A lost gem

This afternoon I'm going on a regretful journey with my husband. We'll be searching for a jeweler who will repair my precious engagement ring. About ten days ago I discovered that one of the diamonds had fallen out. Who knows where? I'd just returned from Manila, but it had been some time since I looked directly at it.

I love this ring, I've never seen another exactly the same. I'm acutely aware that it is just a thing and that the relationship it represents is far more precious and quite irreplaceable. But still, I love the ring.

Memories through stuff

For some time I've been thinking about writing about how our house is full of memories of people who have passed through our lives. But I thought I'd written something like that before. However as I went searching I couldn't find a specific post about that, so it's time to write it!

As you're may be aware, more people pass through our lives than the life of a family in a more mono-cultural situation. You're probably also aware that the missionary lifestyle tends to be on a lower budget. That plus our mobility means that we often have a lower attachment to stuff. As a result we end up with a wonderful culture of sharing. A lot of sharing of stuff goes on between missionaries.

I often look around my house and think of the stories, the people associated with various things in our house. Maybe you do too? The other day I quickly buzzed around the house with my phone and took some photos of some of our things that have stories. Some of them were special gifts from family, like the first photo here, a present from my sister-in-law who breeds alpacas. But many were given by or bought cheaply from missionaries who were leaving Japan. Yes, like parting gifts. We were doing these friends a favour by taking their stuff (you have to pay to get rid of big rubbish like furniture in Japan). The unexpected cumulative effect of receiving these things is that we have all sorts of things that remind us of friends.

So here's a little tour.

First my scarf that I wore on Friday, as I said, a gift from my sister-in-law, someone I miss. The tag is ironic.

This telephone stand was left behind by colleagues who had to leave due to ill health not long before we first arrived. It's been extremely useful. 

Here is a knife stand we bought off missionaries who left 14 months ago. Beside them a couple of jars of food left over when friends left in July. 

Here are some Tupperware containers given to us by Singaporean colleagues who left Japan a few years ago. Thankfully these colleagues actually came back to Japan after a few years. I'm hoping they won't ask for their stuff back . . . 

This table was given to us by missionary friends a few years ago. They still lived close by here until recently when they had to suddenly move back to the States. Their table remains behind and is a good connection to the memories we share. 

Some of these trays were given to me by a missionary who later died in the UK due to complications from cancer, I didn't get a chance to say goodbye to her.

This bed base wasn't given to us at all, but rather the idea was passed on to us by a missionary who has now retired. However it originated with (I believe) a family who is with us here at CAJ.

Our son's guitar that we bought off good friends in Australia. It's already been on a few aeroplanes (it went to Guam with our son last month).

A camera given to me by missionary friends in Hokkaido, that I'm loving!

Our house is not a museum, all these things that people have given us or we've bought off them are being used and loved. But they do have stories and provide us with a connection with people we've enjoyed being with in the past.

Here are some other posts I've written along similar lines:

• This is one post I recall about stuff (one of the things gained from this goodbye was the Tupperware above), though it was written at a time of pain, not with good memories of things that connect us to people who've gone.
• Connections through recipes was about me baking stuff from recipes that my mum had given me.
• Stories with stuff that root us to Japan not Australia.

Clues

We once stayed in a house while on deputation. It was an occupied house, but we didn't know the owners and never met them because they were on holidays. Actually this has happened twice, though the first time the owners came back before we'd left. Both times we crept around the houses seeking clues as to the owners of the house. We felt like interlopers crossed with detectives. 

The things that especially gave us clues were what books were on the shelves and what they had in their kitchen.

Last week I snooped around our house, wondering how much evidence lay around, after almost a year away from the country, of our strong connection to Japan. Without too much effort this is what I found lying around (and I didn't go into the boys' bedrooms):

Seaweed and flavoured seaweed sprinkles for rice sent to us
in a care package by my best Japanese friend.

Old New Year cards.

A Japanese sudoku book (with odd English).

Japanese bandaids (very convenient finger-sized ones at that).

Japanese bowls, that we eat Japanese noodles out of
They also make good soup and ice-cream bowls.
We brought these with us a few years ago.

Origami on top of my dresser. Remnant of one of our Japan-nights.

Japanese pimple cream (Clearasil).

My cheap Japanese coffee maker (AU$1.10) and our saucepan
strainer.

An banana-shaped eco bag.

Then we start to get into stuff we use for our deputation.
Authentic origami paper plus old Japanese kindy name tags.

A map of Japan in Japanese and the Gomi Game (a game
we made up for this year in Australia).

Authentic chopsticks in our drawer.

Prayer cards

And the pile of stuff we use during our meetings (books, pamphlets,
display items, etc.).

The significant endless roll

I pulled out this roll of wrapping paper this morning to wrap my mother's day present. My husband said, "Oh, the endless roll."

And he's right. It is the same paper we've wrapped all the birthday presents, Father's Day presents, and almost any other sort of present with all year. With one exception: we had one roll of Christmas-themed wrap.

To me it symbolises how temporary our year in Australia has been. We've lived simply. Not bought unnecessary things that would end up in storage next month. We've borrowed rather than buy. Made do, rather than buy. We're now preparing to give some more of our stuff away, including some presents we received for 21st birthday celebrations and our wedding (17 ½ yrs ago). Things that would probably have a place in our home if we were planning to make our home here in Australia in the near future, but we aren't.

It is different to the life we lead in Japan. There we have a greater sense of permanency, though we still try to live simply. Life as a missionary in a rented Japanese house forces restraint on you.

I seem to recall that if I were to get any more gadgets in my Tokyo kitchen (like a coffee maker), then I'd have to give something away just to fit it in my cupboards. Not that I have a large number of gadgets, but Japanese kitchens aren't built for storage. Mind you, I have a large kitchen by Japanese standards!

But we do have a whole drawer of wrapping paper.

Here we've borrowed camping chairs and sleeping bags. There, we've just bought three more of each (secondhand, to replace old ones we've outgrown).

Here we're giving away most of the few toys we own, because they will have been outgrown in three years time. There we have a lot of toys and games the boys are looking forward to being united with again, especially Lego.

Here we live with our suitcases in easy reach. There the suitcases are more inaccessible.

One day we'll return to live in Australia and then we'll invest more in material possessions. Just now, though, we're living with other people's things. Mostly we've not been able to choose much of what we live with here, it's been lent in response to an appeal for "the missionaries who are coming home". 

And it's been gratefully received. The cost of setting up a home just for a year would have been a waste of money. Storing all the furniture and all the other things that go into a home would have been prohibitive too.

Please don't get me wrong. We've had a comfortable year, an amazing year. It's just that every now and then something like a roll of wrapping paper reminds me that we're just temporarily here and that's affected our choices.

But again, I'm reminded of these verses: 

19-21 “Don’t hoard treasure down here where it gets eaten by moths and corroded by rust or—worse!—stolen by burglars. Stockpile treasure in heaven, where it’s safe from moth and rust and burglars. It’s obvious, isn’t it? The place where your treasure is, is the place you will most want to be, and end up being" (Matthew 6, The Message). 

So, heaven first, then (at present) Japan, and third comes Australia. Sounds weird, but put that way Japan is home just now, still a temporary home, but it feels slightly more permanent than Australia.

Struggling with pride

I was recently introduced to a lady in her 50s at an English-speaking Christian women's gathering. She'd only been in Japan for nine weeks. Within a couple of minutes I was shocked as she admitted, "I came to Japan on the condition that I be allowed to buy all new stuff."

Huh? Many of the women at the gathering were missionaries, and I'd assumed she was too. My first reaction was one of judgement, What sort of attitude is that to have about being called to Japan? As the conversation progressed I realised that she possibly wasn't a missionary, and I had the opportunity to ask this later when we prayed together. She was the wife of a businessman. Still, I had trouble stilling that internal voice of contempt at the blatant materialism.

You see it is so far from how we and most of our colleagues live our lives, where we survive on a lot of secondhand and hand-me-down goods. I love new stuff as much as the next girl, but it simply isn't the first route that we choose for getting most things we need, particularly the larger items.

As I baked this afternoon my thoughts drifted along lines of where I had gotten a lot of my kitchen stuff. 

My "new" flour container.

My pink Tupperware flour container comes from my friend who recently left for Singapore (I posted about that here). Some of my larger oven trays come from a friend who's gone to her heavenly home. She gave them to me before she went back to the UK for cancer treatment. 

Oven trays, many of which were
given to us.

A few of our pieces of furniture come from missionaries we've hardly met. The telephone stand/cupboard houses all my recipe books and is very handy. It came from a family that had to return to Australia due to ill health.

Our telephone stand/cupboard.

We also have a number of things acquired more anonymously, like at second-hand stores or garage sales. Our little food processor I bought in Hokkaido very early in our time in Japan. I was so pleased at my "cheap" food processor.

My second-hand
food processor.

Ah, the memories, the connections (see here for a post on connections we find through food). Memories that new things just don't have. I'm not discontent with my lifestyle. Most of the time I'm not hankering after new things. That makes it hard when I encounter those who do. My first reaction is judgement against the materialism that I can so clearly see in them. However, it isn't my job to judge them, not even in my thoughts. 

I'm glad that I was forced to remain in that little table group on Tuesday and pray for that lady. Probing more deeply, she and her husband did feel "called" to Japan, but now she's here she doesn't know what God has for her to do. So I prayed for her. I asked God later for forgiveness for my judgemental heart, and asked him to reveal my own faults, because as soon as I put her down (even in my head), I'm elevating myself, as if I'm better in His sight than she is, just because I live a more modest lifestyle.

Pride. It is something that I don't want to take back with me to wealthy Australia next year. There is no good in being prideful that we manage to live on a small budget. But it is an insidious beast, poking its head up where it isn't wanted.

I have new stuff

I'm not sure why, but I have some difficulty owning up to the fact that we have some new "stuff" that I'm gaining a lot of pleasure from.

• Is it a missionary thing? That we have to always have second-hand stuff (you know, the old "used tea" bag syndrome)?
• Or is it a reaction against the materialism that so encases our societies?
• Or is it that I secretly feel that having (and enjoying) new stuff is an ungodly thing to admit? Something like the ancient gnostics who believed everything non spiritual was inherently bad?
• Or perhaps it is this song:

Well I'm now going against my feelings and I'll tell you about the stuff we've got.

David's mum wanted to give us a big gift when she was here. She ended up buying us a new digital TV (our old TV was a dinosaur and because Japan is now totally digital we haven't been able to watch live TV for some time). It's 28 inch and is wonderful. But we still can't watch live TV. Our antenna needs to be changed, so as I type I'm hearing the antenna guy outside replacing our antenna (thankfully at the expense of the landlord). By the way, what a terrible job, climbing on people's roofs: stinking hot in summer, freezing cold in winter! So soon we'll be able to watch Japanese TV. I don't even know what's on these days, it's been several years . . .

When we went to Costco, just after our camping trip back a few weeks, we finally found a Stick blender. We were given one for our wedding, but had to leave it in Australia because Australian electrical goods need 240 volts and the Japan's network only gives out 110 volts. And up till now we haven't seen separate stick blenders (apart from a food processor which we already have), or they've been too expensive. But now we have one. David made smoothies the other day with it. Today I made myself an iced decaf coffee and also blended the home made tomato sauce (US = ketchup) that I whipped up. It's terrific, the stick blender, I mean! But I'm sure that the tomato sauce will be great too, it smelt delicious.

Broken over-the-ear headphones

New ear buds.

Yesterday I did some shopping for Fathers day and another family birthday. While I was out I also bought myself some snazzy ear buds after my fragile over-the-ear ones broke on our journey to Australia. My new ear buds have a retractable cord and different sized rubber bits. So you can choose the size that fits your ear canal. Makes sense! I've always had trouble with ear buds because I have narrow ear canals. By the way, ear phones are wonderful things for long train journey like I'll do on Monday to our monthly OMF prayer meeting.

And I got interrupted in my posting by the antenna man who got busy discovering that most rooms in this house (think four out of our six rooms, not including bathroom or toilets) had outdated TV outlets. Ancient, if I read things correctly. They were finished installing the antenna a loooong time before they finished sorting out all the outlets! But now we seem to have access to a lot of stations, even a free satellite disk that the "ABC" of Japan provides. We shall have to explore this.

So now you know about my new stuff. Do you ever feel embarrassed about owning new stuff or is that just my special weirdness?

Cool kitchen appliance!

Last week we bought this cool apple slicer/peeler. It is so fun. It creates an apple slinky in the blink of an eye!

I packed and other interesting news from the weekend.

Yes - the good news is that I packed a box yesterday and contributed to numerous others! Colleagues of my husband looked after the boys for six hours and allowed us to pack...and have lunch together in peace at home for the first time in we can't remember how long. Usually if we have a babysitter for a date, we go out! Still it was unusually peaceful and helps you to realise how much energy is emitted by young children and especially boys. We have a reason why we are constantly tired. Now, however, there are almost none of our beloved books on the shelves. No photos left. My (electronic) piano is gone. Two shelves have gone. The hook which in winter I use to hang my gown on was gone until I protested that I still hang my light jacket on it in this mid-season. I was wearing it yesterday and because it "stood empty" it got packed. Remind me not to stand still and look empty, won't you? I threw out more toys and my wardrobe is thinning. We have only 100kg of luggage space. After that we will post whatever else we deem indispensable. We're keeping to a minimum what we take to Australia. How few clothes can I live with for the time being? I'm planning to go shopping in the land where I can buy clothes that fit me which say M not LL! (No, I don't lose weight on the aeroplane, the sizing is smaller here.) So, I've purged my wardrobe fairly well. I'd forgotten how invasive packing up a house is. You have to pry into corners that you'd rather not. Make decisions you'd rather not. It challenges your committment to Stuff. Brings back some balance to the question 'What is really important?' Packing to leave your stuff for a year brings extra challenges. What will you still want in a year? What if you end up not coming back - what would you like sent to you in Australia if this unlikely scenario occurs? We also had a video conference over Skype on Friday night with a group called our HMT or Homeside Ministries Team. They are organising practical details for us like a house, furniture, car and medical appointments. They also give us advice and pray for us. What a wonderful team! By the way, if any of you live in Brisbane and have a Fridge-freezer, washing machine or printer which you could lend us for a year, please let us know. But for now I will go back to my rapidly-becoming-naked house.