Many opportunities

The home assignment sprint continues, more like a 400m than a 100m! 

Despite the busyness, so far we've had many wonderful opportunities to talk to a variety of people. Last Saturday we spent several hours meeting people at a church hall, people who hadn't been able to catch us anywhere else. This "open house" style of meeting is an efficient way of catching up with folk when we have limited time to make individual appointments.

I've had two different team meetings this week with colleagues in Japan. I'm thankful the time difference is only one hour! But each of these meetings have jerked my head around: I'm both in Australia and in Japan and it's a bit challenging. Certainly I wouldn't encourage newer missionaries to attempt such continuity of Japan-based ministry while on home assignment!

We've also been attending to medical needs: skin cancer checks and mission medicals and the action points from those (including an iron infusion for myself), women's health screening, etc.

We've cooked two Japanese meals this week for each of our younger two sons (and others), and spent extra time with them. I forgot to take a photo of the chocolate cheesecake I made them :D I'm treasuring these times with them.

As a result, this week there has been less opportunity to rest, and that's probably why we've been feeling more ragged heading into another full weekend.

I really want to write more here...but I'm almost out of time and energy this week. 

We've got a whirlwind of things on in the next four days. These are some of the things going on:

• Three public speaking opportunities (which need Powerpoints and scripts finalised).
• 300+ km of driving over two days.
• Meeting up with two different couples over coffee and then a meal on Saturday.
• An online meeting with Japan-based colleagues for David.
• Planning and shopping for our own food (not something we've had to do in the last five weeks as we've stayed with people who've provided most of our meals).
• Packing up, then unpacking into my parents' motorhome (our mode of transport and accommodation some nights in the coming 2 ½ weeks).
• Answering some emails and finishing up a few Japan-ministry bits and pieces before we go on holidays from Monday.

We're tired and hankering after that holiday—just have to get through these final days before we get there!

Our holiday will include time on our own as well as time with family, including four nights with our granddaughter and her parents.

Please pray for God's strength and grace in these coming days!

Getting close to leaving for our 6th home assignment

Three years ago I wrote a six-article series for OMF US about home assignments, particularly about all the preparation that goes into one.* When I was finished with that project, I realised I'd written 4,500 words! I didn't realise I had so much to say on the topic, but clearly I did.

I think this is the actual plane that took
us back to Australia for our first home 
assignment, the first and last time we travelled
with just our eldest two kids between Japan
and Australia (our youngest was born during
our first home assignment).

We're now two weeks out from our sixth home assignment and I have to acknowledge that this is something I know a fair bit about. We've spent 4 ½ years of the last 25 ½ years actually "doing" home assignment. We've spent at least that much time again "planning for" home assignments. That's about a third of our missionary service and a good chunk of our adult lives!

We're now staring down the barrel of 13 more sleeps before we fly to Australia for an intense nine weeks of speaking at gatherings and meeting people (plus two weeks of holidays in the middle). 

Back in February, I wrote about why we've decided to do a much short home assignment this time.The preparation phase certainly been a lot less intense and also shorter, a good portion of that is due to not having any kids at home anymore, but it's also due to the shorter length of our absence from Japan—because we won't be away all that long, we've not really had to hand our jobs over to anyone and we're not having to move out of our house or organise a rental in Australia. As a result, it feels a lot more like a short visit to Australia, than a home assignment like we've known in the past. 

In the past, as we've crept closer to leaving for home assignment, my body has shown indications: especially infections, poor sleep, and headaches. Not to mention a skittishness that comes with having to split one's attention between two different locations—finishing here and thinking about landing there. Up until this week I've had none of that. Because it still feels like a "short visit" rather than a "home assignment" I've been a little surprised this week at how my body is giving me small hints that a change is coming. I've been struggling a little with sleep and also the ability to concentrate on harder tasks. Hopefully it won't become a major issue and I'll be able to continue with working through next week because there's plenty to do at the moment.

Today I had meetings pertaining to the two main ministries I'm involved in (Japan Harvest magazine and OMF Japan social media) and both involved planning for the coming months. Naturally I want to get as much as I can done before we pack our bags and leave for Australia on the 20th. I'll still have work on both of these ministries to do while we're in Australia, but I'm hoping it will not be too much. Most of the 20+ "events" that we will be present at will be on weekends or evenings, so we're planning for downtime during the week. 

It's going to be another home assignment like we've never done before (just like our last one). I called it an experiment in our most recent news/prayer letter...one that we will reflect on when we get back in August and decide what we'll do next time!

* You can find links to them all here: https://omf.org/us/what-home-assignment-means-for-a-missionary-part-6/

June's a big month

June, how can it already be June? My calendar says it's a so, so it must be so!

My calendar also has a lot written on it this month. It's a month that will contain a five-day OMF Japan conference in Hokkaido, a trip to Singapore for work, a couple of days holiday in Singapore, and flying to Australia for a five-week stay.

The day before we head off to conference I'm playing the piano for church. It's been a long time since I did that! David's also leading the service, which is something he's not done for a long time either. It's a great joy to be able to serve our new church in these tangible ways.

Conference starts on the 16th, and there are many preparations going on. The schedule is pretty much 8 am to 9 pm! We've done many of these over the years and they are really good times, but very exhausting at the same time (though not as bad now as when our kids were little). More than 250 adults and kids will meet together at the pictured hotel for the week.

We've been to this venue on
the outskirts of Sapporo multiple
times. It's beautiful. Our boys 
especially loved the all-you-can-eat
buffet for breakfast and dinner
as well as the water park in the 
basement!

My own small parts are:

• I'm part of a worship team as the pianist for one session, which has required creativity to get the music as well as practise (I no longer have a piano at home and live a long way from others on the team). 
• I'm leading a voluntary session that is themed writing. It's unclear what this will look like and completely unknown if anyone will even come to it...and it's on the last evening, by which time I'll probably be staggering around under the influence of too much coffee, just to stay upright! So, some preparation has been necessary (yep, I stopped writing this blog post and actually did some prep!).
• I think the only other thing I'm responsible for requires almost no preparation, but will require concentration. I'm the designated "conference recorder". Which basically means recording the important stuff that happens through the week and providing a report at the end. I've been given a copy of the report from 2023, and it's actually pretty intimidating. I don't think I'll be able to make my report as pretty!

On June 20, after conference, we head back home for the weekend before David heads to Thailand. I get to stay at home for a couple of extra days before I fly to Singapore. I'm planning on meeting others in our organisation who do similar work to me in social media and we're going to "job alike", which is a new term I learnt last year that is mostly used in education circles. It's when people who do similar jobs in different places/organisations get together and talk about common stuff in our jobs. It's the first time I've done this as an in-person thing in another country. I've talked to various people over video calls, but usually just an hour or so, but this will be larger than that and I'm interested to see how it goes. Our organisation is large and spread over multiple countries around the world. It's not easy to get together with others who do similar things. Social media is a newish kind of ministry and there aren't so many of us around.

After that David will meet me in Singapore where we'll rest for a couple of days and catch up with some Singaporean colleagues from Japan who happen to be "at home" at the moment. And then we'll head to Australia on the last day of the month.

When we left Australia last July we told our boys we're planning to come back this year to see them. As it turned out, we saw all of them in January at our son's wedding, but we still wanted to catch up with them and other loved ones, so we've pushed ahead with this plan.

Our five weeks in south-east Queensland will be a combo holiday/work remotely situation. It's much like July would usually look for us in Japan—with David on summer holidays from work and me still working from home, but scaling things back a little (getting some mid-week sleep-ins for example).

We'll fly back to Japan in early August in time for a couple of annual medical checks for David before he starts back at school.

Phew, I'm tired just writing all that (about June, especially).

Comfort gained from gathering with others

Earlier this week over 2 ½ days I talked to dozens of people, almost all were missionaries. 

On Sunday afternoon we caught a train to a fairly new church plant. After the service we talked to several missionaries about the church.

It helped that on Tuesday we met in a beautiful
location (Okutama, western Tokyo), though it
rained all day, so we didn't get to go walking.

On Monday morning I travelled in a car with five other OMF missionaries across the city to meet with maybe around 50 other people, most of whom are also involved in cross-cultural work. This was our monthly regional meeting for worship and fellowship, but this time we also had a working bee to help with some deeper cleaning of our Japan headquarters and guest home. I travelled home with three people, arriving home around 5 pm.

On Tuesday morning I took our car on its first trip filled with cross-cultural workers. Our four-seater car was filled with ladies attending a Women in Ministry worship and fellowship time out in the far west of Tokyo, where we met with around 35 other women from variety of organisations and backgrounds. This was a total of three hours of driving and talking in the car, plus six hours at the meeting.

Monday's meeting (lunch)

Adding it all up, I spent over eight hours in cars with eight different people (nearly half of that I was driving) and about 100 people over the three days.

I've been very tired in the wake of all that, and have struggled these last couple of days to push through a headache (again).

So, was it worth it? Yes! I desperately needed the encouragement and re-focus that these meetings provided. Here are just a few tidbits from conversations and the speakers:

• Encouragement from two couples who have moved back to their passport countries after serving here until their mid 60s. It was great to hear them encourage us to keep our eyes on Jesus; that the task was too big for any of us, but not for God; and that God uses each of us differently.
• Time and encouragement to focus on praising God. Something that was surprisingly hard to do with my tired, squirrelly brain.
• Praising God for being an author (Acts 3:15 ESV), was particularly meaningful.
• A conversation with another mum, just a few years behind us, who has a neurodivergent daughter. She needed some hope about the future.
• I chatted with a single lady who is doing things that she couldn't have imagined, even 12 months ago.
• I spent time getting to know one of my newer teammates and her husband. So encouraging to see how they've grown while we've been away and they encouraged me too.
• A colleague and friend who brought up a sensitive topic, made me cry, but then encouraged me hugely in a short conversation!
• I gave a short back rub to a friend who was celebrating her birthday.
• I was encouraged to hear the wife of a former leader talk about them choosing a church to attend once they were no longer church-based in their ministry.
• Two of the ladies who rode in my car yesterday are new to our area and have never been to one of these Women in Ministry events. One of them couldn't stop saying thank you for bringing her.
• Lots of hugs with women who I've grown to know and love over the years. I only see them two or three times a year at these events, but they're precious to me. "My people" from a vast array of backgrounds.

There's much more than I can write here, or even remember, but I'm grateful for it all. 

Today I read an article about Australian farmers finding community at their local cattle sales and how important that time of gathering is. It's easy for people on the land to become isolated and lonely. That is also true when you are living overseas. And even more so as Christian workers: our enemy doesn't like what we do and he targets our weak spots, especially when we live too much inside our own heads. It's important for us to gather with "our people" for encouragement and connection. I'm so grateful for these times, they help me to remember who is really in charge, as well as opportunities to pour into other people's lives from the comfort that God's given me over the years.

Flashback to some transition craziness in Australia

Looking back at my blog post at the end of June and I’m amazed—there was so much going on. It's probably no wonder we've hit a bit of a wall today with energy, after two very busy months with so many decisions and transition.

One thing I mentioned in the above linked blog post was uncertainty about cars. Here’s how it turned out:

Our car, that we bought second-hand in August last year, cost us quite a bit in repairs over the year. It really didn't turn out to be a great purchase. As we looked towards transferring ownership to our eldest son, we decided to fix a ding that was caused during a hit-and-run incident while David was supervising a learner driver. This took several weeks at the end of June and early July to fix at the insurance company's preferred provider.

Thankfully we'd purchased a second car a few weeks previously, with the intention of our middle son taking ownership of it after he got his licence. We were able to use that car while our main car was getting fixed.

The day we moved all our stuff out of the house (which was a huge day without complications) was the same day our first car was available for collection and it turned into logistics challenge and a race against time as we tried to organise two drivers to be at the panelbeater shop before they shut. That also turned out to be the day we handed our second car over to our middle son.

Our eldest son was moving to Townsville (17 hrs drive north) only a few days after we left Australia and needed our larger car to carry all his stuff, so we planned to transfer ownership of our first car to him. So, a few days after we got it back from the panel beaters—and only four days before we were due to fly out of the country—we borrowed a car from the people we were staying with and put our first car into a different "shop" to get a road worthy certificate (an essential step in such a transfer). We already knew that there was an oil leak, due nearly wrecking the engine during our journey north a few weeks earlier, when our oil completely ran out one morning. We just weren't completely sure where or how expensive it would be to fix. Turned out that it would be an expensive fix and one that we (and our son) didn't have time for, so we retrieved our car.

On our last night in Australia we handed the keys to the car that was still in our name over to our eldest son and left him to deal with the mess, while advising him to sell it on our behalf as soon as he could once he got to Townsville.

His car was an older Corolla sedan that was in pretty good shape and actually passed its roadworthy pretty easily. He transferred ownership to his youngest brother who is due to do his licence test later this year.

Are you confused yet? This was just one of the things going on in the midst of us changing countries, for example, at the time I was still recovering from dental surgery. It's probably no surprise that we're weary today.

David started work a week ago and I've been gradually getting back into things. The heat and humidity is quite draining, even though we have good air conditioning. Our apartment is close to being completely set up and we're so thankful for that (and that we could move in so quickly after arriving). But we've made so many decisions and dealt with so much change these last couple of months. Transition is tiring. I'm glad we're on the other side. It's easy—because we've done this so many times and we've moved back to the same neighbourhood in a country we're familiar with—to race onwards and forget to take rest and be kind to ourselves. So it's good to take a moment to remember the craziness that was happening in those last few weeks in Australia!

A typical week, not a chance!

No, no one has asked me yet what a typical week is on home assignment. I can't say we've had a typical week yet, and we probably won't ever get there these twelve months. We've now been in Australia for a month and our weeks have included:

• collecting furniture
• shopping
• setting up home internet
• sorting out stuff we've had stored for 4 ½ years
• figuring out how to make a functional home and office from the stuff we own and the stuff we've been given
• buying a car
• sorting out red tape—including stuff related to driver's licences, applying for Blue cards (child safety clearance), changing addresses, insurance
• debriefs of various sorts for our organisation
• medical stuff—bi-annual checks for our organisation, hunting down referrals to specialists, skin checks, blood tests etc. (this has actually taken up a lot more time that you might imagine)
• starting to get involved in mid-week events at our home church
• university open day
• social time—with our eldest son, with good friends
• driving lessons
• preparation for speaking events coming up
• a prayer meeting
• meeting with other members of our organisation to catch up
• walking and orientating ourselves to the local community

  

  The hardest thing to set up was our dining 
  room/home office. Without an extra bedroom
  we've had to juggle our living area to accom-
  modate a working area too. It turns out that 
  this large table doubles quite nicely for work 
  (except for me, thankfully I am able to
  work at the shorter desk you can see in the 
  corner).

  
  

Phew! In between all that I've been trying to do my best to relax by having a coffee break on our deck with a book in the afternoon, when I'm home. Other things that have helped me feel more grounded have been household management things—meal planning, grocery shopping on a regular day, regular basic cleaning, and baking. 

"There’s a big difference between living and visiting." That phrase that popped into my mind recently. A lot of what we've been doing is related to living here. We're not on a brief visit or trip. We need to, as best we can, establish our lives here for the next 12 months. That's been hard work, and it doesn't feel like it's over yet, though perhaps the pace is slowing as we gradually tick off once-off things.

Two weeks tomorrow we're flying to the west coast for 18 days to visit churches and others over there for work. That deadline looms large. We'd like our sons to be as settled as they can be at this time so they can manage independently for the longest time we've ever been away from them. We also want to be as prepared as we can for the speaking work we'll be doing over there . . . alas we're still waiting on replies from several people, so it's more last minute than we're really happy with. 

Ah, God's got us on our toes. But I'm reminded that he's the God who goes before us (Deut. 31:8) and that his mercies are new every morning (Lam. 3:22–24, KJV, more modern versions say "compassion"). And these are the truths I need to be repeating to myself when I dream/drowse in the early hours of the morning and my thoughts get filled with anxious thoughts.

It’s a big week

 Moving into a new chapter in our lives isn’t without pain. I know that the changes we’re going through right now are necessary to move into the next thing, but it isn’t all joy. 

To start with, this week has been miserably hot. Cleaning, packing, and moving furniture and boxes around is an energetic exercise at the best of times, but this week we’ve hit a heat wave in Tokyo, a fairly early one. The average maximum temperature in July is usually 30, the last three days have been 36 or 37 degrees. Additionally, the house we’re moving out of had air conditioning only in the living/kitchen areas, and even that we lost on Tuesday morning as they came to uninstall the units. It’s been a case of working in spurts punctuated by breaks. Thankfully we’ve been able to housesit for friends of ours who are currently in the US on holidays. Their fully air conditioned apartment is only 300 m away from our house, so it’s been extremely easy to pop back and forth between the two. That’s meant we’ve been able to sleep in the cool too.

Sorting our goods thankfully hasn’t been too painful, we did a good portion of it in the months leading up to this move. But still, there was plenty of decisions to be made (this decision tree I shared earlier this year helps you to appreciate the extra layer of complication we have as missionaries). Some decisions are more important than others, but they add up. Just today I’ve decided which pieces of gardening equipment to keep (thankfully I don’t have much), which ice packs to keep, and whether I want to store a razor, or take it with me. Seemingly minor things, but the end of a long list of decisions.

On Sunday we watched as our two youngest sons decided what to take with them when they leave Japan next week, knowing that we don’t really have room to store stuff for them here. You see photos of kids leaving to go to college with whole cars stuffed full of things. Our guys only get a few bags. One of the harder decisions to make was regarding their winter clothes. It was hard to even touch those in the midst of this current heat.

On Sunday evening, it was almost anticlimactic to watch our loved dining table taken away by strangers. But all of a sudden, our house was definitely missing a key piece and since then it’s been feeling more and more like a familiar, but no-longer-the-same place. Then Monday morning the “large rubbish” department of the local government came and took away nine other pieces of furniture. Last night friends came and took our son’s beautiful desk. And two other friends came and took two futon sets.

Last Friday afternoon we welcomed local friends to an open house. We provided cold drinks (it was another stinking hot day), home made snacks (I found frozen bananas that either had to be used or tossed), and a bunch of stuff free for the taking. It was a great opportunity to see some people for the last time. But also we cleared out a lot of stuff too (which either got taken, or subsequently disposed of). It was like a turning point in this move. From then on things have been steadily leaving the house, destined for various places.

One of those is a space OMF rents for missionaries going on home assignment. This is a shared space, so requires quite a lot of juggling. Just in the last fortnight, several missionary units have put stuff in and taken stuff out. Thankfully it’s close to us, so we’ve been able to save a lot of money utilizing our eight-seater van and our two strong sons.

The twist, is getting stuff up and down this unattached ladder! Removalists aren’t super keen and I can understand why!

In the photo you can see a large blue tarp. That is covering the goods of a single missionary who will be coming back, we understand, in the next couple of months.

Other stuff that this last week has held includes:

• A trip to immigration to get our re-entry permit.
• A trip to do the paperwork to transfer the ownership of our car to the missionaries who’ve bought it.
• Quick trips to the store to buy lunches
• A trip to the city hall to tell them we’re leaving the country (so need to pause health insurance).
• Farewelling our youngest as he went to his final youth group camp over near the Pacific Coast. We’ll see him again on Sunday when we head that direction ourselves.

And coming up:

• Tomorrow David will make a journey into our nearest large centre to see if they can figure out why his not-old laptop won’t start.
• We also will make one or two trips to the local dump to dispose of the miscellaneous pile of stuff that we don't want to store.

Friday David will hand over the keys to the house and Sunday we’ll gather our bags once again and head to the OMF guesthouse for a couple of nights before hopping on a flight on Tuesday.

Speaking of bags…we’re pretty sure we’ve got more than the weight our tickets allow us, so today or tomorrow we’ll be weighing it all and deciding what to mail.

It’s been a big week, and hidden underneath all the busyness is an array of emotions. This is a good move, but also lots of big changes and adjustments are needed by everyone.

We have so much to be thankful for. I’m thankful for small things like a nap yesterday afternoon (I’ve been waking after only six hours of sleep each night) and no headaches for nearly two weeks! 

And we have so much to continue to trust God for. It’s pretty common these days to call someone in their life their “rock”, but I think the best rock is God, the only unchanging, reliable being that we know.

 “Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from him. Truly he is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I shall not be shaken. My salvation and my honour depend on God; he is my mighty rock, my refuge. Trust in him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge.” (Psalm 62:5–8)

This time next week I’ll hopefully be in Cairns, Australia, recovering from an overnight flight. I’ll “see” you on the other side of this journey.

A missionary conference

Time for a mobile post. We’re sitting at Chitose Airport in Hokkaido after five days of the 2023 OMF Japan conference. It’s been an intense week, as expected, but very good. I’m reminded that a field conference bears resemblance to a family reunion. These, in so many ways, are “our people”, though we’re related to none and have few common experiences with any of them prior to coming to Japan. It’s a strange feeling, but nonetheless is truly how I feel.

The view from our traditional Japanese room.

A couple of unexpecteds for me:

• The number of missionaries is about the same as last time we gathered (170), but I felt a distinct shift in balance. At 22 ½ years of service we’re definitely in the “senior missionary” realm now. About half of those at conference weren’t in Japan at our last one (five years ago). Even taking into consideration the short- and medium-term missionaries (about 50 of those 170), there’s a lot of people who have been here many years less than 22! We had a lot of conversations with people who know very little of the recent history of our organisation. It’s shocking to realise that things we experienced in 2011, 2015, etc., are “ancient history”.
• Heaviness. The theme of the conference was four-fold, based on Romans 12:11–12 “Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervour, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.” We spent a day on each of these: Joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer, and zeal & spiritual fervour. The day on patience in affliction we spent time looking at grief, lament, and suffering. This was heavy, but helpful for me personally, as I continue to struggle with the “whys” of some of our parenting struggles.

I’m really tired now. I’m particularly craving quiet. These days have been loud, with conversations often being held almost at shouting level to make oneself heard over the crowd. And conversations were had: at breakfast, at lunch, at dinner, at morning and afternoon tea, before and after sessions, in the baths (yes, Japanese communal baths), in the pools (this hotel has a water park in the basement), in the elevator and in the halls. Many small group discussions, and times of prayer. Much talking and much listening. Wonderful and draining at the same time. We prayed for God-appointed conversations and continue to pray that the words we spoke and the listening we did are a blessing to all those we encountered. I’m so thankful for so many interactions. Possibly even more thankful in the context of being post-pandemic (and very few masks). Three years of masked and online interactions have caused us to value these multiple informal in person interactions much more.

I’m also thankful for much unrestrained singing in English. I’ve been teary most days! Singing in English is something I miss in Japan. The first night especially was precious. We joined with fellow missionaries from over a dozen countries and multiple Christian backgrounds and sang our hearts out. Such freedom isn’t often part of my church experience, in either Australia or Japan.

Conference is a time to step back from the minutiae of ministry and life and remember the Lord who saved us and called us. It’s so important and I hope that as we stand at the intersection between service in Japan and service in Australia, this will help fuel us spiritually as we move forward, helping us to keep the big-picture in mind.

I’m looking forward now to my own bed (a luxury I’ll have to give up in just over two weeks). But it’ll be still several hours before we get there. The reality is that even once we land in Tokyo around 8.30, we’ll still have another 1 ½ hrs at least on trains to get home.

Good memories, no regrets

Is another wrestling post warranted? I do want to document that my youngest son was crowned Far East Champion of the 215 lb weight class on Wednesday. He wrestled very well and none of his opponents could find much of a chink in his armour. 

It wasn't our first rodeo, as you may know. We went to Korea to watch our eldest son compete in the same competition six years ago. Each of their journeys was quite different. Our eldest did a lot of off-season wrestling in non-school clubs, and also had a two-year rival who he had wrestled many times and not always won (though his rival didn't beat him during our son's senior year, he did make him work hard for the victories), so when they faced off in the semifinal and again in the final, the result was definitely unknown. 

Our youngest son hasn't been able to do anywhere near the same amount of wrestling during his high school years, for various reasons, including injury and a pandemic. He has spent a lot of time in the gym, though, building up strength and body mass. At the start of the tournament he was also unbeaten so far in the season, but it's also not his greatest passion, so in some ways the stakes didn't feel as high. 

Although no one told my body that. I had the same physiological reactions: lost sleep, messed up digestion, raised heart rate, general shakiness and difficulty concentrating. When I'm at a wrestling tournament, I can't read (and I'm a reading addict), nor can I even feasibly play a game; we tried to play Scrabble on the second day, but struggled. Two nights of waking at 2am and not really falling deeply back to sleep, plus two days of sitting in a noisy gym, really did a number on me. I was glad to not have an international flight and then travel on trains back from the airport like I did six years ago, but it's been hard to get back to work these last couple of days.

One way to tell that you're at a gym

hosting a wrestling tournament...

you find this on the back of the toilet

cubicle door.

It was fun to go away with David, even if it was for two days of wrestling! We enjoyed doing this together, and shared passions are important as you move towards a time when your kids all leave home. We made great memories and I have no regrets. Oh, and it was fabulous being able to support our son like this.

One fun memory centres around hair. Our son's hair is now wavy and long (below his shoulders), definitely tricky for wrestling, where you can't use anything but hairbands and product to secure it. His brothers have always kept their hair short, so we've never dealt with this before. I've never had much to do with my boys’ hair, actually! But on Monday one of the first things our son said to me when we saw him was, "Can you braid my hair?" Wow! I've had short hair for nearly 12 years and I can't actually remember if I've ever braided someone else's hair . . . I wasn't that kinda girl. 

Neither of us had a comb and my first go at it was straight after he'd warmed up, so he was sweaty! We didn't have hairspray and only two hair-ties, so it got messy pretty quickly after he helped a teammate warm up for a match (they use their heads quite a lot). He wanted me to redo it then, but we weren't sure when his first match would be, and I was already shaky. Braiding hair with shaky hands isn't recommended. 

I was particularly nervous that I'd get partway done and he'd be called up for his match. There's no waiting if you're called. It's something that new wrestlers (and their parents) have to learn about a tournament: there's no timetable, you simply wait for your name to be called, and it can be excruciating (and hard to figure out when to eat). Once you're called, you've got to hoof it to register that you're present and ready to go, with all the gear you need (in your wrestling singlet and shoes and warm-up clothes, plus a water bottle and headgear). This tournament was well organised and had wrestlers waiting "on deck" about three bouts ahead. A bout can last 20 seconds or over six minutes, but they don't tolerate delays.

In any case, I couldn't see myself doing a decent job of braiding his hair in that situation, so I went for a "first aid" solution. My networking came in handy: I knew the mum of one of the female wrestlers, so I went to find her and ask if her team (which had several girls with long hair) had any hairspray. She went right to work and found a girl quickly who dug around in her bag, pulling out not just hairspray but something that looked like mascara. It had a wand that you pull across the top of hair that is "done" to glue those flyaways down—I had to ask her how to use it. Her coach, who I also know, was sitting nearby quietly laughing as I explained how I only had boys and needed help here. She was great!

Well, it worked, and he made it through his first match without distracting hair in his face. Then we had time, and I had another go at braiding it and did slightly better.

The next morning when we met in the gym (our room wasn't near the team), I had a third go, before his final. This time I brought a comb I'd snaffled from our hotel bathroom and handed him some "action" hairspray that I'd bought the night before at the mall near the hotel, and instructed him on how to use it. Our boys haven't grown up with sisters, and he was only six when I cut my hair short . . . there are some things they just don't know!

It's a good thing the braiding was for practical purposes, not aesthetics, but I was pleased that because I was present I could do this one thing for him. In fact the whole couple of days was very much about being wholly present for our son (and his teammates). It was a joy to have the flexibility to do that.

Oh, and giving my sweaty son a shaky hug after he'd won gold was a highlight too. And he didn't pick me up, like he did his coaches!

These moments when we get to intensely invest in our kids are soon going to get more difficult to find. I'm treasuring them.

I'm a frail field flower

Looking back after more than a dozen years of life with kids at this international school in Japan, I know that January has a habit of going from zero to 100 km/h almost instantaneously. I never feel ready. In fact it was quite discouraging to get to Monday this week (when school started back and I started taking work more seriously again) to find myself already tired.

It hasn't been exactly 100 km/h all week, in fact after a busy start to the week, I've been able to sit quietly at my desk for three days just catching up on work here. It's been challenging, but not impossible.

At the same time, though, I've had a rash of decisions to make about future commitments, starting with this Saturday: Will I commit to being at school by 7.30 to help set up for a wrestling tournament, followed by meeting friends for dinner that evening? Will I also commit to help providing food for the tournament refs and coaches, which means buying stuff on Friday? As I considered those questions, I took into consideration that I'd already committed to providing home baked goods for another event at school on Monday, goods that I won't have the time to make on the weekend, so will have to do it on Friday. And that I expect to be back at my desk working on Monday morning, as well as lead a meeting in the afternoon. Yep, 100 km/h is just around the corner.

And that's just one instance.

There have been a few other smaller and bigger commitments for the coming couple of months that I've thought about this week. Yep, the stuff that can easily get me into trouble by saying too many yeses. That's where it starts. Each yes seems small, but they quickly get out of control and by then, if you mean what you say when you say "yes", you just can't stop the train.

Frail field flowers in October

If you've read my first blog post for 2023, you'll realise that we're facing up to a big year, one that will probably get crazy busy. I've been searching for a passage of scripture to try to anchor myself as I head into this and I've found Psalm 103. I've pasted it below in its entirety for you. There are lots of nuggets in it to ponder. Just now I'm leaning into these phrases: "Your youth is renewed like the eagle’s" (v. 5 NIV) and "As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust. The life of mortals is like grass, they flourish like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more" (vv. 13–16).

God remembers that we don't have much in reserve, that we are pretty frail, not only that but he has compassion on us (the sort of compassion that us parents have for our kids, that makes us weak in the stomach when something goes wrong for them that we want to fix). On top of all that he also has the power to renew our strength. What great truths these are, and worthy of leaning in to when the future looks overwhelming!

               Praise the Lord, my soul;

    all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
 Praise the Lord, my soul,
    and forget not all his benefits—

who forgives all your sins
    and heals all your diseases,
 who redeems your life from the pit
    and crowns you with love and compassion,
 who satisfies your desires with good things
    so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

 The Lord works righteousness
    and justice for all the oppressed.

 He made known his ways to Moses,
    his deeds to the people of Israel:
 The Lord is compassionate and gracious,
    slow to anger, abounding in love.
 He will not always accuse,
    nor will he harbor his anger forever;
 he does not treat us as our sins deserve
    or repay us according to our iniquities.
 For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
    so great is his love for those who fear him;
 as far as the east is from the west,
    so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

 As a father has compassion on his children,
    so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him;
 for he knows how we are formed,
    he remembers that we are dust.
 The life of mortals is like grass,
    they flourish like a flower of the field;
 the wind blows over it and it is gone,
    and its place remembers it no more.
 But from everlasting to everlasting
    the Lord’s love is with those who fear him,
    and his righteousness with their children’s children—
 with those who keep his covenant
    and remember to obey his precepts.

 The Lord has established his throne in heaven,
    and his kingdom rules over all.

 Praise the Lord, you his angels,
    you mighty ones who do his bidding,
    who obey his word.
 Praise the Lord, all his heavenly hosts,
    you his servants who do his will.
 Praise the Lord, all his works
    everywhere in his dominion.

Praise the Lord, my soul. (Psalm 103, NIV)

Margin: something I need, but also struggle with

Margin: it's something I've written about (e.g. https://mmuser.blogspot.com/2015/08/margin-in-life.html), but not always been good at doing. When I saw this blog post by Beth Bathelemy I was reminded again about margin. Not just how important it is, but why I struggle not just to keep it, but sometimes when I'm in that space of not-so-busy, I feel uncomfortable.

I ran into a quiet spot in my work on Friday
when I was basically waiting for other 
people to do stuff. Margin! So I rode to my
favourite local park for a couple of hours.

But first, what is margin? Beth shared this great quote by Richard Swenson:

“Margin is the space between our load and our limits. It is the amount allowed beyond that which is needed. It is something held in reserve for contingencies or unanticipated situations. Margin is the gap between rest and exhaustion, the space between breathing freely and suffocating.”

When I find myself without much margin in my days, things in our lives get compromised that shouldn't be. That can be important work matters, or it can be family, or not being able to help someone else. Without much margin my health suffers: I don't get exercise, or my eating gets sporadic and unhealthy, and because I'm the manager of our larder and maker of our evening meal, if I don't have much margin that spills over to affect everyone else in the family too. If I've overcommitted, I'm often not sleeping well and responsibilities that I have aren't being attended to. I can't pay as much attention to the people in my life if I don't have good margin and I begin to suffocate and let others down.

I thought I had plenty of margin at the start of August in Australia when I'd planned to start back at work after six weeks off. However, in that first week we had family drama as we had flights cancelled, then rebooked, and then an emotional farewell as half our family flew back to Japan. My middle son and I cleaned and moved into new accommodation, and had to adapt to living with another family. Plus we received a new diagnosis to add to the others our son already has. In the middle of all that I sat back at my editor's desk where a large amount had piled up in my absence. Then my throat and head started hurting and I started coughing . . . and it was COVID. All my margin was gone and it took weeks to get back to a place where margin was again in place. I had miscalculated, but also run into some large, unexpected things. And that's really partly what margin is for: to give room for the unexpected. It's just that, in this case, I didn't allow enough (and of course, it is not always possible to allow enough margin).

As a writer and creator I find I also need margin to think, to ponder, to reflect, and to write. The extroverted part of me struggles with that sometimes, but I'm generally happier and more balanced if I've had time alone to think.

However, I also grew up with a strong work-ethic instilled in me. So these words of Beth's also spoke pointedly, they echo some of the struggles I have when I'm not-so-busy:

Recently, however, familiar doubts crept back into my heart and mind. Am I doing enough? Will this read impressively in my newsletter? Is our ministry fruitful enough? And from this lowly place of insecurity, doubt, and discouragement, I forfeited my margin.

I think it's something that people in ministry struggle with especially. Usually we have a lot of drive, are conscientious, and feel the pressure of the overwhelming needs around us. Consider that we ourselves work in a land where less than 1% of people know Jesus and not many more than that have even heard of him. Plus, we live a little bit in a glasshouse: writing prayer letters every month, and responding regularly to a variety of other requests for information about how our ministry is going. All these things can pressure us to increase the load of what we do until we have nothing spare.

But Beth concludes with thoughts like these:

What if we were to put aside our ill-conceived, worldly perspectives on success and productivity? What if we rejected the false narratives of self-importance and worth based on accomplishment? What if we, like Christ, “self-empty” ourselves unto God?

These are good thoughts. I'm full of pride, I know. I measure my days according to how many things I've knocked off my to-do list. I like to think of myself as productive and useful, skillful and clever. What would it look like to move further away from all that?

I'm reading a short book right now by Timothy Keller called The Freedom of Self-forgetfulness.
Where I left the bookmark last night it says:

"So Paul does not look to the Corinthians for his identity. He does not go to them for the verdict that he is a 'somebody'. He does not get that sense of identity from them. But he does not get it from himself either. He knows that trying to find self-esteem by living up to a certain set of standards is a trap " (p. 28).

Paul and Keller exhort us to let go of the idea that we can get our identity from what others think of us, and even from living up to our own standards. We are loved by God. Not because of what we've done for him, but because of what he's already done for us.

Another book I've finished recently called Gentle and Lowly by Dane Ortlund says a similar thing. Christ loves us far more than we can comprehend, and our response should be to simply obey the invitation in Matthew 11:28: "Come to me."

But, on the other hand I've also realised that God has created us to both do and be. I'm still trying to balance that up, but I don't think this side of heaven I'll get it right. I can recount many times that I've been told or heard sermons or talks that said that we ought not to look at our schedules for our self-worth. But I also know that God tells us to do stuff. Yes, our primary worth is as a human being made by God, but we've been gifted with varying levels of strength and intellect, gifts and talents, wealth and opportunities. God calls us to DO stuff. Not because that's the way we earn his love, but because we love to serve him, but how easy it is to switch those two things!

So, how to live with these two things in balance? How can I be comfortable with "being", with dwelling in that space between my responsibilities and what my ultimate limit is? How can I fulfil my responsibilities without feeling that they add up to my worth, and therefore when I'm not "doing" I still have worth?

These are questions that I don't think I have an answer to yet. At the moment I'm being very careful about what I say yes to, beyond my usual responsibilities. I know that just under the surface lurk things that tap my energy, and often they are difficult to predict. Some days I just feel overwhelmingly tired by 8pm and struggle to get up in the morning, for no discernable reason. I also know, looking ahead, that we've got some big transitions next year that will take a lot of energy.

So, I'm moving ahead, walking tentatively and keeping my eyes on Jesus, rather on my own nervous, flaky self. And surrounding myself with people and habits that will correct my course when it goes astray.

This week's travel story

Who can resist a good travel story? It's a common topic of conversation between those of us who live and work overseas. 

Like the time I got food poisoning in Manila and then the next day, on my way back to Brisbane got stuck for many hours on a plane on the tarmac, and then had to disembark and was stuck so long in the boarding lounge that we witnessed the crew go home! We ended up flying, but arriving in Hong Kong too late to catch the connecting flight to Brisbane, so got a free 24 hours in their fancy airport hotel. But still sick enough to not really enjoy the free food vouchers we also got.

Well, I've got myself a new travel story, in fact it's not over yet.

I find myself in a weird between-world just now. I feel a little bit transparent, in fact. It's a strange place. We were supposed to fly to Tokyo yesterday morning. But, like all the other flights we've booked on this trip, it was cancelled. Thankfully we were able to rebook pretty quickly. But the timing of discovering the flight was cancelled meant that we'd already said goodbye to everyone and were literally on our way to the airport. As we're flying from a nearby city, and we'd decided to minimise the pre-flight travel (and stress) by booking a hotel next to the airport. So Wednesday looked like this:

2 a.m. I woke up and my mind started roaming through all the logistics of the coming 30 hours. I think I drifted back to sleep sometime before the sun came up, but I'm not sure.

7 a.m. David and I had, what has become (during August) our regular morning video call and Bible reading/prayer time.

Sometime after 8 I had breakfast and chatted to my friend/host.

Sometime after that I spent an hour or so organising and packing my luggage, so that I'd had minimal unpacking at the hotel that night and had sorted my carry-on luggage for the next day.

Around 10.30 I lay down with a book and forced myself to be still for an hour.

11.30 I got up, packed the clothes that had been drying on the line in my luggage and went upstairs to make some lunch and chat with my friend and her daughter.

12.30 I put my two suitcases, backpack, and small travel shoulder bag in the car. Hugged my friend and her daughter goodbye. And left.

1.00 I pulled into where my middle son had been staying with his brother over the last 10 days. Sorted out final packing questions with them. Said goodbye to the house cat. Heard a few stories. And sadly said goodbye to our eldest son.

2.00 Drove to the other side of town to drop off our borrowed vehicle to its owners, who drove us to their nearest train station.

3.07 Hopped on the first of two trains (plus a bus) that would get us to the hotel.

3.30ish Hopped off the first train and struggled to figure out which platform the next train would be arriving on. Went up and down in the lift a couple of times! Finally got on the right train. I would not like to have mobility issues and be using Brisbane trains. We struggled to find easy ways to get our heavy suitcases up and over the train lines, and train platforms are, in many places, a big step down from the train.

3.49 These Brisbane trains don't have room for large suitcases. The seats are mostly facing towards the front or back of the train. I was squished into a seat beside a lady, with one of my suitcases where my knees should be and backpack balanced on top. I got a text from my husband: "Flight is cancelled"!!!!

Then ensued a lot of texting: back and forth with my husband as he sought to book another flight. Then quickly texted the lady in Wynnum who we'd only just said goodbye to (owner of car), asking if she could possibly host us again for three or four nights (she said yes). Checked to see if we could get from Wynnum to the Gold Coast airport by 7.30 a.m. via public transport on a Sunday morning (negative). Emailed the hotel to say we were cancelling that night's booking, but could we rebook for Saturday night.

Sometime after 4pm Changed trains and headed back up to Brisbane. Then changed trains again.

5.21 We arrived back where we'd first gotten on a train and were taken, a little shell-shocked, back to a lovely quiet home. This is where we had arrived in mid-June after our 36 hour journey from Tokyo. I can't say we were in much better shape when we arrived this time!

That evening, despite not being in a great way, I contacted the booking agent for the hotel and rebooked. Looks like the hotel has been very gracious and won't charge us for the late cancellation. I also figured out we needed a new PCR test, where to get that, and what we needed to do (print out a new pathology request). 

All afternoon my throat had been getting sorer and by the evening my head was starting to get clogged up too. The aftershock of it all made me shaky and I pretty much lost my appetite. I was slightly panicking about the possibility of COVID and the new PCR test I had to pass to fly again, but having only just recovered from COVID, it seemed unlikely. Nonetheless, the thought of going through another cold-like sickness wasn't appealing. It probably goes without saying that I didn't sleep well that night either, despite being exhausted. But the next morning (yesterday) I did feel a lot better about the whole affair.

On Thursday my main job was to get new PCR tests and also a few groceries to tide us over. Thankfully we were able to borrow the car for one more day. We're in a "granny flat" where there are some supplies in the cupboard and fridge, but not really enough for three days and nights. It was hard to plan for meals for just the two of us for those three days, and even more so once I realised (again) that portions sold in grocery stores are larger here, and often more expensive. For example, a small tub of yoghurt cost more than a large tub of yoghurt!

I also took some time to wander along the esplanade at Wynnum. Not the prettiest of beaches, but lovely to see the sea, and the sky, and trees, and to breath.

Today (Friday) has been a quiet at-home day. I'm thankful that once again we've jumped through the "negative COVID test hoop". I've managed to do a little bit of urgent editing, but mostly resting. Because I again didn't sleep well last night (read from 2 am to 4am!).

Tomorrow we begin the journey to the hotel airport again, though this time we're a little bit closer and we've got a lift to the hotel. This is a protracted journey that I hope will come to an end with my head on my pillow in my own home in Tokyo on Sunday night.

And why do I feel transparent? Well I've said goodbyes here and people have generally expected that I've left (unless they're on social media) and I was expected back in Tokyo yesterday, so people there are already saying "Welcome back". It's as if I'm in a time warp.

There's no knowing the "why" of this. But simply, it's good to recognise that we're not in control, and that times like these can grow our faith, when we continue to trust God amidst the uncertainty. We've had people praying for us. Our host sent us these verses:

So do not fear, for I am with you;
    do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you;
    I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

For I am the Lord your God
    who takes hold of your right hand
and says to you, Do not fear;
    I will help you. (Isaiah 41:10,13 NIV)

Comfort!