Spring Break adventures!

Each year the school where my husband works has a one-week holiday called "Spring Break". This is an American term and tradition, one that we embrace as it's the only break in classes at school in the six months between Christmas and the end of the school year in June. 

In recent years our most common activity during this single week in March is to go camping. The weather is starting to warm up, though it can be a little volatile. We experienced it's volatility last week.

Tuesday

We left for our camping trip on Tuesday and the weather was great, if a little cloudy.

Our destination was the Boso Peninsula, east of Tokyo on the other side of Tokyo Bay. The fastest way there from our place, theoretically, is straight across the city and across the bay using the 15.1 km tunnel-bridge built 29 years ago. It features a 9.6 km tunnel, one of the world's longest underwater tunnels, and a 4.4 km bridge. The place where this transitions between a tunnel and a bridge is a tourist destination on an artificial island called the Umihotaru (literally "Sea firefly"). We'd decided to stop here for lunch, but unfortunately there doesn't seem to be enough parking for the traffic it receives and we crept for ages on the access ramp from the tunnel. Frustrating!

But we did get a yummy lunch and then a photo on the deck outside (it was a little chilly):

Location of the artificial island

Another photo of the island that is fashioned like a boat.

We got to our destination early afternoon and had fun setting up our tent. We had a fairly large site (for Japan) and therefore multiple layouts in which we could have set up our tent/tarp annex. It turned out later that our prediction of where possible wind might come from was wrong. We did have a nice view and didn't pay top-price for it.

I put the below photos here for reference for what happened later.

Beautiful sunset first night.

This is where we were located.

On the first night there were a lot of people around, especially young men. They weren't loud, but they also didn't sleep much either. We were located near the amenities block and often heard people walking past.

Wednesday

All our fellow campers packed up the next morning. It's often the case in Japan that people just camp for one night, so we weren't surprised. 

We went for a walk before lunch around the local roads, and then after lunch drove down to the beach for another walk. We played games (Scrabble and Red 7) and the weather was calm and very comfortable and a relaxing day. We were looking forward to more of that the next day.

This new sprout is apparently called a "Jack-in-the-pulpit" or Arisaema Triphyllum.

This is a sign at an archaeologically significant site near our campsite. Apparently
the site has evidence of habitation since around 5 or 6,000 B.C.

Here is the underwhelming (for us lay people) site.

Welcome sign at the campsite. Look at that blue sky.

Selfie on the local beach with my ever-obliging husband

We enjoyed camp pizza, a free hot shower, and then readied the campsite for a rainy night. Weather forecast is something we always keep a close eye on when we're camping and the forecast on Wednesday night was for rain to come in for several hours from around midnight.

Windy night

At around 1 am we realised there was an excessive amount of flapping going on outside and David went out to check. One corner of our tarp-annex had collapsed from the strong wind. From experience he knew that it was best not to try to reconstruct the shelter at that point, so took the whole structure down to the ground and secured it over the top of our equipment.

Then we tried to get more sleep. But it was very broken sleep. I thought about stories from the Bible that involved storms, including the amazing story of Jesus sleeping in an open boat in a storm. And I tried to read my book on my Kindle to distract my brain from going into "what if" mode. The side of the tent our heads were close to was slapping us on the heads which significantly disrupted any sleep that might have happened. 

Around 4 am I was concerned by further noises outside and opened the door to our sleeping area to investigate. To our surprise, the front of the tent was not where it should have been (around a metre in front of the sleeping area): instead it was almost blown inside to where we were. Investigation showed that the pole holding the fly out there had split and was no longer able to do the job it was designed to do. The whole tent was flapping considerably at this point and it was very noisy. David also discovered that the kitchen had pretty much capsized, which put much of our dining equipment in the muddy grass.

At about 5 am we decided to abandon our sleeping bags and evacuate to the car. The part of the tent where we'd been sleeping was secure and nothing in there was wet, nor did it seem in danger of blowing away, but it was just very noisy and stressful being inside there.

The car was so peaceful in comparison, though I wish I could have gone back to sleep. We sat in the car and watched our tent, passed the time with games (including Scrabble), and ate a small breakfast (70g tub of yoghurt and a mikan/mandarin). Around 9 it started to calm down and we bought some caffeinated drinks from the vending machine at the campsite. 

Thursday: not so restful

Then we started to assess damage and try to make a decision about what to do: did we clean up (including a trip to the laundromat to wash all our towels, tea towels, and rags) and re-erect the tarp shelter and stay on one more night as we'd planned, or did we clean up, pack up and go home? In the end it was the weather forecast that decided us, and that this was supposed to be a holiday. More rain was forecast the next day, which would have meant that we'd be packing up wet the next day. Packing up wet gear has consequences when you're going home to a small apartment where it's harder to dry things, especially the tent. We decided to cut our losses and go home and try to salvage some rest in this short holiday period.

Around 4 or so David piled much of the kitchen stuff against
the fence that delineated our campsite from the next door one.
He tells me he nearly lost the tarp, but thankfully it
caught on a tent rope and he was able to grab it.

This angle shows that the back part of the tent (where we were sleeping)
was still intact, it was just the entry that got a bit demolished by the wind. 
However the wind was hitting the side facing the camera and knocking
us around inside.

Thus ensued four hours of cleaning, drying, washing up, and packing, done with sleep debt and not much food. But the power of water and soap is amazing. I picked up the fry pan out of the muddy grass, washed it up, and later cooked dinner at home with it!

We had conversations with the camp site caretakers who were very sorry that this had happened. They, like us, had not seen any forecast of strong wind (in the worst of it my apps were saying the wind was blowing around 27-37 km/hr, which may or may not have been right for where we were on an exposed ridge). 

Alas, I think the worst was to come. It took about 5 ½ hrs to get home (about 110 km). The congestion driving through Tokyo was pretty bad and Google maps was frustrating, more so because we were tired and hadn't eaten well. We got stuck in 5-10 km/hr traffic in tunnels under Tokyo where there is nowhere to pull over if you're tired.

I saw these guys when we stopped for ice cream after our beach walk.
I think they looked like we did after our windy night!

Rural Japan sight: a tiny tractor! Really just the size of a small ride-on mower.

Finishing drying out the tent in my office.

Needless to say we slept well on Thursday night. Disappointed, but also glad that we hadn't been so far from home and could bail out fairly easily. 

Friday and Saturday

On Friday we'd planned to meet a friend for lunch on our way home. After a slow morning we were still able to meet her, but sadly got stuck in traffic again. We did have a really lovely afternoon with our friend, though, and I came away feeling refreshed (and we had a good drive home). 

Saturday I had declared to be a "spring clean" at our apartment: tackling things that don't normally get cleaned, like windows, tops of high furniture, etc. But first we finished tidying away the camping gear. I also mended one of the tabs on the tent that had been ripped out by the wind. It was good to clean together and we finished the day feeling satisfied.

Most of our friends will wonder why we even bother with camping when things like this happen. But honestly, this is only the second time in nearly 15 years of camping that we've encountered such wind. And I'd much rather be dealing with this than walking down a very crowded street in Harujuku or going to Tokyo Disney (or be stuck in city traffic)! You take the good with the bad when you go camping and most often it is good. And certainly you store up lots of memories and stories!

Pondering COVID's impact on life and ministry

One of my jobs with our mission's social media is to come up with media posts, especially the text-parts. That sounds easier than it sometimes is. Our goal is to raise awareness of the need of the gospel in Japan and getting people more involved, which is a bit different to how most of us use our personal social media accounts. I guess it's a close relative to "marketing".

We use a monthly theme to help fuel our creativity. Some themes are easier than others. Next month's theme is "How COVID has impacted life and ministry in Japan". That sounds like a good theme . . . but how did we find engaging content for that? 

Our team met early last week and brainstormed. One of my ideas was to do a short survey of our missionaries. But putting feet on that is harder than I thought. This afternoon I found some space to think about what I'd actually ask people. I shifted some ideas into a draft survey format, and then I have moved away to other things (like this). 

That is my usual way of operating with creative things: it's how I write, and edit, as well as work on tasks like this. Letting an idea drift around in my brain while I do other things is a brilliant way to find my way forward. I hate it when someone asks me to do "live editing" at a meeting. I prefer to read something and let it sit for a while before I do anything with it, and even when I do start to work on it, I want to do it without an audience, I want to play around with ideas in my head (and on the screen) before I decide anything. Actually, it's how I do shopping too. I hate shopping with (most) other people, I need space to think about options and decisions.

But anyway, what do I ask missionaries about how COVID has impacted their life and ministry?

My own ministry hasn't been majorly impacted by COVID. I worked from home and online for years before everyone else was doing it. The biggest impacts COVID had were more personal things like the inability to travel to see family in Australia (and them unable to come here) and watching my boys suffer as they lost opportunities and had to deal with online classes. 

Wearing masks hasn't been my favourite thing, but I've been able to avoid much of that as I work at home. 

Emotional distress probably rates fairly highly too. We've just passed the two-year anniversary since one of our young friends lost her battle with depression and died by suicide. We've had our own mental health battle in our own household during the pandemic and because I was isolated from good person-to-person contact with people for months at a time, I've found it difficult at times to find ways to interact with others and know how to talk about my own struggles. I wonder if I've gotten worse at "small talk".

Life is getting back close to normal now, though attendance in-person at our church is still lower than it was pre-pandemic. And we are still wearing masks indoors and in crowded public spaces in Japan. There is talk that next month the government recommendation for wearing masks will be lifted, but we wonder what that will look like. Life in Japan is very influenced by not causing discomfort for other people, and will not wearing masks create problems?

I can identify some positives that came about due to COVID: regular walking and talking with David. And the acquisition of a stand mixer (given it by a missionary who had to leave). Also, the increased tendency of people to have some meetings online and thus meaning less time is taken up with travel, even some opportunities to meet online with folk who we'd never otherwise have done so because we all live so far from one another.

But back to my question: What would you like to know about how COVID has impacted life and ministry for missionaries? If you are a missionary, what would you like others to know?

Transition-itis

We've entered the last few days before we transition for a time to Australia. It's the seventh time we've done this as a family in the last 21 years, so we're not unfamiliar with "transitionitis" as I recently saw it called on Instagram @takingrouteblog. I've been a little bit in denial about this actually being a transition, because:

1. We're not going on home assignment, so in that regard it's like a longer holiday

2. It's a relatively short time to be away (two us will be back in six weeks) compared to the most of the longer trips we've made to Australia as a whole family. Only twice before have we travelled there as a family for less than six months, yep, we're not big travellers.

3. We're not changing jobs like we usually do for a home assignment, just pausing (or at least I am, a school teacher does this every year, so it's nothing strange for my husband).

4. We're not moving out of our house either (though that's only happened twice in 21 years prior to moving to Australia). So there's been no packing of boxes, limited sorting of stuff and cleaning, and minimal work to clear out the pantry. Yep, my image of a transition is pretty major!

But when I saw this Insta post yesterday, I realised that we do have some significant transition going on. The definition that they author somewhat tongue-in-cheek gave was: "Transitionitis is a very common ailment affecting hundreds of travelers each year. it is caused by the change in routine brought on by transition, and anxieties (often underlying) relating to the unknowns of a new location and losses associated with leaving the current location."

Several points come to mind out of this:

* Though we're not permanently transitioning to a new location, we'll be in a number of new locations in the coming weeks. My middle son and I will be in seven different houses in the next three months, none of them are familiar to us (even staying with our parents: they've all moved in the last couple of years). We're also thinking about the future on this trip: how will it look to transition both our youngest two out of our household in the next couple of years.

* There's always lots of anxiety surrounding international travel, even for people who aren't living with anxiety as a daily pathological reality. Things like: how will we cope travelling the busy trains with heavy suitcases, will there be unexpected bureaucratic barriers to be met when checking in at the airport, will we be able to sleep on the overnight flight? Though things have settled down a lot with regards to COVID, there are still extra hurdles in place (even just the thought of wearing a mask for 24 hrs is on my mind). I'm really glad we didn't have to travel earlier in this pandemic! We've also been going through a long saga all year with a passport renewal and visa renewal (which has a surprising number of flow-on effects, like when your health insurance expires and when you can apply for an international vaccination passport). We have reached a final hurdle this month that is yet to be completed: we haven't been able to collect our new residence cards with our new visas. It's out of our hands as we're waiting on notification that they're ready for us to collect. [Please pray!]

* And of course change in routine. Some people find that stimulating, but in our family, maintaining a fairly routine life is a way of managing overall stress and anxiety. Travel throws that all to the wind, of course. But the advantage we have here is that our kids are older. They understand what's going on and they have prior experience to help them anticipate what's about to happen.

I'm glad that we don't have many losses this time around, so we haven't had to make a lot of farewells, which only compounds the stress.

This is beside my bed. A good verse to
remember as I drift off to sleep each night.

The author listed a dozen symptoms of "transitionitis". I can recognise some of them from the past. Not so many this time as it's not such a major transition, but recently I've had:

• mushy brain
• inability to think straight—affecting my ability to edit this morning)
• fatigue
• turbulent emotions
• a little bit of sleep deprivation—usually in the form of waking in the middle of the night and being unable to quickly drop back again. This happened at 4am today. My cure is to pick up my Kindle and read my fiction book. I dropped off quickly this morning with this strategy, only to wake again later when I rolled over and knocked my Kindle on the floor!
• stomach issues—I've seen my body in much worse shape, but transition for me usually comes with feelings of hunger, at times I shouldn't be hungry; indigestion/reflux; and often an upset tummy on the day of travel.
• often daily headaches: the result of muscle tension, loss of sleep, and later on, unfamiliar beds.

The only way to "fix" this is to move through the transition to the other side. So I'm getting to the point where I just want to go. But I am trying to be kind to myself, in part, by working hard to prepare beforehand, so there isn't a last-minute push to finish things. We've also been exercising and eating pretty well, and "chilling" in the evenings.

As I've said before, it's been three years since we've seen our eldest son in person. Because just before the pandemic, we let his dependent visa go and Japan hasn't been letting people on tourist visas in. To compound matters, getting to Australia has been very expensive for they had compulsory hotel quarantine for ever so long.

But in the last 18 months we've had weekly family video calls with him. It's been precious time, often two or three hours, of rambling conversation and online board games. And on Saturday we were able to sign off with the sweetest words: We'll hug you next Saturday at the airport!

Looking back at 2021

 The last two years I've used some interesting and challenging questions to write this last post of the year, so I'm going to do it again.

David and me enjoying a pre-Christmas
date.

1. What makes this year unforgettable?

• Second year of the pandemic, what can I say...
• Personally we've had tragedy, ill-health, injury, despair, close encounters with suicide, exhaustion, a creative ending to a high school career, lack of clarity about the future, etc. Some, but not much of that was related to the pandemic. Altogether it's made for a very challenging year personally. I'm thankful for a fulfilling job that meant that even when I had no answers for the personal pain we faced, I found joy and purpose in my work, and of course God gave me hope.

2. What did I enjoy doing this year?

• Editing fiction in my spare time. I spent a couple of months early in the year editing a book by a friend of mine. First time to edit a book-length manuscript, first time to edit fiction. It was challenging in a good way and I hope I get another opportunity to do it again in the future (though it would be great if I could devote work-time, rather than spare-tie to such a project).
• Baking and reading: my two passions I've continued to love.
• Camping: we only made it out to two camping trips this year and one of those was shortened due to a typhoon. The pandemic made it difficult to book campsites across prefectural borders and we complicated things by trying to gather a larger group to do it.
• Walking after dinner: this has become one of my favourite things too, most of the time I love catching up with my husband during our 4–5 km walk, and I miss it when weather or work or other events mean we can't do it for a few days.
• Weekly video calls with our eldest son have been really great too. Often one or both of his brothers join and we usually end up playing online board/card games.

3. What/who is one thing/person you're grateful for?

• I'm grateful for a solid marriage, for a husband who is calm and committed to his family, and we've walked through a very hard year shoulder-to-shoulder. Many people don't have that. I'm ever so grateful I do.
• I'm also grateful to my friends. My daily-trio of friends as well as some other women who have emerged as even more precious than they were before.

4. What did you read/watch/listen to that made the most impact this year?

• Mmm. Hard question as usual. Looking at the books I've read (post on Dec 13), I would suggest the Bogel book about overthinking was probably the most impactful. I also have enjoyed listening sporadically to a podcast call Undeceptions, for example the episode about a same-sex-attracted Christian was eye opening and ultimately very encouraging, another episode I posted about here on Friendship was also excellent.

5. What did you worry about most and how did it turn out?

• This is something I can't share here due to protecting the privacy of my family. My worst fear didn't eventuate, but it still might, only God knows.

6. What's my biggest regret?

• Not being able to see my eldest son this year (it's been 2 ½ yrs now).
• I regret not being able to see any Olympics or Paralympics in person, despite living in the city where they were held.
• Not having the emotional energy to do some things that I used to do.

7. What's something that has changed about me?

• I think I've become a little less less zoned in on "what's next" for our boys. I've had a lot of my expectations for them stripped away (expectations I mostly didn't realise I held).
• I did more teaching this year than I've ever done (mostly in the first quarter of the year). I still don't think it's really my wheelhouse, but it was good to have the opportunity to help other adults learn new things.
• I've become even more discerning about who I bare my heart to.

8. What surprised you most this year?

• How many people are rejecting immunisation. Also I've been saddened by Australia's isolationist policy during this pandemic. There are times that it felt like us expats weren't welcome in our home country. And no, I don't wish to have a discussion about this here or on social media. I have steered clear of writing about these things on social media.
• I've also been happily surprised by some of the ways that I've seen my boys grow and change this year. As I wrote in this blog post, it's harder to anticipate when and what milestones older teens and young adults will achieve, but it's just as satisfying (or more) as when they  were learning to walk and talk.
• I was also surprised at how difficult it was to get used to being back in-person after many months of online meeting.

I'm going to add two more questions here: 

9. What Bible truths impacted you this year?

• "Be still and know that I am God" (Ps 46: 10) has been an ongoing theme since mid-2018. But I also spent several hours on an "accidental" retreat considering the whole of Psalm 46.
• Also I've returned again and again to Hebrews 12:1-3 and Isaiah 40. Both are worth looking up and pondering deeply.

10. What meta-themes have you thought about this year? (in no particular order)

• Efficiency isn't necessarily God's way or the best way.
• Letting go of control.
• Walking alongside older teens and young adults as a parent (of course all these first three are related!)
• Lily pads (see here)
• I got to ponder a wide variety topics courtesy of my work for example: pop culture in Japan, technology in ministry, history of the Japanese church, men in the church, the best uses of social media for mobilisation, rest, good editing practices, and macrons and other questions of the romanisation of Japanese (look it up, it'll either fascinate you or bore you).

Highlights:

• Two camping trips, including camping in a new prefecture.
• Several opportunities to spend time with family friends in-person for the day or evening.
• Immunisation against COVID-19 (yes, a highlight)
• Seeing the social media team that I lead continue to forge ahead producing excellent content.
• Editing a fiction book (as mentioned above)
• The new building and sports field at school. I've rarely been there and actually haven't set foot on the oval ("field" for Americans), but it's great to hear about how it's being used.

Lowlights:

• Aforementioned tragedy and ill-health
• Missed opportunities for good fellowship during online meetings, sometimes due to a lack of thinking-outside-the box by event organisers.
• Shortened winter holiday due to an unexpected and dramatic medical event
• Seeing my boys struggle
• Too many online meetings and not enough people-time some weeks.
• Church being online for most of the year.
• Not being able to get to Australia (which meant some thinking outside the box for a few items I'd rather buy in person there).

Other thoughts

Writing: I did plan to write a blog post every month based on a book called Come Closer by Jane Rubietta. I did it for four months, but then failed to finish the rest of the year. In fact this year I've only published 43 blog posts, that's an all time low (my highest output was in 2011 at 369). It's been a busy and stressful year and I've often been tired. I have written two or three articles for each of the four magazines we've published, plus various social media posts and a a couple of online articles for OMF. But really, my writing output has been very low, an indication of how the year has gone, really. There's lots been going on, but much that I can't share with a wider audience and a lack of energy to invest in writing as well. Contrary to that I've done a lot of editing and continue to enjoy working with other people and their writing.

Goals: these were my stated goals for 2021 (in my first blog post this year) and I think I've done okay at these. How we worked towards #1 looked surprising at times to some outside our household, but there were good reasons for what we did. Of course these aren't "SMART" goals, in that they aren't Measurable, but then I think that there is much that needs to be achieved in life that can't be measured easily and isn't short-term.

1. Looking after myself and my household as best I can
2. Taking care to look out for others who are within my circle of influence—keeping my eyes open for opportunities to serve them and others further afield, and
3. Working to the best of my ability in all the tasks that are mine to do.

I have pondered this blog post long enough and it's just getting longer the more I look at it, so it's time to release it into the wild. If you take up the challenge of answering these questions, I'd love to hear your thoughts (privately, if you wish).

Tidbits from recent weeks

In the spirit of sharing "ordinary life," which is where this blog started out all those years ago! Here's a bit of what's been going on in our house recently (aside from camping):

School

New building and field (before it was completely finished)

School started last week for the students. David started work again full-time more than a week earlier than the kids, and had been working part-time since the start of the month. I'm trying to figure out when we last had just one boy at school—that would be when our eldest started Japanese kindergarten in April 2003, before the one who is now our only boy at school was even born.

Another exciting development at school is the new building that replaces the old cafeteria, but includes a band practise room and a multipurpose room. It overlooks a new full-sized soccer field that is covered in artificial turf. The school looks very different! The 'field" has been gravel for many decades, so this is a huge change.

COVID-19

We've also been touched by COVID-19. We had one case in the high school and that prompted online schooling for just two days at the start of this week while they assessed the situation. We're back to usual on campus classes again now.

As of yesterday all the Tokyo Marshalls are now fully vaccinated, which we're very happy about, especially considering that the country is in the midst of a spike of infections that is far bigger than we've had so far.

Weather

The weather has been in the forefront of our minds, as it usually is in a Tokyo August. Oddly, we had a cooler wet patch in the middle of the month, which we were thankful for. Alas the unbearable heat and humidity soon returned and we had challenges with sleeping and close proximity. Only three of our six rooms are air conditioned, so that made for interesting times with teens who value their privacy. 

On Tuesday this week another cool change came through which dropped temperatures into the low 20s, a shock to the system, but most welcome. We've slept deeply these last couple of nights. A cool change at this time of year is unlikely to turn back into the worst of summer, though we might have one or two 30C days still to come.

Olympics and Paralympics

We've enjoyed many an hour watching these amazing events in our lounge room. The range of English commentary available to us online has been impressive, and we've often played the "guess the commentator's accent" game! It was sad that we didn't get to use the tickets we had to four different events, but a relief in some ways, as spectating in the Tokyo heat would have been very tough.

Lily pads

With holidays behind us, I've struggled a little to find "lily pads" to look forward to. We have talked about a possible camping plan for October and have booked our usual pre-Christmas holiday. But I've also made some smaller plans, which includes pulling out my sewing machine and trialling a weekly out-of-the-house work date with myself.

My work

These last weeks I've been working on the final stages of our Autumn magazine issue about Men in the Japanese church. We finished that on Tuesday afternoon. I've also been communicating with authors who have/are writing for our Winter issue about Technology in Ministry. There's a lot that's been going on in that area and it's a very timely topic to cover, alas that also makes it a challenge to fit everything into the space available!

Our social media continues onwards also. In August we covered Sports, for obvious reasons. Not as much Olympic and Paralympic news as we would have had if we hadn't been in a pandemic, but still, we managed to find plenty to share. In September we have a more challenging topic: Japanese church history. So in recent days I've been reading and trying to write summaries of various topics and eras that make sense and work for social media while at the same time keeping in mind our purpose: mobilising people to be more involved in mission. Yeah, not the easiest of tasks.

I also picked up a small writing gig: writing an article about missionaries and loneliness for our OMF US folk who are tackling that topic in September. It's a topic I've written about many times here, so it was interesting to pick it up again and try to write something fresh.

I've also just written our monthly news and prayer letter. We also have the responsibility of running a prayer night for our fellow 120+ missionaries at our online field conference in a couple of weeks. Planning needs to be done!

I tend to be easily bored, so I'm thankful to have a job that means I'm kept on my toes and have lots of different places to turn my attention, even if it can be stressful at times.

But for today, it's time to pull the plug on work and move into dinner prep and a relaxing evening. How's your August been?

Lamenting this Christmas-time

This topic of lament has come up for me multiple times this year. More often than usual. Possibly because collectively we've experienced more losses than any time in recent decades. I think I'm probably not too far off the mark to say that this disaster has been far more global than anything this world has seen since WW2.

So, I've been pondering lament recently, but also noticing a trend in myself. I've been struggling to see other people experience joy at being reunited with family. Yes, failing to do Romans 12:15: "Rejoice with those who rejoice" (NIV). Probably I haven't been great at the second part of that verse either "Mourn with those who mourn". Compassion fatigue? Or just plain selfishness?

The reality is that this week is probably around when our eldest son would have arrived from Australia to spend Christmas with us, had COVID-19 not derailed international travel (it's been 18 months since we've seen him). It's one of many losses this year has brought, so it's been kind of buried in our thoughts as something not so important. But maybe it's a bigger loss than I thought.

But, after pondering "lament" during the last couple of days, last night it occurred to me that this was also something I needed to bring God, complain to him, and then to leave at his feet. And repeat, as needed.

I recommend watching this 22:48 talk by Elizabeth Lewis Hall, a professor of psychology at Biola University, for some deeper thoughts on lament. I realised that, while she talked about the "anatomy" of lament, by dissecting one psalm of lament, she also talks about some of the short phrases that Jesus used on the cross (see Matt. 27:46 and Luke 23:16) as "laments". 

So a lament doesn't have to be in the form of poetry or song, with clearly thought out phrasing. It can simply be a line, even a thought, directed to God. That's encouraging for I am not especially poetic and certainly there isn't time for writing poetry every time thoughts like these overwhelm us. Writing prose, like a blog post, has helped me process my pain many a time.

Dr. Hall also talks about how putting words to our experience helps to shape our experience. When we express our sadness to God, it's changing our relationship with God, it's increasing our intimacy with him, so that's a great reason to dive into lament:

It’s important that nothing seems to be off limits in terms of what we can bring to God in our suffering. This expression of suffering in lament is a crucial element because what happens then is that our suffering is not denied and our suffering is not minimized. Suffering is not dealt with by explaining it away or by distracting ourselves from it. It’s recognized.

And when it’s recognized, that means that our suffering is legitimated. Research suggests that processing our suffering cognitively and emotionally is necessary in order for growth to occur. 

Biblical laments in psalms almost always include praise, so as we can, it's important to turn to God in praise too. I think, somehow though, in Western Christianity these days we skip the lament, and move too quickly into praise. When I've asked colleagues recently about the worst things about this year, most often they've told me of silver-linings, as if to dwell on the ugly is wrong somehow. But then, I'm not God, so perhaps they're expressing their frustration to him in the privacy of their own prayers, I don't know.

In addition to sadness that our son can't be with us this Christmas, I am also frustrated at the moment by all the people saying that they will refuse to take  COVID-19 vaccine when it is available. What they don't realise is that the more people who do that, the longer this crisis is going to go on. And the harder it's going to be for people like us, who don't live in our home country and whose immediate family is separated by an international plane flight. At the moment, the cost for us to visit Australia for a short time, is not just the cost of a flight, it would mean a total of four weeks of quarantine (two each end), and around AU$5,000 to pay for quarantine in a hotel, as is required by the Australian government, not to mention whatever costs involved in getting the required tests to just let us on a plane.

Australia is (mostly) fine at the moment because they're basically not letting people in or out. I can't see restrictions on international travel being lifted until vaccination (or a pretty darn good treatment option) is found. When I say Australia is mostly okay, I mean that there are industries and sections of the community who are hurting. For example, the education sector that relies on a large number of international students, and the travel, tourism, and hospitality sectors, obviously, plus industries that rely on backpackers, like fruit farmers.

But university students are also hurting. Our son's university did most of the entire year online, and it while it kept things moving through, our son found it a really difficult year. Yes, there is little COVID-19 infection in the community, but health isn't the only thing at stake here.

But that's enough of my ranting . . . to you. I need to go and take my frustrations to God. To quote the Bible: 

"How long, oh Lord?"

What sadness do you need to bring to God? How do you do that best?

Debriefing

A rock in a river near a campsite that our sons have gone to
summer camps at over the years. It's a beautiful spot to sit and
reflect. I'm looking forward to sitting next to a river in a couple
of weeks (camping trip). I'm sure I'll be reflecting too!

A couple of weeks ago I was "guinea pig" for a peer debrief tool that our organisation has developed especially for use at this time when we're beginning to enter the recovery phrase after the last few months of "disaster mode". 

I've done debriefs before, after a term of service, after home assignment. I find it something of a scary sounding name, but the one's I've participated in really look more like an informal chat with a friend, with them asking about how things have been for you in the previous months/years.

The questions my colleague asked me were good, including...

• What memories do you have from the first time you heard about COVID-19 till now?
• Which three are the most emotional or important for you?
• How are you processing, or could you process, these emotions?
• What losses have you experienced?
• What things can't you control? What can you control?
• What emotions have you experienced?
• When you think about COVID-19 and its effects, what has caused you the most stress?
• How have you experienced God during this time?

I literally talked for two hours! So many memories. So many interwoven things that happened. It's weird, because it's a time that felt like it was full of sameness, but when teased out with questions like the above, it's easier to see that there was a lot going on, even if it didn't look that way and was happening without us leaving our homes often.

Incidentally, that sameness that many people around the world felt is captured beautifully in this three-minute film by a teenager in the US.

Losses

I've written earlier about some of the losses, I think the loss I most regret is not being able to say goodbye to colleagues who were leaving Japan permanently. 

The loss that was hardest to deal with on a day-to-day basis was the loss of solitude, especially for work. And even though the boys are now on holidays, I'm still dealing with that loss. My desk in the dining room is just not separate enough at times. In the end (hoping that will be August 20) I will have had six months of working within touching distance of one of my sons. That's wearing. This morning I retreated to the lounge room with my laptop for a break from his intensity.

Control

The question about control was interesting. It's something I've seen people wrestle badly with on social media—to the point where I've lost patience with people who go out to public places, find lots of others who have done the same, then complain about others on social media.

There were plenty of things I could control, though, for example, how much time I spent on social media, our family schedule, our meals, when I went to bed, and what I said yes and no to (see below re. accessibility). I was able to plan enjoyable, productive things like baking, family movie nights, and times chatting with friends via video chat. Though sometimes the unplanned provided pleasure too: the unexpected phone call from a friend asking how I was, or an unplanned decision to drop some brownies off in a friend's mailbox.

One interesting thing I learned was about life without Costco. I usually go there once every eight to ten weeks, but held off longer this last time. I had to do things differently, but we coped okay. The biggest loss was "block cheese", and what eventually drove me back there.

Emotions

But I've also found during this period that my emotions and motivation have been more fluid than usual. For example, our son in Australia turned 21 during this period. It's a time in a young person's life in Australia when historically many have a bigger-than-usual celebration with friends and/or family. But we never had planned to go back for it. My parents stepped up and took him and his girlfriend out for lunch, then hosted a small family party at their home over afternoon tea. David and I also spent a week putting together a compilation of videos and photos from his life for them to watch. We were included in the party via a couple of video calls and lots of photos sent to us. It was fun, but mingled with sadness in my heart. Sadness that probably would have been there anyway, at another time, but amplified by the general sadness of this period of time.

I don't think that emotional and motivational fluidity are things that just I have struggled with at all. But it's been challenging to work through at times. Because my workload didn't change much, and I had little about my weeks that was cancelled, I struggled at times when I needed to keep working, but didn't feel up to it.

I also struggled with how accessible we'd become. All of a sudden we were invited to pray in Zoom meetings with people in Australia, across Japan, and indeed internationally. We were invited to Bible studies in Australia, and church in a variety of places. We also had international Zoom work meetings that intruded upon family time. All this was hard to deal with when our workload remained about the same, yet we also had two boys at home who we were trying to support through online schooling. It was hard to receive all these invitations, but also hard to try to figure out where to draw boundaries without feeling guilty.

Experiencing God

How have I experienced God during this time? That wasn't easy to answer. "Experiencing God" is something of a nebulous thing. Psalm 139 comes to mind:

O Lord, you have searched me and known me!

2 

You know when I sit down and when I rise up;

    you discern my thoughts from afar.

3 

You search out my path and my lying down

    and are acquainted with all my ways.

4 

Even before a word is on my tongue,

    behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.

5 

You hem me in, behind and before,

    and lay your hand upon me.

6 

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;

    it is high; I cannot attain it.

God is always with us. I saw his hand encourage me in small ways and big ways. I'm glad I persisted in blogging through these months, as I can look back and see encouragements along the way. And, incidentally, writing here was a way that I processed (and continue to process) emotions.

I think one of the biggest encouragements along the way was taking things I could control and using them to encourage others, like baking and giving it away. Writing here about my struggles and seeing others encouraged by my honest words. Sharing positive things on social media was another way that I tried to bless others who I couldn't meet face-to-face. So I guess that was a way of experiencing God?

Future changes

One of the hardest questions was considering what changes I might want to make as a result of living through this time. One relates to fellowship and has raised questions in a couple of arenas that we will continue to wrestle with for a while longer, I think.

I'm glad that I had a chance to debrief like this with a friend/colleague. I hope that many more do also (all our OMF Japan colleagues are encouraged to take this tool and ask others to help them debrief). 

As part of this recovery time we've also been urged by our organisation to do a mini retreat. I'm not sure how I might fit that into these coming weeks. The weeks surrounding me taking holidays (as we are in July) are always busy, as my work simply doesn't stop when I'm away, not to mention that having boys on holidays tends to eat into my work time anyway. But maybe after everyone gets back to school in person in September will be the time I can take a short break and reflect.

If you're interested in doing a debrief yourself, or looking at all the questions, please drop me a line and I'll get them to you.