Finishing up the year with joy

We've had some cold days and my office,
which gets no sun this time of year, is a 
chilly place. It's a bit hard to see, but in this
photo from Friday I had a blanket on my lap
and a heated mat under my feet, as
well as the electric heater behind me.

The last fortnight has been pretty hectic. First our first grandchild was born, then, before we'd had much time to process that, two days later we were neck-deep into running a wrestling meet at school, an intense, exhausting event.

And we really didn't stop from there. A usual full Sunday and then straight back into work for the next five days. Lots of good things, just not much breathing room in the middle. Thankfully we've remained healthy, school finished on Friday and then we had Saturday as a proper day off. 

This morning we had a visitor from the Australian OMF office–not something that we often have received in our years here, but it was a blessing to spend a few hours with this colleague who we'd barely met before today. 

This afternoon we're finishing off various home chores and a few editing/email matters for me too. Tomorrow afternoon we head to Australia to meet our new grandchild and fully immerse ourselves in that reality for 10 days or so. I guess I should do some packing soon too.

Wrestling meet admin fun. High-decibel, high-stress
workplace for 12 hours!

It's amazing to think we're coming up to nearly two years since our last child left home (in February). There'll be time for reflecting as I write my traditional last blog post for the year in a couple of weeks, but even now, as work starts to shut down for Christmas and New Year, I can't help but feel a little thoughtful. When talking with our visitor this morning, I said that we felt fairly content with how things were at present. He grabbed hold of that word "content" and was glad to hear it. And yes, it's true. We don't know what the future will hold, but for today, we're content in general with where things are at.

Yesterday David led the service at church. The theme was joy and David lead out with the fact that it was exactly (yesterday) 25 years since we first landed in Japan. [I also played the piano for worship, which was a real joy, because it's been a long time since I got to play Christmas music for worship in a church.] 

I realise that I'd shared about the anniversary in our prayer letter last month, but not here. Here is what I wrote in our prayer letter:

Here's the link to an article I wrote for our Australian OMF magazine about the anniversary: https://omf.org/au/one-day-at-a-time-25-years-in-japan/

We don't want your praise for this achievement, but I do want to share the story in a way that gives praise to God for sustaining us here this long. The reasons why people don't get to stay that long on the mission field are many and could easily have applied to us at several points in the last quarter of a century! We're thankful for the opportunities that we've had and the glory goes to God.

I'm not taking my computer with us tomorrow for this short time with our kids in Australia, so I may not get to write another blog post until after Christmas...though a short grandma-type post might be possible using my phone! In any case, I hope you have a blessed Christmas time with loved ones, whatever that looks like in your life.

P.S. And for those who asked: no, I will not be sharing our granddaughter's name or photo on this blog, just as I've never shared my kids names or photos in this public space.

Unexpected tears

More unexpected joy this week, but you're going to have to bear with me a tiny bit because there's backstory to why I was crying during a two-hour predominantly Japanese-language OMF celebration on Monday.

For a long time I've had a passion to share missionary's stories. It's stories that grab people's attention, and missionaries collectively have some amazing ones to tell, but often not the time or skill or passion to get them out to a wider audience. It's my joy to be pretty much working with missionaries and their stories most of the time these days. 

In 2017 I had a unique opportunity to start a blog for OMF Japan that has become a wonderful vehicle for getting missionary's stories about Japan out to a wide audience. I've had the support of OMF Japan leadership and the field in this endeavour and the last eight years we have published one story a week on our website...that's around 400 stories. At almost the same time I joined with one of my colleagues to start OMF Japan Facebook and Instagram pages as ways to get our website stories seen even further.

Fast forward to today and I'm working with a creative team of five on our social media, and getting stories from across Japan to share with thousands of our followers. In September this year we had the theme "Partnering with Japanese churches" and one of my team members asked one of her colleagues, AJ, for a story about the church that he is planting in partnership with their church. AJ wrote a really good story. As soon as I read it I knew this was important to share with our audience. So, I edited it and then we got it out there (you can see it here).

On Monday, we celebrated the 75th anniversary of missionaries coming to Japan with OMF and 60th anniversary of missionaries going from Japan to other parts of Asia with OMF. It was a joint two-hour gathering in a church in downtown Tokyo.

A portion of AJ's story was shared as a key part of the message presented by OMF International's General Director (GD), in fact, he used it to bookend his talk on John 3: 29, 30.

In particular, this bit:

When we first began exploring the idea of planting a new church, I sat down with our Japanese pastor from Hatogaya and admitted, “I am scared of this undertaking.” . . .

Pastor Oshima listened and I will never forget his response. He simply smiled and said, “That’s okay. I’m scared too. Let’s be scared together.” 

I was stunned, and delighted. And teary. 

Our organisation is very large, over 2,500 people actively engaged in various ways across the globe. The GD is from Taiwan and works in Singapore, I've met him only once and never had a conversation with him. Yet this story had reached him and he used it to encourage his largely Japanese audience (with translation) to push on in doing God's work.

I only had a tiny part to play in this, but somehow God took my "two small fish" and used them for his glory.

To be fair, there were other elements in the gathering that had me pulling out a tissue, before and after this surprise. Most of the talking was in Japanese and the only speech that I really understood was the one spoken in English by the GD. 

But we sang. One of the songs, "One Voice" I first encountered it in Japanese during our first term in Hokkaido. I learned it during a very difficult time in my life when I felt pretty useless and exhausted (two little boys under 5 + trying to work in a Japanese church without much language or capacity). It makes me emotional most times I sing it! Interestingly, the English version doesn't affect me at all!

English lyrics:

Father, we ask of You this day
Come and heal our land
Knit our hearts together
That Your glory might be seen in us
Then the world will know
That Jesus Christ is Lord

Let us be one voice that glorifies Your name
Let us be one voice declaring that You reign
Let us be one voice in love and harmony
And we pray, O God, grant us unity

Now is the time for you and I
To join our hearts in praise
That the name of Jesus
Will be lifted high above the earth
Then the world will know
That Jesus Christ is Lord

After the service they had some refreshments and there was much mingling amongst those gathered. The prayer booklet, Beneath the Surface, was for sale, in English and Japanese, this is another project that I had deep involvement in in 2019/20. I'm always excited to see it "out in the wild" as it's also one of my editing babies! I had just had a conversation the day before with someone from our church who's very excited about this booklet, she's sent it to her mum in New Zealand who is also excited and it giving it away to whoever she can. My friend asked me for 10 more copies!

I was exhausted by the end of Monday. It included four trains and an hour-long car journey and constant interaction from the moment I climbed into the car before 8 am. But also so much brimming with joy at God's good gifts to me that day. Though I periodically feel pretty useless and not worthy of being used by God in Japan, he continues to call me and to encourage me, and even use my "two small fish" (see the story of Jesus feeding the five thousand in John 6).

'Twas the week before Christmas

I did my usual Monday grocery shop this week and was a little overwhelmed by the crowds. It was hard to get a park in the huge carpark under our local shopping centre (there are more than 3,000 car parks at the centre, the majority of them are undercover). And in the grocery store itself there were lots of people "hunting in packs" and more notable were those who looked like they'd been at it for a long time: their trolleys were full to overflowing, they held long lists, their eyes were bleary, and occasionally they could be heard on the phone consulting other important parties. It was pretty crazy.

'Twas the week before Christmas, 
when all through the mall,  
shoppers descended like a mad summer squall 

—penned by David Marshall, Dec '23

Because we're about to travel and be guests of our parents, I wasn't buying much, but I know our mums are probably stressed about all this, just as these (mostly) women appeared to be. I hope that we will be able to be gracious guests and not cause too much trouble!

But really, what I want for Christmas is not the "perfect" meal or decorations or presents, I just want to honour our families by spending time with them, some of whom we haven't seen for more than five years. We put so much emphasis on making this celebration "just right" that we can easily forget the more important things.

Obviously, as a woman of Christian faith, the most important thing to me is that we're remembering that this is about Jesus, the son of God, the miracle that God came to earth to be one of us. Without that event, this celebration would never have started. Unfortunately, as we all know, in many places, he's completely forgotten, overtaken by many other aspects of the season. And even those of us who are Christians can let the general fervour and busyness of the season overtake the meaning of the story that has grown a little too familiar to us.

A bit of a blurry photo of the outdoor
carols service that our eldest son's church
ran for their community. He's on the guitar
on the left of the picture. It was fun to join in
this and encouraging to hear the origin
story of the season told clearly.

But I think it's also a great time to celebrate what else God's given us. For many of us that includes family and friends. I'm thankful for being able to be physically with family this year. It's a great time to get together and be thankful (Australians, especially, without any culture of thanksgiving celebrations separate to Christmas). It's also wonderful time to gather with our communities, with "our people", and be thankful for where we get to live and the people we get to do life with. To be filled with joy at the various fun things planned for this time of year, especially when we know life can be too full of pain and drudgery. 

It's a time of year when things get magnified: bad things can seem worse and small positive things can make a huge difference. Let's take time to acknowledge the good and the joy. And let's release some of those high expectations we have of ourselves and of others, be faster to apologise and to thank, and not so fast to criticise. Let's take pleasure in the small things.

Lining up ducks

I haven’t written a blog post yet this week, mostly because it’s been a busy week away from my desk. Actually a very different looking week to what most of the year has looked like. I spent a lot of the week with other people! All day Monday I spent at a prayer meeting with other OMF missionaries. And travelling across the city in peak hour on trains to get there and back (total about three hours travel and six trains). It was something I hadn’t been looking forward to. Last year when I did this long day I ended up with a nasty headache and actually fairly distressed at wearing a mask (the pressure on my nose and ears when I have a headache is close to unbearable). However I’m more used to wearing masks now and I didn’t end up with the worst of headaches, so it wasn’t so bad.

Tuesday morning I did a quick couple of hours catching up on urgent computer tasks and email before replenishing the larder with a grocery shop and then shooting off downtown again. This time I spent the afternoon packing the latest issue of the magazine that I play a significant part in publishing.

Wednesday was a cold, rainy day, so I was glad I got to stay home and work at my desk. I made good progress that I was able to continue into Thursday morning. Then Thursday afternoon was consumed with online work meetings, specifically about planning for the weeks ahead, which are less-than-straightforward weeks. More about that later.

Friday morning I spent at a school prayer meeting and then a couple of hours with small fellowship group in a restaurant. Friday afternoon was another shopping trip and then seeing what I could salvage from the rest of the day at my desk, but a headache caught up with me and I didn’t last too long there.

In the middle of that has been a few other things:

• 
  Fudge making: last year I raised some money for the school by making and selling fudge to staff and local friends. I’m doing it again this year. I’ve made it a little easier by using a silicon mold, which means that the size of the pieces is much more consistent. So in between other things, I’ve been making fudge this week.

• Wrestling: our youngest (16 y.o.) has rejoined the wrestling team this year. Last week they had their first meet, a small affair between two schools. It was weird to be back in person at a sporting event, but also great. Unfortunately he got injured in his first match and hasn’t been able to get back into training this week while he recovers. But we did watch the rest of the team via a live video link on Thursday night.
• 
  Cricket: cricket fans that we are, we’ve been enjoying live cricket this week for the first time in several months. The English team is in Australia at the moment. The two countries are playing the famous Ashes series. We’ve been able to subscribe to the series (that has rarely been possible in the years we’ve been overseas) and it’s fun. Alas, most of the play happened during our work hours this week so we haven’t seen much, but it’s been fun, another interest David and I share.

• I also passed 100 books read for the year (I also started more than 20 more, but for one reason or another they ended up in the "I don't want to finish reading" list). I've got more than a dozen lined up for the next few weeks, I wonder how many of those I'll get read?

Monday and Friday would have looked quite different during most of 2021. I’m so grateful that, for the moment at least, we’re not living under so many restrictions. It’s weird to look at the cricket and see crowds of people without masks on, though. Masks are still being worn by 99.9% of people in public here.

The coming weeks are a mixture of relaxation and business. This time next week we’ll be up in the mountains taking a week’s holiday. Our traditional pre-Christmas holiday. With school on a three-week break, I anticipate that I’ll be taking things a little slower after Christmas also. Certainly we won’t be getting up at 6am.

In January I’m helping facilitate the same OMF course I helped with last year. This year it’s still online, but we’ve changed a few things so that hopefully it will be a little less arduous. However, I haven’t completely stepped away from my social media job, so I’ll be juggling a few more balls than I did last year. Plus, there's a variety of wrestling events on in January and February. We'll see how well I come out of that busy season. I didn't cope very well in January/February this year, but part of that was an unexpected and traumatic loss in mid-February.

Meanwhile, I prepare as best I can for what's to come. First of all is getting my "ducks lined up" so I can go away and not check email or open my computer for a week. Ah...the bliss. I've got fruit mince pies to make and books to read!

How's your December looked so far?

Thankful for my job

Have I told you recently that I love my job? I love the variety and challenge. I love the flexibility and the mixture of working with people as well as on my own. I also love that I've continued to grow in this skill that I've invested myself in learning—editing. And that the job offers endless challenge to continue to grow.

Editing, like most professions, requires a certain boldness in your own skills, knowledge, and opinions, even more so if you start out in it with little official training. But I've grown in confidence over the years and now, more than 10 years after I started in earnest in the editing business, I find that I'm relishing working in an area that I feel pretty comfortable in. I never got that far in my Occupational Therapy career. I moved onto motherhood and missionary work less than four years after starting work as an OT (and was employed in multiple jobs), so I never really gained the confidence that comes with experience. I can't say that I've gotten to that level of experience with many other things, so this is something to enjoy and be thankful for.

All that being said, I still have much to learn about editing, and indeed, if I didn't, I think I'd become bored and move onto something else! I'm currently enjoying dipping my toes in the world of editing a fiction novel in my spare time.

Mind you my current job involves a lot more than just editing words. I manage a magazine production team, which means managing schedules and the space in the actual magazine. I work with editors, fact checkers, a proofreader, and designer. I also work with a team producing social media content for our mission, which includes working with constantly changing technology, as well as visual and auditory content. I work with writers and people who don't consider themselves writers, but write nonetheless. My job involves a fair bit of writing too: from emails, to social media content and magazine articles. I'm also involved in mentoring editors as they learn and grow, and helping writers learn about improving their writing. 

One cool thing about editing is that you're constantly learning, not just because you intentionally go out to do that, but the content you edit teaches you as you go, and often you have to do research to do a good job at editing. For example, in recent weeks I've learned about Doraemon and NiziU, an anime character and recent Japanese pop group. I've watched videos about warfare in Afghanistan (for the novel I'm editing) and listened to a podcast about how Japan's exported its culture to the rest of the world. I had to look up the plurality principle and check references for the average size of a Japanese church. I love it how I get stretched by the different themes that we work with both in the magazine and in social media.

I this this is a great quote about the editing profession: (from the end of a book about magazine editing)

Editors will forever be burdened with the public perception that they are grammar nerds, cocktail-schmoozing glitterati, or tough-nosed autocrats.

Such is life.

But as you now know, editing is more than these things—and even more than these things put together.

Editors work with ideas, grappling with concepts that must prove themselves to be fascinating, enlightening, valuable, or necessary—or risk dismissal as the editor plows on in search of better ones.

Editors work with words, making them inform, making them amuse, making them sing.

But most of all, editors work with people. We work with readers, first and foremost. We work with writers a lot. We work with designers, publishers, circulations managers, and artists. We work with sources: presidents, janitors, movie stars, prostitutes, CEOs, victims, teachers, and everyone else we can find who will tell us great stories and make us feel something.

We spend too much time in the office, but we get out when we can: to parties, to conferences, to gatherings of people who might give us the next great story to tell...

Editing allows you to see things that other people don't get to see. But mainly editing allows you to think. You're paid to think and create and work with teams to build something new each month.

It's a great job. 

From The Layers of Magazine Editing, Michael Robert Evans, pp. 326-327. 

Personally things have been rough in recent months, for various reasons I can't go into here. I did start this week with a pretty heavy heart (but feel better today). But I have to say that it really helps that both David and I have jobs that we enjoy and that are meaningful. I am very thankful! 

Of course I'm also thankful that I can walk through each day remembering my rock, the unshakeable one:

He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken. (Psalm 62:6 ESV)

Much to be thankful for

Sometimes on a Monday it sometimes seems easier to write here than it is to do other things. . . I've got much to be thankful for today. David's been away at a conference in Malaysia since Wednesday and I've coped fine. That may seem a strange thing to say, but it's not always been true when he's been away from us. He's back with us today, but still recovering from the overnight flight and the usual over-full head that a conference will induce!

Field of cosmos.

In the meantime I've had a rather lighter schedule than usual. There has been a welcome lull in the magazine production process, so I've been able to spend more time away from my computer than is usually possible (or advisable). 

On Thursday I took most of the day off and rode to a favourite coffee shop via my favourite park. It had been a long time since I'd taken a long ride, and it was most refreshing. I didn't even take work to do at the cafe.

Not many flowers in the park at this time of year. I can't remember
what this is, but it was one of the last standing.

Lunch enjoyed in cozy spot in the "loft" of this coffee shop.
It's not that long ago that lasagne wasn't on many menus
in Japan, let alone a non-Italian coffee shop's. I had
to learn how to make it myself so that I could enjoy
it periodically.

A rare public telephone in a rare telephone box,
donated by Rotary. This I found on the edge of
a small, but leafy park that I'd never seen before.

On Friday my day was filled with a school prayer meeting, going to the gym, grocery shopping, and a much needed time of language exchange (two of the three of us have been so busy we haven't gotten together for two months), followed by an enjoyable evening watching rugby union.

This is a strange historical building, also found at this small newly-discovered park.
 My Japanese is not good enough to read the sign, but I'll put it
below for anyone who could enlighten us. Google Translate tells
 me it was built in 1781 and was a storage warehouse for ? firewood.
It is quite small, so I can't imagine that it stored much at all.

We are between sports seasons so the weekend was blessedly quiet. On Saturday afternoon the two boys and I went and got our flu injections. A point of praise that I managed to both schedule and complete this with almost no assistance from my husband and his superior language ability—"almost" being the important word because he did help with filling out the forms via a video call.

On Sunday I woke up with a Wry Neck (aka stiff neck) that turned ugly after church—I was gasping with pain at small adjustments in my posture for several hours. Thankfully I managed to see a physical therapist before they shut for 1½ days (today's a public holiday). Thankful too that I had few responsibilities for the rest of the day and the boys helped me out a little. My third point of thanks is for the prayer of friends and family. It's so helpful at times when you feel desperate and alone to have people you know you can call on to pray or help. There were other local friends I could have called on for both, but it didn't get that bad.

The other huge point of thanks really is a whole blog post or article all on its own. Twelve months ago I wrote this post about a friendship goal that a psychologist had given me. I will write a separate post about how this has been, suffice to say that yesterday I had a timely (pre-organised) video conversation with two of the friends who were part of that goal last year that not only fed my soul, but helped me through a rough afternoon of pain. 

I've woken up this morning after a good sleep and with just a stiff neck, not debilitating pain, so I am thankful for a timely answer to prayer.

So you see how much I have to be thankful for! It's been a quiet few days and I'm feeling a bit more rested than I usually am after David's been away. Indeed recently I've found myself flagging before 9pm at night, which is a bit unusual, but a good thing to take notice of.

My kitchen

Inspired by a month of posts by expats about their kitchens by Taking Route Blog #thisglobalkitchen, I'm going to tell you about mine.

My kitchen is not glamorous, but it is functional and I love it. It's bigger than a usual Japanese kitchen, but nowhere near as large as a kitchen would be in the usual three-bedroom house in Australia.

Looking back to the dining room and my corner office from the kitchen sink.

When we first came to Japan, one of the biggest challenges at home was the kitchen. We were in a much smaller place (we were a smaller family then, just one boy less than two-years-old). What drove me crazy was no bench space (i.e. "counter"). It is pretty typical, we've discovered, for a Japanese kitchen to have little food preparation space. The only place we could prepare food in our first Japanese kitchen, was on the sink-drainage area. 

Thankfully this kitchen (and house) is much larger, though I'm not sure if I would have appreciated it as much if I hadn't had had to work in a much smaller space (that first kitchen shared a tiny room with the laundry and shower ante-room).

When visitors who know Japan come to visit, one of the first things they usually comment on is our kitchen. It has an unusual amount of storage room. These built-in floor-to-ceiling cupboards are unusual, what's more, a crafty previous resident has added tasteful internal curtains to these glass-doors. But there are other unusual elements that we've added.

This house has had numerous missionaries live in it previously. It is not owned by a Christian and was not purpose-built for foreigners. However, when we moved in the kitchen had a most unusual element: an ancient American gas oven/stove. It didn't fit, being far deeper than these cabinets were. In our small attic we found the original under-stove cabinet that was removed to put the oven in. A former missionary had brought an oven with them from the US!

I loved that dinosaur of an oven, even though we had to practically lie on the floor to light it. Its large four-burner top provided pseudo-bench space that was so valuable. Ovens are not usual in a Japanese kitchen. Most people use toaster ovens and microwave ovens with convection functions, which are obviously much smaller.

Alas, four years ago that oven started leaking gas. You can read about that drama here. The Japanese repairmen who came to look at it had never seen the likes of it! There was much sucking in of breath over the teeth (a clear sign in Japan that there is a major problem).

The end result of that drama was that we lost that old oven and bought this Japanese oven and three-burner stovetop to replace the dinosaur—that was not a cheap decision. We reasoned that we'd be living here for some years yet with our three growing boys (they were aged 10, 13, and 16 at that time). One of the things I love to do is cook and bake, I really struggled with the idea of going back to just two burners and only using my microwave/convection oven (even though it was the biggest you can buy here). 

This Japanese oven is the most spectacular oven I've ever used. It heats up quickly and cooks very reliably. I'm still holding out hope that when we move from here we can take the oven/stove with us to a new place, but know that that might not be a reasonable expectation as we'd like to move into a smaller place after all our boys move out.

We have underfloor storage. This is a cool thing about Japanese houses (not sure if they exist in apartments). A place to put food and stores under the floor is very cool.

Underfloor storage.

Oil, potatoes, and cereal in this side.

Breadmaker with rubbish "drawers" underneath.

Other elements of the kitchen that I love are the breadmaker (we make our own sliced bread), the chest freezer, and a large fridge with lots of compartmentalised drawers. All these make providing food for my family much easier.

You'll see under the breadmaker the plastic drawers that help us sort rubbish as we dispose of it. The top drawer is glass and tin, then "unburnable" (i.e. doesn't fit any other category), and the bottom is paper and cardboard. The rest is in the bin on the other side of the kitchen next to the stove: burnable (raw food, scraps, etc.) and recyclable plastics.

Look closely and you will see that the lino is torn in places. The mat in front of the sink helps to hide that. Also, there is a gas-outlet in the floor that we don't use, but it dangerous for foot traffic, so it's covered with a carpet tile! The wall tiles are an ugly green, and the trim on all the doors are hard to clean.

It's not a shiny, new kitchen with fancy appliances. It's not particularly space-efficient and it's challenging for two people to work in, but it works for us and I'm very thankful for God's provision. Not just of this kitchen, but this house. Next year it will be ten years since we moved in here. It's an old house that has it's flaws and quirks, but we've done the majority of our child-raising here and we're thankful for the stability and convenience it affords (it's close to school, church, shops, and the train station).

Japan is not an easy place to live and work as a missionary, but we have many things to be thankful for in terms of ease of living and stability of society. Indeed "The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places" (Ps 16:6 NIV).

Typhoon and wall-less school

It's coming to the end of another unusual week in our house and I'm feeling restless. I've had a couple of great topics for blog posts percolating in my mind, but no time to write about them. But I think what's making me restless are two other things.

Just for fun I added in some other photos from yesterday.
I went to a missionary-women's prayer and fellowship
day and we went for a stroll in the nearby bush. Ironically,
not so far from where our 11th grader was hiking.

1. We're waiting on a large tropical storm (called typhoon in this quarter of the world) to run over the top of us this weekend.
2. School has been unusual this week: it's an annual event called School Without Walls (nickname—SWOW) and has meant only two of us have been home these last couple of nights.

Typhoon
This has meant things cancelled: so we get another sleep in tomorrow, instead of cross country! But also, thinking about stocking up on supplies. Plenty of my Japan-based friends are posting about empty supermarket shelves. I'm thankful I was able to get to the supermarket early this morning and had no trouble getting what I wanted.

I did some preparation: I put my couple of outdoor pot plants in more secure spots, put our washing poles (what we have instead of lines and only rest in slots, so therefore potential projectiles) down on the balcony, and filled the bath with water in case we lose electricity. We will also pull our gutter ramp into the carport. It also just sits freely in the gutter to aid driving in and out, so in the event of us getting the 600mm of heavy rain that is forecast over the weekend, it will probably float away and cause a traffic hazard.

Aside from that there isn't much to do except wait. And pray that the winds weaken before it gets here, so that little damage is caused.

A bit over a third of the ladies at the meeting.

Beauty!

SWOW
All high school classes were cancelled for the week and they focused on other things. Our ninth-grader has been doing various group activities designed to get the kids to think about leadership and group dynamics. My husband went with the 10th graders (aka sophomores!) to a science museum on Tuesday and then on Wednesday for a two-night "camp" at Lake Yamanaka (where I went to my retreat in May). 

Our 11th grader (aka junior) went hiking in the wilderness west of Tokyo on Tuesday. It's a big event where they carry all their equipment and food with them and trek. The yr 12s or seniors, flew to Nagasaki (not totally sure what they were doing, but I think it's more to do with Japanese culture and history than leadership).

Again for fun: this is the comfortable outfit I wore. I was
blown away by how many compliments I received!

Well, anyway. It's been a strange week. Tension as our 11th grader prepared to go on Monday and then wondering how he's going. Then since David left, I think I've seen more of our youngest son's friends in one week than I ever have. They've dropped in several times in the last couple of days! I'm sure it's got nothing to do with the chocolate chips biscuits I made on Sunday! It's certainly been an unusual, but enjoyable experience for me to see my son enjoying hanging with his friends here. Especially to see them so comfortable in our house.

I started this post not long before I got a text from our middle son asking me to pick him up from school in the car (a rare request as we live so close). It was drizzly and he had all his gear in a large plastic bag, which was awkward to carry. I ended up arriving there minutes before my husband drove the school bus in with a bunch of 10th graders and I took his small suitcase home too (he walked home a bit later).

So everyone is home now. There's been lots of chatter about the week. The sorts of things mothers of (most) sons don't often hear. I used to hop in my mum's car every day and chat her ear off about what had happened that day. That really doesn't happen much here. First I don't pick up the boys, but they really don't tell me a lot about their days, and I doubt that would happen even if I picked them up in a car. I'm glad that my schedule was flexible enough that I could be around this afternoon, even if it has meant that my work has suffered. The good thing is that with cross country cancelled, and the likelihood of a long and wet weekend with nowhere to go, there'll be time to catch up on a bit of work later (if the electricity remains on).

The upshot of it: it seems like it was a good week for all. I'm relieved, especially when I consider how one of my boys was not coping so well with life this time last year and yet he's had a great week and done well. That is great cause for thanksgiving.

Latest newsletter

I've started many blog posts in my head recently, but simply haven't had the time (or if I've had the time, haven't had the energy) to complete one. But I can share our very early January newsletter with you, shared this early so that we can let people know about our Commissioning service on the first Sunday of 2019.  What a great way to start the new year! But also let people know a bit more about our movements in the coming weeks. 

Here's a screenshot. If you want a better version, drop me an email or message. If you don't have an address for me, use this: wendymarshall04 at gmail dot com

Thankful for today

Not taken today, but I'm enjoying sharing a Queensland
"bloom" with you from our local area.

Very short post to record my thankfulness for today. We're going away for the weekend (for work plus visiting family) starting in a couple of hours and I know that if I don't write now, this day will be forgotten.

On recommendation from our mission's state ministry leader, today I went to a women's event at a local theological college. Basically it was several hours of teaching and Bible study, which in itself was fantastic and refreshing (not to mention not having any expectations of me, aside from being a Christian woman who loves the Bible).

I was a bit nervous, walking into an event like this, not knowing if I'd know anyone. But thankfully there were three ladies who I knew from various arenas in the past, and another who made a point of meeting me (she was "staff" who knew that I was a missionary) and totally "got" where I am. Conversations with all four women were fantastic. They asked some of the FAQ, but went deep quite quickly and expressed something of an understanding of the challenges of what we're doing. I feel blessed, encouraged, and thankful.

Settling...and a car

Today it's four weeks since we landed in Australia. A lot has happened in that time. I wrote this Facebook status last night:

Tonight it’s a month since we left Japan. That means we’re about ⅙ of the way through our time in Australia. A bit of a shocking figure! I mentioned this at dinner and the boys were shocked too. We’ve worked hard to get as settled as we can, but still feel a bit rocky. I suspect we might not really get much past that this year.

My parents visited us last week and were surprised at how well set-up our home appears. They correctly guessed, though, that we've had experience in getting set up fast and, because we don't have much time to "fool around", we needed to set up fast. We also don't have a lot of stuff here in Australia, so it's not been that hard to organise it all. Also, most of our furniture is borrowed, we're not bothering to work hard at getting things exactly  right, or even stuff that's good quality. We're making do, and that's fine. On top of all that we had a lot of help at the start: a bunch of people moved all the furniture and boxes in before we even set foot in Queensland, without all that help (and especially the friend who coordinated all the people donating furniture), we'd be a lot further behind.

What's harder is getting emotionally settled. That's something that you can do a bit about, but in the end a lot of it is out of our control and just takes time. And because we're a family unit, one person's emotional stability struggles often affects us all. It's hard to write much about that without violating people's privacy, so I'll leave it to your imagination.

But really, I started this blog post wanting to tell you about one of the big things we have to be thankful for from the last month: this car.

No, this is not our car in Japan, it is our car to use in Australia. Very similar in looks, and, in fact, this was manufactured in Japan. A Christian couple has lent this to us for six months. We've so grateful. It's going to get quite a work-out, with some of our family living more than 800km away from our home base, as well as all the driving that our job entails (we're driving to Toowoomba for the day on Wednesday, about 200km of driving, and then back there again for the weekend on Friday).

We're in the car so much more than we are used to. That's just daily life in Australia; driving a boy to school each day, getting groceries in the car . . . actually pretty much anytime we go out, aside from a stroll around the neighbourhood, it's in the car. That's so different to our daily lives in Japan, and one of the many things that we're adjusting to.

I was grateful to have coffee with some local friends this morning. I wasn't there as the "returning missionary", I wasn't the centre of attention, I wasn't there in a work capacity. It was nice to just be accepted and welcomed. Driving home afterwards I felt just a little more grounded in the current place than I had before.

So though there are things that I'd like to be different, for us to be more settled, I am thankful, also, about so many things.

Here's a prayer I'd like to dwell on:

16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3, NIV)

To deeply know the greatness of God's love for our family at this time, that's what will help us through.

A different week

This week has looked very different to last week. This week I've dedicated to catching up with certain special/key people/groups. 

I haven't seen my son at all, though we've had some video calls and I'm proud to report that he's doing really well and seems ready to take on the challenge of uni classes starting on Monday.

I'm feeling tired, but really happy. So excited by all the amazing people who still count me as a friend, though I'm not an ideal friend-choice in that I'm absent for years at a time. God has blessed me abundantly!

I said, "Say 'sushi'!" which really did get them smiling.

Today I spent several hours with a bunch of ladies from our home church who meet for Bible study on Friday mornings. I spent a year with them last time we were home and will be back there from July. It was great to be there again and feel loved. What I really love about this group, though, is not how they make me feel, but that there is no pretension.  They're very honest about the struggles they face. There is also a very down-to-earth Australian feel about it all—I'm not on any special pedestal, and I love that.

But I'm going to try to get to bed a bit earlier tonight. It's tempting to stay up later and chat online to my family in Australia (10pm here is 9pm there), but tonight they're at an event at school, so I'm going to try to catch some more Zzzzzs.