work as a missionary. 

Life happens at a fast pace and missionaries make massive transitions that involve multiple griefs all at once, there is often simply a lack of time and emotional energy to process. As well as that, we live life amidst other missionaries who are also experience more transition than the average person. We build a friendship with a colleague at language school and they graduate and move to another part of the country. We build another friendship with a colleague who lives near our place of service and they go on home assignment, or we do and when we get back, they have moved somewhere else. No one is having a "funeral" about these losses; we sometimes get to say goodbyes, but they are hard to do again and again and again.

Another quote from the article, sorry it's a bit long:

“Ambiguous grief” is a response to “an unclear loss that defies closure.” This barrier stems . . . hidden losses. The losses are hard to acknowledge and therefore the response of grief is muted.  The groundbreaking work of Dr. Pauline Boss in her book entitled Loss, Trauma, and Resilience; Therapeutic Work with Ambiguous Loss is very helpful in understanding this barrier. Dr. Boss explains, “…ambiguous loss is the most stressful kind of loss. It defies resolution and creates long-term confusion…. With death there is an official certification of loss, and mourning rituals allow one to say goodbye. With ambiguous loss, none of these markers exists. The persisting ambiguity blocks cognition, coping, and meaning making and freezes the grief process.” Ambiguous grief is born from a loss that is often hard to recognize, therefore it is also hard to resolve. In order to overcome this barrier to grief we must make a concerted effort to name these hidden losses so that the grief process can be experienced.

As you get older you accumulate grief. I see this in older people—they're gradually losing their friends, parents and siblings, their professions, and their strength and health—it takes a toll. Missionaries accumulate grief at a faster pace, though:

 Accumulated grief is usually a result of ignoring many small losses and allowing them to build up. . . . Although the losses many missionaries experience may seem trivial and small, much like the paper cut, their accumulated effect cannot and should not be ignored.  (also from the above linked article)

Hence, I'm writing here today about grief. Because I have accumulated a lot of small paper cuts, and larger grief-wounds over the years and a death like we experienced in our community last week hits deeply. It's easy to rush into the next thing (my work on the magazine and in social media hasn't stopped, the emails coming across my desk haven't stopped, I still have a dental check up today and a seminar to attend this evening). But I'm instead taking a moment today to stop and process my thoughts by writing.

To newer missionaries and those who are headed that way: I don't want to discourage you. This calling we've received is hard, but it's not impossible. Indeed, the text that Steve chose for his funeral was Joshua 1:1–11. These are a bunch of instructions from God to Joshua, just after the death of Moses. He uses this phrase, or similar words three number of times: "be strong and courageous". Why? Because "I [God] will never leave you nor forsake you" (said explicitly twice in the passage, but also implied in other words multiple times). Because our God is great and has promised to be with us wherever we are, because he's called us into this work—he will provide all we need, he will be all we need. Fix your eyes on him, again, and again.

To those who have been around longer and are feeling this deeply. Take some time. Reach out to someone to talk it through. Journal. Take a walk. Acknowledge this accumulated grief.

To people who pray for missionaries: Keep praying. Let them know you are praying for them. See if there's anything practical you can do to help one of them. Remember when you see them that they are carrying some accumulated grief, and ask God how you can help. Ask good questions.

Living with the not-knowing

I have had a fairly quiet start to the year. Truth be told, I'm still getting used to the quietness that has settled on our lives now that our kids no longer live at home. It's been nearly two years since our last offspring left home, but the ripple effects of that are still making themselves felt. I'm not sad—it's a joy, after all those years of parenting them, to see them making their own way in the world. And, most of the time, I also enjoy our quieter household.

These were my tiny broccoli
seedlings back in October. Now
they are more than 40 cm tall and,
I'm hoping, going to produce some
edible broccoli soon.
Small things shouldn't
be overlooked.

I have been thinking a little bit about "ripple effect" and also the euphemistic phrase "God's economy". Both of these touch on the idea that we really don't know how God is working behind the scenes of what we see and do. "God's economy" is sometimes used to flag that he works in mysterious ways that don't at all equate to how businesses are run in this world. We don't know how our actions affect others or what future results will be of the small (or larger) things we do today.

I see people writing about "creating core memories" for their kids...but I think that we probably can't know what memories our kids will take away from their childhoods. Usually we remember things differently from our parents and often the things that become deeply meaningful to us later don't seem like much at the time. We try our best as parents, but we simply don't know what our kids will take away from any interaction we have with them.

Likewise, I really can't pinpoint which (if any) of the following things I said or did yesterday had an impact on those around me:

I walked with a Chinese neighbour to the train station and back, at the train we met a friend from our church, another missionary (a prearranged meeting) and we travelled together to a gathering of missionary women. And of course we talked throughout the journey. I know how better to pray for these ladies after we've spent this time together. One of them had never been to one of these gatherings before and I was glad to be a friend by her side as she met a bunch of new people (and some she already knew).

I prayed for some of the women in small groups. Here are some things I prayed about for others: 

• an Iranian brother-in-law who is concerned about his family, 
• a young mum who was tired and wondering how best to use her time and how not to worry about the future,
• an elderly mum in another country with dementia-like symptoms, and
• a mum-of-teens who is seeking God's wisdom about future ministry.

I had wide, varied conversations throughout the morning and through lunch—some deep concerns on people's hearts, as well as about a trending chocolate brand and chocolate-coated strawberries and the showing off of some granddaughter photos!

I said "see you sometime" to a friend who is leaving Japan, and might not be back.

One lady, who I have shared deeply with in the past about some of our struggles with parenting a neurodiverse child, asked me for one piece of advice as she looks towards launching her own child to independent living in the coming year.

Then, after dinner, we logged into our church's online prayer meeting last night, as we usually do on Wednesday nights. It's a mid-week check-in to our church family and I usually come away feeling more connected and blessed by it all. Last night we prayed for some of these things:

• a daughter who is concerned for her aging parents overseas,
• a lost work key,
• an online English class for not-yet-believers that started in Sydney,
• people we know who aren't yet Christians, or who we long to see grow in their faith
• a couple of visas people are waiting on, and
• a family who have a loved one in a coma.

During the day I did lots of other "little" things like wish my mum and happy birthday, communicate with friends about their visit to our place for dinner on Saturday, and answered a question about a writers meeting next week. Not to mention the everyday things that I did for my husband like wash dishes and prepare dinner.

Not really much of anything that you'd "write home about".

Only God knows what the meaning of all this is. Only God knows what the women I interacted with yesterday at our meeting took away from the meeting, if any of my interactions with any of them were an encouragement or help. Only God know how he'll answer our prayers, though hopefully they were an encouragement to those who were prayed for. For my sanity I have to leave that with God. I have to live my daily life trusting that God will guide me and enable me to serve him in the big things and the small. And that he will take my small offerings to use for his purposes in other people's lives.

Podcast episodes about neurodivergence and the Christian life

I recently listened to a three-episode podcast series about "Neurodivergence and the Christian Life". You can find them here: https://ccl.moore.edu.au/podcasts/

I am not a big podcast listener, but this subject matter is close to my heart, so I gave it a go. Actually, I found it a little academic and stiff, especially at the start of the first one, but it was worth sticking with. It's a huge topic and what they've done only barely touches some of it. But there were also sparkly moments, especially when they talked directly to neurodivergent adults and parents of neurodivergent kids.

Us and church and neurodivergence

Our family has managed fairly well over the years to be present and somewhat involved in church, but sometimes at a cost. 

Most of the church services I've been part of in the last 25 years have been in Japanese, and the truth is that my Japanese comprehension is not great, certainly not for a lengthy monologue that is a sermon. Add on to that the neurodivergence that our family carried with us, and I can't say that church has been a place that I got much nourishment for my soul. Our kids are not so disordered that they couldn't sit in through most services, but I was always on alert to help them stay settled or, in latter years, encourage one of them to leave the service when he was too disturbed by the sounds coming through the loudspeaker. 

We visited a lot of churches whenever we were in Australia, often as guest speakers. Getting our family seated in places so that everyone was content was hard, and (often at the same time) fending off offers for the kids to join the Sunday School as visitors. Our kids put up with a lot as we were often one of the last to leave after these visits because we were there for "work" and spent a lot of time talking to people afterwards. I have to say that the last two home assignments we have done ('18 and '23/'24) have been easier because we haven't had to take our kids around with us.

Back to the podcast

But back to the podcast, the third one includes a section about dealing with meltdowns and discipline that triggered in me a bunch of emotions:

"And if you can notice—as a parent, if we can notice these things in our child and identify some ways to comfort them, then sometimes you can actually release the pressure without a meltdown. And so a loving thing to do as a parent is actually to be on the lookout for these and to be on the lookout for ways to help them." (From the transcript here.)

This type of proactive parenting is exhausting. I clearly remember being at a small New Years Eve party at a friends house with our teenage sons and being unable to enjoy the evening. It was a familiar place with familiar people and we had all chosen to be there, but I was on edge much of the evening as I watched one of our sons struggle with the social gathering. Church is more predictable, yet a worship service has very little latitude for behaviour deviation and none for noise. Years and years of this wears on you. In some weird way I'm grateful for the pandemic because we had fewer social gatherings to deal with in those years!

Overall, the podcast was both encouraging and frustrating. I heard neurodivergent adults talking about their struggles and also about ways they've been helped and encouraged in their faith. I'm glad it's being talked about, but also longing for change to already have happened! I don't know what part I can play in that, but can at least continue to pray for the neurodivergent people in my life who are struggling and, when opportunity arises, to talk about our experience. This month I have been asked to give my testimony at our English-speaking service. I'm planning to share just a little bit of our walk with neurodivergence and the challenges I've had trusting God through it all.

A fun night out

Last night we stepped of our comfort zone (which is: staying quietly at home on a Friday night and going to bed at a usual time). Instead, on the eve of our 28th wedding anniversary, we went out on a Friday night and had fun. 

Start of the women's 200m.

It's five years since the Tokyo Olympics were supposed to happen and four years since they did and we sat at home in Tokyo watching events happen in our own city that we had had tickets for! Last night we went to the National Stadium (the main Olympic stadium—22 km from our place) to watch a session of the World Athletics Championships.

It was a lot of fun. I feared that part of it might be slow, but they kept us entertained for five hours! I only left my seat once. At times it was hard to know where to look. At one point there was women's javelin, women's decathlon shot put (both of which were down our end of the stadium) and some 800m and 5,000m races all happening at the same time, during which the male triple jumpers were also warming up. So much going on and so impressively organised. I love going to orchestral concerts because they are visually an absolute feast, and this was the same, so many things to watch.

When you are at an event like this in person there are so many things you can see that don't get shown on TV, like how they get the javelins and shots back to the athletes (remote cars for the former and a ramp for the latter). There was also a cool dude on a motorised unicycle on the track taking video of the runners in the back straight (the video you'll be seeing on TV). The choreography that went into putting out and removing the hurdles was also impressive.

The weather was also gorgeous. Finally the fiercely hot and humid Tokyo summer is in the past and we've entered into delightful early autumn. It was neither hot nor cold last night, even as we walked home at midnight.

A lot of the 58,000 people in the stadium were Japanese; you could tell that merely from the noise when their athletes were introduced or competing. We discovered that the reigning female World Champion in javelin is Japanese and we watched her strive last night to qualify for the finals in the competition to defend her crown. She didn't qualify, unfortunately, but she was well cheered for by the crowd.

This was early in the evening when 
the stands weren't so full, by the end
of the session at 10.30 there weren't
many spare seats near us.

But it was an international event and there were many foreigners too. Many more than we are used to seeing. Later, when we got on a train to go home, I watched a Japanese guy, probably on his way home from a work event, look in amazement at the large influx of people onto his train, many of whom were talking (not something common on trains), and not all in Japanese. He was sitting in front of where I was standing and craning his neck to see if he could tell which station we'd all gotten on at (he'd probably been napping). 

I'd not been looking forward to the trip home. I've had some very uncomfortable, overly crowded experiences late at night on Tokyo trains (and some not so great ones getting home from sporting events in Brisbane too). This wasn't so bad, though getting out of the stadium was a tad confusing, when the route we'd taken to get in was closed. The staff redirected us along different routes, largely by shouting at us in Japanese through hand-held speaker horns. But once we found the station, it was okay and many passengers got off our train fairly quickly and I ended up having a seat for much of the trip home, which was a good thing because I was definitely drooping at 11.45 on a Friday night!

Enjoying where we live

Despite having lived here for 20 years I think it's only just dawning on me that I live in this nation's capital! And that a lot of cool international-type things happen here. To those who see Japan as a travel destination, a place to see the sights and do the fun things, it might seem weird. But we live in Japan, we're not on holidays here and, like most people in the place they live, we don't do much tourism. 

And also, when we first arrived in Tokyo we had three boys under seven, and for a long time we just hunkered down and did what needed to be done. Rarely did we venture out to events that weren't part of our immediate circle. We didn't have the energy to go to events or take the family out for travel adventures. Most of our outings were, in the early years, to parks, and later (since 2010), many of our Saturdays were consumed by interschool sport.

But on the other hand, some people might also find it weird that missionaries do any tourism at all. Before we came to Japan we were given some excellent advice about missionary life. We were told to try to be as present as you can, where you are; to enjoy things you couldn't do elsewhere. That doesn't mean we love everything about Japan and only eat Japanese food, but it does mean that we'll happily enjoy an international event like the World Athletics Championships when they come to town. By the way, it also means that we rarely eat Japanese food in Australia, and we do our best to enjoy being present in Australia too.

We'd also been advised by a psychologist, as we approached having all our kids leave home, that we should spend more time enjoying ourselves! We're a pretty good team, but fun hasn't always been easy to do. I'd like to think that we've made some progress on that front in the last couple of years. And last night surely qualifies!

Lots to think about

Life has settled down again to a discernible rhythm. It's a bit of a relief, actually—I work better like this. I find it hard to concentrate and make decisions when my day-to-day routine is less stable and predictable. So when I do things like try to work and travel, even though most of my work is done remotely, it gets tricky and I don't do as good a job. But I also get bored if life is too same-same. So I'm glad for a job that always includes new challenges and has a fair amount of variety in it, even if, like last week, I sometimes get overwhelmed by it all.

Magazine matters

I'm glad that the Autumn issue of the magazine I manage has gone to the printer and we get to mail it out next week! I've been working fairly solidly on this since we got back to Tokyo in early August. 

I've been working on this magazine for around 15 years, and I can tell you that some "issues" are harder than others. There are all sorts of reasons for that. It can be team challenges, a difficult issue-theme, unexpected random obstacles, author difficulties, or at times when my own transitions or travel interfere with my ability to concentrate on the work needed. 

This issue was particularly difficult for some of these reasons, and has required "above and beyond" over the last few months. I hope that it was all worth it, and pray that God will take it and use it for his purposes.

This month is our magazine "annual meeting" month. Because our remote team works across several different time zones it's hard to hold meetings. I've never been a fan of meetings, they can easily be a waste of time! I'm in a position to have been able to shape my work in so many ways, both with the magazine and with the social media work, and I've tended towards setting up processes that mean we don't have to meet often, though I have been called out on that!

Our magazine team gets together once a year to talk about team and magazine stuff, to pray, to have fun, and to plan. In the last few years that has been achieved with four 1½ hr meetings. I really enjoy this team. We have fun when we get together, even online. They are passionate about the mission of this magazine and that makes them easy to lead. And the four shorter meetings are actually a lot easier to manage than a single one-day event, like we used to have. (I've written about this meeting/ these meetings before, here's one back in 2016 when it was an in-person meeting: https://mmuser.blogspot.com/2016/08/energising-meeting.html)

What have I been thinking about recently?

Well, if you know me, you know that there's usually a lot going on in my brain! This week I've had time to listen to some podcasts and I've been trying to be disciplined about continuing to gradually (usually a short portion over coffee in the afternoon) work my way through non-fiction books that are on my to-read list.

I listened to John Dickson's Undeceptions (my usual go-to for lunchtime listening), an episode about the boy Jesus. It gave some interesting historical background to the life Jesus lived.

I came across an OMF US podcast interview with a new worker I met last week. She was effusive last week about the social media work I do and how that had been a pivotal part of her coming to Japan, so I was curious about her larger story (if you ever get into the position to ask, find out a missionary's "call story" they are usually fascinating and never the same as any other missionary's). The 45 minute interview was well done and I loved the bit where God led her to look at Instagram, just after she'd surrendered her desire to go to Japan...and she saw a post from OMF Japan!

I also listened to a podcast from Moore Bible College about Neurodiversity and the Christian Life (part 1 of 3). I wasn't so impressed with their format, it's a bit academic, although there were some redeeming interview clips. Yet it's a topic that is close to our hearts, so I'll go back later and hear what they have to say in the next two parts.

I've just finished one non-fiction book (after several months) and have started another. The first I've read before, and will probably read again. Gentle and Lowly is deep and full of many things that will take a lifetime for my heart to absorb. It's about the heart of Christ for us and what small amount I can grasp, even though I've been a Christian since I was a child, it still breathtaking.

The new book I've just picked up, Life interrupted, by Susan Chapman, an OMF colleague, starts out on a similar line: understanding that we are loved by God. It's something that is easy to say, but hard to live. I'm only just starting this short book, but am already challenged by what she says next: "we need to be totally content in being finite". She goes on to quote Ruth Hayley Barton who says:

Living graciously within the boundaries of our life as it has been entrusted to us gives our life substance. Oddly enough, something of the will of God is contained in the very limits that we often try to sidestep or ignore. Living within limits is not in any way an acquiescence that is despairing, passive or fatalistic. Rather it honours the deepest realities of the life God has given us. Life in this body at this age and stage. Life in my family at its age and stage. Life in this personality. Life with this community. Life in the midst of this calling. (Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership: Seeking God in the Crucible of Ministry), p12 in Life Interrupted. 

It's this that I need to continue to learn as I settle into this phase of my life. What does "life in this body at this stage and age, with the gifts and calling that God's given me?" look like. And how can I be content in that? I think it's something all of us probably need to think about at various ages and stages!

Craziness plus encouragement

This week has felt overwhelming (last week did too, but for different reasons). I could have seen it coming. It tends to happen four times a year when several things collide in my schedule. The overlapping of the end of one magazine issue and the start of the next is the main culprit, though this has been less so in the last couple of years since I handed off some responsibilities to another person in my team. However that person has left our team and I've been helping two people take his place. You don't need to know the details!

On Monday of this week I spent much of the day travelling to and from meetings on the other side of the city. It's a usual monthly gathering of missionaries from our organisation, and almost always worth being at, but it takes out an entire day from my week and often leaves me feeling behind when I sit down at my desk on Tuesday.

I'm usually writing our prayer/newsletter in the week leading up to the first Sunday of the month...that happens to be the first week of September, rather than the last week of August this year! I tried to start last week, but didn't get as far as I'd have liked to have.

My social media ministry team has also had increases in responsibilities as we cater for a team member going on maternity leave tomorrow. I've had to learn some new stuff!

On top of all that I had email troubles. One of my three work emails stopped working yesterday. That always flusters me as I rely heavily on email, and I'm not the most confident when dealing with tech stuff.

Those are the main things that have all landed on this week and I found myself jumping ever more rapidly between one thing and another. I usually work quite well juggling various responsibilities, but this week hasn't been so good.

I put this out there, not because I want you to feel sorry for me, but because I'm trying to be real here.

But God has also given me different pieces of tangible help through the week:

• On Monday I heard the story of someone who has come to serve with our organisation who was prodded by our social media work to get involved. Exactly what we're trying to do and such an encouragement to see someone in front of me who probably wouldn't be there if I didn't do what I do.
• We booked flights to go to Australia for Christmas to see our new grandchild (due end of November)!
• We've located a good spot and good days to go camping with our friends next month.
• I flipped the calendar to September and was reminded that we have tickets to the World Athletics Championships, which are in Tokyo this month. The session includes the 200m finals, which might include a young man from Queensland who has been making headlines in recent months: Gout Gout.
• Last night we attended, as usual, our church's online prayer meeting. I was able to share briefly in a small group that I'd been feeling overwhelmed at work and they prayed for me! Such an encouragement.

Bit by bit I've made it thus far through the week, and that I'm able to sit here and write about it is proof that things are calming down a little. 

I'm thankful, too, for a cooler day today (28C, current humidity 81%). It's been grey with some showers, which is really encouraging. The length and intensity of the Tokyo summer has been close to the top of almost every conversation that we've had recently—we're all longing for the cool that autumn brings.

It's a daily battle

Well, the last two blog posts have been really easy to write: from inside the writing retreat and then last week's wonderful news about our family. But today's isn't rolling off my fingers.

Last week I had a quiet week working at home with only one meeting. After a busy time at the retreat the previous week, it was good to counterbalance that with a more restful one. But it is when I'm not so busy, and also in the "slump" after a big, highly anticipated event, that doubts and negative thoughts start to creep into my mind.

Some of those internal voices I hear are words about how ineffective and useless I am, and you have to read that in the context of the organisation we're apart of and the reason we're in Japan. We're here because so few Japanese people follow Jesus. I talk and write about how important support ministry is (the name of the work that David and I are primarily involved in), but sometimes it feels like we're just not doing enough and by extension, are not enough. I think that is probably a common feeling amongst missionaries in this country. We don't talk about it much, but it's the big elephant in the room, and one reason that people burn out or fizzle out here.

Last week I felt particularly heavy-hearted about Japan as a nation (not about living here, but how tough a place it is for people to come to faith in Christ, and continue in that faith). In some weird way I found that sadness a comfort: Jesus himself wept over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41), surely he weeps over Japan too! It is right to be sad about those who don't know Christ.

But at the same time, I know we need to take heart and trust in God. He's got us (and our colleagues) here for a reason. Missionaries generally don't just decide to go off and "do stuff" in foreign countries, they are compelled by Scripture and the Holy Spirit to do this. It's hard to prove in black-and-white, but we're here due to an overwhelming sense that it's the right place to be serving God.

Earlier this week I saw this article "Tethering tightly" from A Life Overseas, and though the situation of the author differs from ours in various ways, she hits on some important points about persevering in this life of faith by thinking about the verse in John 15:

I am the vine, you are the branches; the one who remains in me, and I in him bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. (vs 5 NASB).

Here are some points that were good to be reminded of:

• Living abroad takes its toll. The layers of grief, hopes for the future, fatigue, and persevering through trials.
• We're called to remain steadfast in God, not to change our circumstances to get relief from our struggles or weakness.
• God is the vine, our stability in the midst of the constant changing human landscape. He's the only one who can truly satisfy us and strengthen us.
  
• I'm just a branch. I don't have all the answers or solutions. I'm part of it, but not expected to do everything or be everything.

  

  I also spent an hour with a new hairdresser as she
  tried to comprehend what I wanted to do with
  this unfamiliar "Western" hair. I think she did
  a good job in the end. I don't think I've ever had 
  someone try so hard. I learned a new, helpful
  word "nagamochi" which means "longlasting"
  and apparently can be applied to skinflint
  missionaries who don't want to pay for a haircut
  every other week!

• My job is mostly to remain in him and he will do the work, whatever work that he decides to do.
• It's simply not about me. About what I do, how I serve, what my productivity or lack of productivity is, what activities I do or complete, what things I tick off on my lists.

Please don't imagine that I've been curled up on the lounge in despair. I haven't! I've actually been moderately busy most days—writing, editing, reading, emailing, planning, thinking, etc. I could tell you several very encouraging things that happened in the last 10 days, not the least was, on Saturday, doing a bunch of baking for church, and getting a tonne of appreciation for that on Sunday! I also had a very encouraging time at a coffee shop with a new friend from church.

But it's a daily battle, isn't it? To keep our eyes fixed on Jesus. To remember that we're not the centre of the story. And to do our desperate best, despite our weak and distracted selves, to remain in Christ. Thankfully that's not up to us either. He's got us in a far more solid grasp than we'll ever be capable of.

The value of listening

The other day I got a message from someone in our organisation in Australia who I don't know. Her role is specifically about helping advise our members about their kids, as needed. We've never met. However, somehow she'd discovered this blog and had been reading bits of our story and wanted to know what we've learned along the way, especially in regards to neurodivergence and what help we'd received that she could pass on to others if she needed to.

A photo from a few years back when the
boys all lived with us in Japan.

I asked if she would be interested in hearing our story in detail. I explained that it would just be easier to tell her, because it's a long, complex story—which is pretty normal for neurodivergence, but I suspect ours is more complex because of the cross-cultural elements. It's a story that would take me hours, even as a fast writer, to get down. She agreed, and we talked for nearly two hours. Well, most of that talking was me! She asked some great questions, including some that I've never been asked before. But I think we were both exhausted at the end. 

I have been thinking about that conversation ever since. It was great to be really listened to (she was even taking notes). But it was hard to make sure I included all the bits and pieces. The story went back around 20–25 years and there were so many threads. In the days that followed that conversation, I kept thinking of more things that I could have added! But I think that in the end she got all (and probably much more) than she needed. It made me aware again of the various people God has given me along the way who have listened to me tell parts of our story, with all my struggles, questions, and tears. I'm so thankful. I'm thankful to all who have prayed for us, usually without much information, but just that we were struggling.

It's a huge blessing to be able to look back at all of that and see where our kids are now and that they're all okay. One of the hardest things about being a parent is not knowing the end of the story. Of course all parents have to make decisions without all the information that you feel you need (especially a comparison between the outcomes of two different decisions). Not knowing what long-term impact your decisions will have on your kid is difficult, but when your children aren't thriving or "fitting the norm" it's even harder. One of the extra hard things about being a missionary parent is not having many people around you whose situation is similar to yours and few who understand the nuances of your situation. It can be quite a lonely and difficult place to do parenting and make hard decisions.

So, what's the point of me sharing this? I think, to shed light on the difficulty of being a parent of a kid with neurodivergence and that it is even harder when one is living a missionary life. But most especially to note that the most valuable thing you might be able to do for such a parent is to listen to them. You might not be able to provide any solutions, or point a parent to a place where they can get help, or help them make an important decision, but if they feel heard then that is a help. Parenting kids who have difficulties is a lonely job, it's hard for others to understand the daily challenges you face. If someone is willing to stop and listen to you talk about those challenges, it's a huge encouragement.

Neurodivergence and transition

This week I've seen a couple of articles from A Life Overseas website about neurodiverse missionary kids. It's a journey we've walked and I‘ve written about (here), so I was interested to see what these articles had to say about it. And it wasn't too much different to what I'd written, though obviously not in first person and thinking in more detail of a broader audience that will encounter many different cultures.

A photo from 2017 with our three guys

I didn't find the first article all that helpful, though someone who knows nothing about neurodivergence would probably find it a good entry point into thinking about their kid (or someone else's) who just don't seem to fit or find things difficult that the rest of us take in our stride. First article: How to Notice Neurodiversity in Third Culture Kids

The second article "How to Help Neurodiverse TCKs in Transition" came out today and it hit very close to home. Transition is one of the big issues that our kids struggled with. It's shaped how we've raised our children and the decisions we've made about moves, holidays, home assignments, how we've used our home, how much hospitality and travel we engaged in, etc.

One particular story comes to mind. In June 2018, we moved to Australia for six months home assignment. We knew that one of our teenage sons needed to see a psychologist, so tried to work ahead to make that happen, because in the end six months isn't that long and could easily be taken up with a waiting list. Our habit has been to find a mid-way place to stop between Japan and Brisbane as we move back—that gives us a short time to breathe, after finishing everything in Japan before diving into all that's required for settling a family in Australia. It never feels like enough time, it also usually feels chaotic and the "when can we get settled" feelings come over us.

Anyway, that year we decided to stop in Sydney for a few days. I found low-cost accommodation for a few days with a mission and we were making the best of it. No one was in a good condition, however. We were all tired, unsettled, and not at all comfortable with our unfamiliar surroundings. The boys were facing six months without their friends or classmates, familiar surroundings or belongings, and without their usual routines. Everything, except each other, was different.

In the midst of this especially messy time, I got a phone call from the psychologist's office. I was literally standing in the midst of open suitcases in a hotel-type room in Sydney. It was the kind of routine admission phone call that they make. The admissions officer asked me a bunch of standard questions and I remember laughing out loud at one that read something like "Between 1 and 10, 1 being in good place and 10 being really not good, how would you say your child's mental wellbeing is today?" I tried to explain why I was laughing, and she brushed it off, asking just to answer anyway...of course he wasn't in a good way that day!

I have many, many stories. In the blog post I wrote two years ago (first link in today's post), I wrote these words:

We've got many sad memories of the difficulty of getting our kids seated in a crowded [unknown] church, of awkward whispered conversations with people who assumed our kids would join the Sunday School, or even a child who refused to get out of the car and come into church at all. And then the difficulties of staying in other people's homes: relatives, friends, and strangers. So many unspoken expectations surround situations like that, including conversation, politeness, and even that two children will share a room willingly. And all the while, feeling like our kids and observations of our parenting are somehow part of a report card on our fitness as missionaries. That's a lot of uncomfortable pressure.

Overall, though, we've been blessed with being able to provide a lot of stability and minimal transition through most of our sons' growing up years, though, and for that, I'm very grateful.

I think that one reason that we are especially happy in our new season with our boys living independent of us, is that we no longer have to drag them through the sorts of transition that litter a missionaries career. They have much more control over their lives now they don't live with us. And we are free to make decisions without the complication of deciding how these decisions would work for the whole family, how well our kids would cope with whatever transition our decision/s would inflict on them.

All that being, said, probably our kids have ended up more flexible just because they had no choice about it. It was painful at time, for all of us, but probably it has helped them grow as individuals and hopefully they are more resilient because we haven't surrounded them with cotton wool. Like most things, too much is bad, but so is too little. Hopefully we've landed somewhere in the middle, by God's grace.

Please reach out to me directly if you'd like to talk more on this subject. I find it's easier to be more open about our personal experiences in a private conversation than it is on this public forum.

Connection at a retreat

I'm in a post-retreat slump. This morning (Monday), I struggled to wake up, despite having a very quiet, restful day on Saturday. And now I'm back at my desk, trying to pick up the pieces after being away from it since last Tuesday. Part of me craves the high of the retreat, the time to worship, to talk with other women, and, to be brutally honest: to swan around without responsibilities!

I guess this slump probably means that I am actually quite tired and need a longer break than just one day. I'm looking forward to going camping next week for four days, and hope that that will result in greater physical refreshing.

Last week was great, I got to escape from Tokyo and daily life to a women's retreat I've been to many times. I always look forward to this retreat with other cross-cultural women, but I don't look forward to coming home and facing the rest of my life afterwards!

This time was a bit different, though. It was great to come home to my husband and not this kind of situation. Home without children remains a very quiet place, something I love, but it was a dramatic change from hanging out with 60 other women for the better part of three days. My husband graciously listened while I spilled out many things from the week that had passed.

Entrance to the centre's onsen,
yes non-private bathing

But you might have gleaned that the retreat was good. It was, in fact, great. I got to go to the venue a day early, ostensibly to help the small leadership team to set up. But I didn't actually do much, mostly because there were so many of us helping that the few things that needed doing didn't take long (or took a lot longer, because...well you know how sometimes it's easier for one person to decide something than a committee!). So the first 24 hours really were very restful, though I did have the remnants of a nasty headache on Tuesday afternoon.

It was so much fun being able to see many people who I haven't seen for two years (the last time I went to this retreat). It's interesting reading about that retreat in 2023 (here). I'd forgotten how heavy the start of that year was. This year my heart was lighter and there were less tears. I'd also "graduated" into the "older woman" category of those who have no children left at home, which felt odd.

Some of these women I never see at any other time other than these retreats. Yet, conversations are deep. I pondered this with one lady over lunch one day. We concluded that most of us feel like outsiders most of the time, but at a retreat like this we are insiders who are almost all living in a foreign land. It's comforting to find this a common ground and fosters strong bonds that form quickly.

Writing workshop ladies talking

Worship through song during the retreat was led by a couple of very down-to-earth ladies and our speaker was also very relatable. The talks were Bible-centred and the retreat started out with a whole session of focussing our eyes on God, in particular focusing on his unfailing love.

Thursday afternoon was free time, plus the option of attending two of four short workshops. Yours truly ran one, on a topic I've never specifically taught before: writing prayer letters (for those who hate doing it). Eight ladies were brave enough to come and I hope they went away with a few ideas to help make this routine ministry task easier. I'm not a natural teacher, and find it uncomfortable to stand up in front of even a small group like this, but I can see ways that I might repeat this (and do a better job).

After that I went for a walk with a very dear friend who I haven't seen since December.

Thursday night was very special: an open worship night. I've noted in the past that at these non-church interdenominational events I often feel more free. I've worshipped in conservative circles all my life and am happy there. So worshipping with people who are far more expressive is different, but good for my soul, I think. We mostly sang, and towards the end dissolved into a lengthy people of spontaneous micro-prayers. It was exceptional. 

The fun ride home

On Friday we left for home straight after lunch. I squeezed into a fun car full of six women and our luggage. We had a great afternoon, you guessed it—talking all the way home (about four hours, as we gradually dropped of ladies along the way, and only got a tiny bit lost along the way)!

During the week I had all sort of encounters. Here's a tiny taste:

I met a neighbour I didn't know I had. She and her husband work in a Chinese ministry at a sister church to ours and live about five houses from us.

I caught up with the mum of one of my youngest son's best friends. Turns out our sons had been talking (Australia to US) just that afternoon!

There were two other Aussies at the retreat. One with the Salvos and the other on a working holiday visa, I chatted with both.

At various times over the week I was able to share bits of our recent journey with neurodivergence, autism, and mental illness. And about journeying with kids into young adult years, especially about the bumps and challenges we've faced. I rubbed shoulders with mums who are ahead of me on this journey, and others who are facing up to their kids finishing high school soon, as well as women who are still in the midst of figuring out how to get their kids an education in this foreign land. We all learn from one another and it's a joy.

I met women who "know" me through my writing: this blog and through my work with the Japan Harvest magazine. That's always a little scary. What do people know about me? What do they think they know? Many who know me for my role as a managing editor make assumptions about my educational background that aren't true. No, I don't have a university degree in writing (or editing, though I've discovered that few editors do, most learn on the job like I did). But it's always exciting to hear from those who have really enjoyed the content of the magazine. My roomie was busy reading the latest issue (I don't think she was trying to impress me).

I did a lot of listening and a lot of talking. And, as usual, came away wishing that I'd done more listening and been slower to speak.

Last week on Facebook, I shared this article about the value of cross-cultural relationships. I could probably write a whole blog post as I bounce off ideas that the two authors shared, but here's a tiny portion as it relates to the friendships amongst women I meet at English-speaking retreats in Japan.

Cross-cultural friendships may often lack the natural reference points that ease our interactions with people of our own background, but they do have the advantage of creating a sense of self-expansion. This is the sense that we are growing as people...

Self-expansion can come in many forms. It may come from an exposure to new points of view, or an introduction to new and exciting experiences that we had never encountered alone...we are constantly learning from each other...

Connections across countries . . [may help] to loosen some of the shackles on our thinking so that we are more receptive to new ways of viewing the world—a more flexible and open-minded attitude that encourages innovation. (David Robson and Alessia Franko, "'I call her my Italian sister': The power of cross-cultural friendships")

So, I think that these friendships are very helpful. They take me beyond my usual thoughts and experiences and stretch me into someone who has a bigger experience and broader mind. I love getting outside our organisation and church and hearing about how other people and organisations do life. It helps keep me realistic about the various challenges we face in our own lives. I'm already looking forward to next year's retreat!