Re-entry shock: party plans

Last night we pampered our feet. But I
had no idea that Body Shop not only
has retail outlets, but direct sales
consultants too.

Last night I went to a social night at church for women of the church. It turned out to be a party plan type thing (though there was no hard sell, mostly fun).

I've been to only a couple of Tupperware parties in my life. But since coming back to Australia 4 1/2 months ago I've been to Tupperware, Norwex party and now a Body Shop party last night. The latter two in the last week. I haven't bought a thing! My goal in each case was spending time with people, working on getting to know them better.

But here's the thing, it's a reverse culture shock problem for me because I had no idea how many Australian women are into these direct selling things. Both selling and buying. It's been quite an eye opener!

I wonder, do Japanese women do this?

Dangerous territory

This morning I found a great post, one that exposes how missions can easily be idolised as the best form of service that a "good" Christian can do. The old putting the missionary on a pedestal trick! (Same thing happens for people in full-time ministry in their home country, I think.)

Please, please don't put me on a pedestal and don't let me
become arrogant or judgemental either. I'm an ordinary
person, just with a slightly "on the edge of ordinary" journey.

If you've read my blog for a while you'll know that one of the primary purposes I write as I do is to debunk that myth. We are ordinary people, just happens that the streets we're living and serving on looks a bit different to the street that Christians in Australia (or wherever you are) live and serve on (this analogy comes from Jonathon Trotter's blog post that I've linked to above).

Here's a taste of his post:

But aren’t missionaries the crème of the crop? Um, yeah, no. Turns out, we’re just people. We may travel more than most, and maybe we speak more languages than some, but the idea that missionaries are somehow “set apart” is dangerous. I’d like to begin a discussion about this. Care to join?

The article is really worth a read. Worth considering your own attitude, whether you are a missionary or full-time worker, or not.

Could it be pride?
Pride is an evil attitude that can creep into our thoughts as missionaries and we need to guard against it. It's easy to be the special person who stands up in churches and tells amazing stories, but never lets people see the ordinary moments. 

I read an interview in a respected missions newsletter the other day where an Indian couple in a school ministry in India reported that "We really don't have any challenges. . . We have few problems." I question that. I wonder if they just didn't feel they could talk about it, because we all have problems. I simply can't imagine that a ministry with 18 teachers and 300 children has no problems. It could have been a cross-cultural issue, but it could also have been the desire to only tell about the good. Most missionaries struggle with this temptation as they write prayer letters and when they speak. 

It can be too attractive to be the person that people say to (or think about), "I admire you so much, I could never do what you do." Hear too much of that and you are in trouble.

I'm very grateful to be in a Bible study here in Australia where (I hope) I'm considered just another Christian. Admittedly I'm not hiding the problems we've had with adjusting back to Australia.

Admiration gone wrong
Admiration is a sneaky attitude that ones who don't get to go on an aeroplane can harbour and can result in individuals and churches holding up missions and missionaries on a pedestal. I wonder if this is one reason that people go on so many short-term mission trips. Because subconsciously they want admiration? No one will ever say this, of course, but it makes me wonder. I wonder if it holds some people back from saying yes to the call of long-term missions too, because they don't think they can measure up.

Lots of wondering. Anyone want to add their thoughts?

Feeling at home

Today we went to church, something that's pretty normal for us. What's not been normal of late, has been attending church without our "missionary hats" on. What's not normal is feeling at home in any church.

This is where we've got our suitcases unpacked this
year. So thankful that it is less than 10 minutes to our
new home church. That we really are "local" to church.
It's made it so much easier to get involved in the
various activities I've mentioned in this post.

We were at our new "home church". Last year we changed our membership to a new church (read some of the story here). We weren't in the country at the time, so it was a decision we had to make while being absent. Therefore one of our goals for this time in Australia has been to get to know our new home church better.

That wasn't an easy goal as we've often been unable to attend worship on Sundays because we're at other churches with our "missionary hats" on. However, we've been involved in mid-week meetings as we could. For example, David's been going to the Tuesday night Bible study and I've been at the Friday morning women's Bible study. We've taken our boys as regularly as we could to Kids Club and Youth Group on Friday nights and our older son to the teens Bible study on Thursday. Once a month men's meet/meat night has been a favourite with my guys too.

Added to our already busy schedule sometimes it's felt too much to do these things. However today as I watched my boys interact freely with other children and teens at church I knew it's been worth it. Today, when we were greeted by name by numerous people, I knew it was worth it. Today we didn't hang awkwardly around the edges wondering who to talk to. All of us had people to easily talk to. We came away from church feeling like we'd been "at home".

Answer to prayer, that's what I'd call this. And I'm elated!

To add to that elation is one lady who came up to me and thanked me. I'd met her a couple of months ago at a mid-week meeting associated with a different church where I was talking about Japan. We happened to end up doing the dishes together afterwards. She and her husband hadn't been attending church lately, "between churches" I think probably describes it. I mentioned our home church and encouraged her to try it out. She has been going (I presume with her husband) to our new home church and she's so thankful to be back in regular attendance. As far as I'm concerned that conversation over dishes a couple of months ago was God-ordained, I had no idea that what I said was just the right thing at the right time. I'm so glad to be around to hear the end result, though.

This morning I felt as though I was overflowing with joy. I'm fond of saying that God loves to answer our prayers. I'm so thankful for the blessings He's showered upon us and that we're experiencing now.

An uncomfortable lull

We have no formal ministry to do on the weekend. No conferences, not workshops, no fun nights, no church visits, not even an overnight visit to anywhere, just lunch tomorrow with some friends from our young adult days. 

Sunday on the calendar, is absolutely blank. Phew! The last time we had one of those was the day after driving ten hours home from visiting David's family at the beginning of October. The one before that was the day our middle son flew to Sydney for his Canberra trip and the one before that...was July.

Yes, it's been a busy season. This week has represented a bit of a slow-down for a couple of weeks. That always hits me uncomfortably. I need the break, but I don't always know what to do with the feelings it produces. I'm somewhat hyperactive, I like to always have a short to-do list or I feel uneasy. 

I can't say that I've had not enough to do this week, but the pace has definitely been slower, especially on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Me a few years ago with my "forever" friend Mel who I've
known my whole life. We met for coffee today
and the time was so sweet!

And now I'm sitting at home alone, all the boys are at youth group or kids club and hubby doing transporting duty. It is strange. It almost makes me feel poetic, but I shan't subject you to that!

So it's been thoughtful week. A time to step back and do some deeper analysis, aided by meeting up with two friends at different times who helped me to reflect a little on our lives lately. Hence the posts here have been a bit weightier.

Oftentimes when the pressure of "the next thing" is off a little I feel the temptation to "grow weary and lose heart" (Hebrews 12:3b, NIV).

But "[God] says, 'Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth' (Ps 46:10, NIV). 

It is very unusual for me to be still for any length of time (mentally, at least, I can sit reading, or working on the computer for long amounts of time). But obviously I must try not to be unsettled by these lulls.

The question is, what do I do with the next couple of hours before my responsibilities come home again? Write, cross-stitch, play games, read . . .

Re-entry shock: Bikes

The other day we had to drive about 10km to get to a bike repair shop! In Japan where we live, we could get our bikes repaired or serviced in at least three different places within 1km of where we live. We don't live in the centre of Tokyo, either, we live about the same distance from the main Tokyo CBD as we are in Brisbane. It's just that there are way less bikes per population here than in Japan. 




In Japan there are about 72 1/2 million bikes (about 57% of the population) and more than 10 million are sold every year (from here). I couldn't quickly find stats about how many of those bikes are regularly ridden, but I'd guarantee that it is more often than most bikes in Australia. 

In Australia the cycling rate is much lower. Around 13% of 18-39 year olds cycled in the last week prior to being surveyed in 2011. Around 8.5% of 40+ year olds cycled in the last week.

This is a great post about why cycling is so popular in Japan.

Look at this lovely big footpath outside of school. I still have
parents panicking about me being on this footpath with their
kids, like really!?!

Bikes here are generally more expensive, we've discovered. They're not really designed for mums doing shopping or carting kids to kindergarten. They're mostly designed for recreation or serious cyclists who wear lycra! I'm missing my Japanese bike with its two huge baskets!

Our family is a novelty here, riding bikes to school. It was the way a teacher opened a conversation with our shy middle son the other day: "You're the boy who rides to school, aren't you?" We've only seen one other student from the school riding, out of eight or nine hundred students! It isn't a local public school, however, and many students come from far afield on school buses or on trains.

More subtle culture shock comes while riding bikes. Australians seem to be more scared of bikes than Japanese people. Probably because they see less of them. I have heard, however, that Australian cyclists can be a dangerous lot. Here we have wonderful wide footpaths to ride on. I try to keep the boys off the roads (where the drivers are a dangerous lot who drive fast) but pedestrians can be a bit antsy about sharing the footpath with us. Legally we're supposed to get off the footpath, and we try to do so wherever possible. I had someone swear at me once for not doing so, even though we had a good two feet between us. 

The footpaths in Tokyo are, when they exist, usually much narrower and people and cyclists seem to coexist with a lot less angst. I guess bikes are more familiar to them. I even scared a little dog here the other day, it nearly jumped out of its skin when I passed it as it walked with its owner! Japanese, in general, are used to the give and take that living so closely with so many other people entails. Australians, I guess, are not.

Anyway, we're enjoying our bikes and working them hard. We're still riding to school four days a week, and getting stronger. In Japan we rarely ride more than a km or two and usually without much in the way of hills. Our suburb in Ipswich is much hillier and our gears get a workout, though as I get stronger I'm managing less gear changes.

My kids can't win

Yesterday a friend told me that her son had come home upset the other day. Our sons are friends and unfortunately our youngest son somehow let slip that he wants to go back to (?his friends in) Japan. His Australian friend was upset because he interpreted that as meaning that our son didn't like him.

Our son with another TCK in Japan
last year. Kids who've grown up
outside their passport culture have
a strong leaning towards friendship
with others who've grown up in similar
circumstances. This kind of upbringing
 makes making friends with "monocultural"
kids hard.

Alas the challenge of having friends in different parts of the world. You miss them when you are apart and can never be with all of your friends at the same time.

It is also challenging when you love two different places. My friend wisely pointed out to her son that our son has spent less than two of his 9 1/2 years in Australia, and that of course he wants to go back to the place he is most familiar with.

I'm grateful that our son has been able to make friends so easily, friends who'll miss him when he's gone. In fact there is a boy in Japan who we said goodbye to in June who is missing our son too. This ability to make such good friends is not something to be taken for granted, but it does bring its own challenges.

It seems that our middle son has managed to make friends too. Last night we attended an orientation evening for entering high school. Several boys came over to say hi to him. He didn't have much to say back, but obviously he's well thought of by a few boys anyway.

By the way, this poor child graduated from Elementary School (5th grade) in June. He "went back" to Primary School in July (6th grade) and will graduate from Primary School next month. He'll enter High School (7th grade) in February and then, when we move back to Japan, will "go back" to Middle School (7th grade) in August next year! After that he should have a smooth progression through to high school until we come back to Australia again (probably during 10th grade).

I'm not sure if our eldest son has made friends. He's not good at defining what friends are. He's not good at communicating about them either. Most often when talking about school we hear about the unreasonable uniform and how he can't wait to go back to Japan. I've stopped asking about friends because he doesn't know how to answer me. We're still praying, though.

I don't want to advise my boys not to tell their Australian friends that they're looking forward to going back to Japan. That would be to introduce lies into their relationships. I just hope that somehow these young men who've opened their hearts to my sons will be able to have some understanding that they long for the country they've grown up in, even if they are not Japanese.

I'm invisible

Conversations with Australians sometimes make me feel invisible. Does that ever happen to you?

Or maybe a martian is a
better way to think
of me. People seem to have
trouble relating their
experiences to mine?

For example, this situation: 

I know the people I'm in a group with are aware I'm a missionary and have spent many years overseas, separated from family. Then the conversation progresses something like this*:

Belinda: I hate being away from my family. I remember the time I went to a conference in America, I was gone for ten days, it was horrible.
Rhea: Yeah, I know what you mean. It doesn't improve when your kids get older either.

I was standing right there and wanted to remind them that we've spent years apart from our families, but I didn't.

Or

Tina: Gee it's tough right now, Mum isn't around at the moment to look after the kids.

And yes, I've raised my children without the benefit of having free babysitting by their grandparents.

Other examples I can think of are: 

• grumbling about food choices, when there is so much choice available compared to what I usually have,
• others in ministry in Australia pointing out how they're on a low income as if I wouldn't know the implications of that.

Maybe I'm unrealistic in my expectations of others. I'm most certainly selfish. But sometimes it feels as if I'm invisible.

*Names are fictional.