Missionary code words—do you have them sorted out?

I read an amusing article a while back about "code words" in missionary prayer letters, but I'd say some of them are employed by plenty of other people, for example, in annual Christmas letters. 

For example, the article gives this one: "it's been a year of transitions". If I were to guess what that meant, I could suggest it might include: "it was a year when we packed a lot of bags and endured many stressful moments in airports, or, we had to say a lot of goodbyes and work hard at getting to know new people."

So I went hunting in our own prayer letter for some "code words". I don't think there are too many, but perhaps you can suggest some more. Here are some I found:

[Regarding summer holidays] "These were much needed and much appreciated breaks away." Meant: we were desperate for a holiday and had been for some time. 

"Pray for patience with one another as we adjust to everyone being based at home for 10 weeks." Well, I'm guessing that that probably isn't so coded. Use your imagination! Especially when thinking about the extra hot days where only three rooms in our house are airconditioned and we spent most of our days there together (including me trying to work). 

The word "farewells" appeared several times in recent letters. That means that we'd said goodbye to quite a number of people, yet again, for the 19th year in a row (in our case). Some were close, others not so much. It's relentless, even if we ourselves don't move.

"Continue to pray that God would provide us with new financial support." Yep, you might know that we nearly didn't get back to Japan in January because of this exact issue. It's just some words on the paper until you're living it, then it is a real challenge to trust God for all you need.

"Praise God for the various people who helped us to quickly pack up and leave Australia and also to settle back into Japan." This means that people did stuff for us like, take school uniforms and offer to sell them to other parents, cleaned our house, housed us when we were exhausted and in the deep throes of transition. People who stocked our fridge in Japan and found blankets for our beds for when we arrived close to midnight on our first day back in Japan and picked us up from the bus from the airport. And many more, I listed some here at the time. We wouldn't have made the move anywhere near so gracefully without all this help (and I don't know how graceful it was, even with their help...).

In our last two prayer letters I've used the word "challenging". It was in relation to the life of one of our sons. This meant everything from: "we lost sleep over him" to "he spent hours with David each day working on an online subject just to meet the deadlines". And plenty more that I can't share, which, of course, is why sometimes we resort to "code words". We can't share everything and rely on perceptive praying people to read between the lines.

What code words have you seen in prayer letters? Do you know what they mean? We use code words in polite conversation too, sometimes they help smooth the way when you don't have much time, or you don't know how committed someone is to hearing all the details, or you simply can't tell the details because you are protecting someone. Which code words do you find the most difficult to decipher?

An unusual week

This has been an unusual week, as weeks go in our house. It's the first time I’ve got a husband in hospital. It wasn’t unexpected, we’ve known about this for several weeks. The timing wasn’t great...but when is hospitalization ever a good thing? (Barring my friend’s situation who has a severely disabled son and her local hospital provides them with respite regularly.)

Anyway, he’s not particularly ill, though surgery will sideline you for a bit. He’s had a run-in with skin cancer. Something that we could see coming. He’s fair, Australian, and has a family history of it. Anyway, it is a very local problem in a very visible area: his hairless forehead (he’s been balding for many years now). The surgeon took quite a lot of skin on Wednesday and now he’s recovering from that.

I could say a lot about Japanese hospitals. Between the five of us over the last 19 years, we’ve had five periods of hospitalization and it’s always a stressful time. Thankfully, though, this time doesn’t involve young children.

Not only is being sick hard but dealing with it in a system you don’t quite understand in a language that doesn’t come easily, is challenging.

But I don’t really have time (and you possibly don’t have the patience) to rave on about that right now.

The timing this week has been particularly bad, just because it is smack bang in the middle of a ten-day celebratory season for our family: two birthdays plus our anniversary (today). We celebrated two of those over the weekend, pre-empting David’s absence. I’m thankful that the boys are older now and don’t need me as much (not to say they don’t need me, and times like these I’m aware so much more of how I’m something like the ballast that holds things steady).

The little room on the surgery floor where I waited to talk to the surgeon. I didn't know what was going on at this point as
the nurse had told the operation wasn't yet finished. It was a stressful moment on Wednesday! Turns out it was finished
and she just wanted to tell me how it had gone. Phew

I wasn't sure if I'd make it in to visit him today, but it turns out that I can. Friends have offered to take care of dinner for our guys tonight, which I’m very grateful for. They’re old enough to manage here on their own, but it’s a lovely positive gesture to feel that practical care from someone else.

Yesterday we experienced the care of others in a different way. I met a friend and college at a park near the hospital. It is a well-established inner-city park that I’ve never been to before. Amazing, actually (check out these photos). It’s been around for several centuries and has some amazing trees. Yesterday was a gorgeous still day (not too hot) with a blue sky that reflected beautifully in the ponds. (Note to self: go back on my own with my fancy camera one day.)

Then we went together to the hospital where her husband had eaten lunch with David. We chatted for a while and then they led us in communion. Something I’ve never done before in a hospital or with just four people.

Though we know many have prayed for us this week, it was very encouraging to have someone in person to hear the stories of the week and pray with us.

I have to head out now. We're hoping that he'll be released on Sunday.

PS sorry if this doesn't make sense in places, or has big mistakes! I'm in a hurry and haven't checked it as well as I'd like...please message me with whatever you find so I can fix it later.

Giving blood, typhoons, and a cross country meet

None of these things are related, but constitute notable or interesting things that happened in the last week. Much more interesting to write about than the 30+ emails that I've written today as well as numerous editing and social media scheduling decisions I've made.

Giving blood

The blood donation centre is on prime real estate, looking
down over an intersection in the city centre that I've
crossed many times.

On my way back from Osaka last Tuesday I stopped at Ikebukuro (the nearest "big city centre" to us). They have have a permanent Red Cross blood donation centre there that I'd been intending to visit for some years. Periodically the Red Cross has been invited by CAJ to set up a temporary clinic at a CAJ event and I've donated a couple of times there. However, as donation was something I didn't find hard to bear, it seemed that I could do better than that. 

I've been a blood donor since I was 17 when I volunteered to go with a school group to get signed up. However, between "frequently" changing countries, learning Japanese, having under-school aged kids at home for ten years, and ill-timed illness (I was refused twice for medical reasons in recent years when I had the opportunity to give), I've rarely given in the last 20 or so years. It was time!

I have to say it was a satisfying experience. Not only did I negotiate this new non-English environment on my own, I felt like I was giving a tiny bit back to a country that has hosted me for so many years. Satisfying. Oh, and they have a cool vending machine which meant I got as many free drinks as I wanted, plus free biscuits and ice cream at the end!

Cross country meet
We've been going to cross country meets in Tokyo since 2010 when our eldest son first joined the CAJ cross country team. It seems a terribly normal part of September and October. Last Friday when I questioned the sanity of choosing to get up at 5 the next morning to accompany the team, I quickly dismissed the question. It's simply "what we do", no point questioning it. Our middle son is in the team and our youngest is a "team manager", the latter which is basically "coach's assistant".

I was happy when I got there: the venue is amazing, and I've shown it to you before (see here for just one of my posts). It's probably as close to seeing what "natural" Tokyo used to look like as you'll find.

A portion of the course that I walked. It all looks very similar to this.

This is such a tradition for us that I missed some "old faces" of other parents. Either their kids have graduated or they are on home assignment or not in the team this year for one reason or another. David wasn't even there this time as the school had need of a driver for the middle school soccer team and he was the only one available. So I busied myself with walking along the course when I wasn't helping "newbie" parents understand what was going on. (It helps to know that there are places you can walk to during the races to see the kids part-way through the race.) I managed to walk about 5 km through this beautiful forest.

Typhoon
Then on Sunday we had a typhoon set its "sights" on us. We watched it all day (an oppressively hot and humid day) and it finally started raining around 7pm and continued through the night. It was a noisy night as the rain pelted and wind blew. It was also hot as we usually rely on our open windows to cool our un-airconditioned bedrooms down just a little.

But we didn't cop the worst of it. Chiba (the prefecture to the east of Tokyo) did and they are still restoring power there today. Chiba is where Narita, one of Tokyo's two international airports, is located. It seems as though things didn't go so well there because public transport shut down, especially the trains, and many thousands got stranded at the airport.

Our monthly OMF prayer meeting on the other side of Tokyo (in Chiba) was scheduled to start at 9.30 yesterday, but the trains were all off schedule, and that left millions in quite a mess trying to get anywhere (not an exaggeration, from the statistics I can find, approximately 40 million train journeys are undertaken in Tokyo every day). So, with little damage in our area, the concern for getting to the meeting was about how crowded the trains would be and if they were running at all. I deliberately set out late and took a different route to usual and made it there fine (if a bit hot and bothered as it was very hot and I ended up at a station 1.4km from our HQ). Some people intending to come never made it, purely because of train problems.

There were thousands without power yesterday and even this morning. A colleague's son got to skip school for a second day running because power was yet to be restored to the school. That sounds lovely, until you realise that many were without power to keep them cool in the mid-30˚C temperatures.

The rest of my week is not shaping up to be anything nearly as exciting as any of the above, though we do have another early rise on Saturday for cross country.

Fun meeting: an oxymoron?

On Monday I was in Osaka with my Japan Harvest magazine team. We spent the whole day together—looking at what we've been doing, planning for the future, and getting to know one another and what we each do better.

I always enjoy these days and I'm gradually getting less nervous about running them. We had our first meeting in 2012. I'm amazed at how far we've come since then! 

On Monday we had seven people attending in person and three joined us via Skype for part of the time. All the key team members were able to join us. One of the team, our proofreader, I met face-to-face for the first time.

Outside Osaka station at rush hour.

One of the reasons we had it in Osaka is that several of our team live in that area. Our proofreader actually lives on Shikoku, the island off the coast of Honshu near Osaka/Kobe. So he had to travel, but Osaka was a lot closer than Tokyo for him.

I still find this whole magazine thing amazing, even though I've been doing it now for nine years. I really wasn't a likely candidate for this job. I have no training in writing or editing or design, I'd never managed a team (beyond my own family), and no one has ever particularly noted that I have any kind of leadership abilities. Of course when I began I had no team to manage. My only qualifications were that I could write a bit and had a passion for communication. I have grown a lot.

That I now manage a team of around a dozen people is astounding to me. Plus I work with over twenty writers each issue of the magazine. I have learnt on the job about editing, magazines, and working with writers and editors. What a journey it has been!

The team learning about how the magazine is designed.

So I do not take what we have for granted. We have a strong, relatively stable team, who is passionate about what they do. They are working in areas that they are gifted in and enjoy contributing their time to serve the missionaries in Japan. No one (except our admin staff who manage the subscriber list and deal with the printer and mailing out the magazine) is paid. Everyone is donating their time and energy to this magazine. And they do such a good job!

As of this month our team is comprised of five nationalities. They live in four countries including Japan and several different prefectures within Japan. As no one is paid we do not meet as a whole team more often than once a year. I quite like it that way, not being fond of meetings, although sometimes it would be great to be able to communicate to people face-to-face more often.

On Monday we spent a significant amount of time walking through the process of the magazine, with people explaining what they do and answering questions from team members. It is the first time we've done that and it seemed to be really valuable time spent, especially the time we spent talking about the design. I think it's going to help us function better as a team and value what others do. Keeping a team together who almost never get together can be a struggle, particularly when trust is broken or miscommunications happen, but I hope that what we did on Monday will strengthen us.

Ken and Karen, our proofreading/design team. They're great and always push
me to up my game!

Getting to and from Osaka wasn't a small thing. It is about 500km from Tokyo. There are three main ways to get there from here: overnight bus, Shinkansen, and plane. I chose the latter. But that still included six trains on the way there and seven on the way home! I didn't rush: going on Sunday and coming back on Tuesday, but I was really tired afterwards. In fact I'm still tired, but more still coming down off the high that the day gave me (in fact I hit a motivational slump today).

Itami Airport in Osaka.

Well, this has been a bit of a mishmash of a blog post. I'm writing in the evening, which I hardly ever do. I set the goal of writing a blog post each week this year and this week is fast running out! Tomorrow we're up before six with school sport starting up again. After working much of last weekend, I'm planning on taking much of this one off, which essentially means trying to stay away from the computer. I'm planning to enjoy being outside at the cross-country venue tomorrow morning and to chill with a book in the afternoons.

I just want to finish this on a note of gratitude. Thanks be to my heavenly Father who has given me this rewarding work and gifted me to do it.

"For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them" (Eph 2:20 ESV).

Thoughts about lamenting

The other day when I was editing an article I came across the suggestion that lamenting might be an important thing to do if you want to build up your resilience and yet struggling with emotions.

This helpful article defines lament as "a Christian response of grief to suffering, injustice, and pain in the world, past or present."

I took a bit of time to see what "lamenting" actually meant and came across an interesting article here (as well as many others). 

It points out that many, if not most, churches in the West spend little time on lamenting. We tend to major on rejoicing. And of course, we are commanded to "Rejoice in the Lord always" (Phil. 4:4 NIV).

However, it is worth noting that a good portion of the Bible isn't joyful. Lamenting is, indeed, a common theme. Starting with the obvious: the Psalms, scholars vary in their assessment of this, but I've read that "lament psalms" make up between 30 and 45% of the book of Psalms (even that up to 60% of Psalms have sections of lament in them).

But also there is much lamenting in the books of Job, Jeremiah, Hosea, Isaiah, and so on, and of course, a whole book called Lamentations. Jesus lamented and Paul, Peter, and John, all lamented at times in their writing. The whole Bible is full of God (and his people) lamenting over sin and the consequences of sin. Romans even says that the whole creation groans (8:22). 

So what does this mean for me and you?

Here are a few thoughts:

1. Not quickly glossing over the not-so-joyful bits of Scripture. God's put them there for a reason, so we should read and ponder.
2. Taking time to lament, even when things are going well in our own lives. Give me 20 seconds and I can rattle off half a dozen people I know who are going through tough times right now. These are people who have been in my prayers recently. God calls us to "weep with those who are weeping" (Romans 12:15 NIV).
3. If I'm struggling to find something to lament in my own life, I need to ask God to show me my sin.
4. If I'm struggling to find something to lament about in the cultures around me, I need to ask for God's eyes to see and have the same heart that Jesus had when he looked at Jerusalem in Matthew 23:37.
5. If I'm struggling to find words to express to God my sadness, disappointment, anger, agony, confusion, or desperation, I can use the words of Scripture to help. Remember, Wendy, God is big enough to take our pain! Jesus dealt with more than that on the cross. For example, we can pray the words of Psalm 13.
6. Even if things are going well for us, practicing lamenting can prepare us for hard times that will inevitably come our way.

I don't like dwelling with bad feelings. I suspect I'm not the only one. But as I've gotten older I find myself able to identify more swings of emotions that I can ever remember having when I was younger. I'm much more aware of the pain in life, much less starry-eyed.

These few weeks are another period of transition in our year, as school starts up again. I didn't get time to write about early June when the last one happened. It was full of end-of-school events and farewell events. Once again, it was a time for goodbyes and see-you-laters (those being two very different things). This time of year everything at school starts up again (like February in Australia). There are new people to meet, "start of year" events to go to, and absences to notice.

Periodically I feel morose and need to take time to lament, not just drag myself out of the mud and keep going. However, praise is also important, and that is also what we see in many of the Psalms, they start with lamentation, but end in praising God. Like this:

Why, my soul, are you downcast?
    Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
    for I will yet praise him,
    my Savior and my God. (Ps. 42:11 NIV)

For any who would like to think on this further. Here is an excellent article from desiringgod.org: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/dare-to-hope-in-god 

My holiday reading

This morning I made a single pile of all my summer reading books and took a photo. It looked good and I posted the photo on social media. Then two friends asked for recommendations. I like that. It wasn't even so much about boasting about how much I've read, rather sharing some of my favourite books from the summer.

The reason why I've got all the books from the last nine weeks of reading is that the school allows us to borrow 20 books over the summer, including parents. I didn't quite manage 20 books read, but I did get quite a lot read, about half were read during our two-weeks away. With no work or wifi, I spent a lot of time lying on my bed reading (my by-far favourite place to devour a book).

Two of the books I borrowed I didn't get far with for various reasons, I haven't pictured them. One of the books pictured I got most of the way through, then it got repetitive and rather boring (Other Einstein). I'm currently part-way through Crazy Love by Francis Chan. 

I've taken four more photos, this time, split into categories.

The first photo is of fiction. Of these, my favourite was in broken places, though The Janson Directive by Ludlum was also an excellent read if you're into thrillers. in broken places is about a new teacher at an international school in Germany, so there was a lot I could relate to. However, it had a dark side, with the deep shadow of past child abuse.

These are historical fiction. Both the lower two are great, but I think my favourite was The Librarian of Auschwitz. It truly is astounding how much a human can put up, but also how small things, like a handful of books, can make a big difference in dire circumstances.

These biographies/autobiographies were also great. I loved Shoe Dog, written by the founder of Nike. Great writing style! Unexpected story. Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus was hard to get into but soon became an excellent read. It doesn't strictly fit into biographical, it is also apologetics. I learned more about Islam than I've ever known before.

It's hard to choose a favourite from these three non-fiction Christian books. Possibly Sabbath, though it is not written strictly for a Christian audience and there were elements I had to discard, it had great suggestions for ways to build restorative rest into your life.

I hate writing book reviews. But the above is definitely a more fun way to do it. Perhaps I should try more of this comparative way of doing it in the future? (Though it's harder when books I've read have gone back to the library . . . perhaps I can make a collection of spine-photos?) I do read a lot, so maybe I could help others by sharing a bit more?

First day of school again

Yes, it's the first day of school . . . again. It's our third in 18 months. First last July in Australia, then when we returned here in January, and now, actually in sync with everyone else around us, going into a new grade at the same school the boys finished at in June. It's a small thing, but also a big thing!

I think that we're pretty much recovered from our six-months in Australia. You might be thinking: Wow, that took a long time! Well, it did. Longer than I subconsciously expected. I've said it many times—international moves are a big deal. Especially when that involves children, schooling, and jobs. It is not like taking a holiday.

I have not been able to share on this public blog some of the private struggles we had during our home assignment, but believe me when I say that some of them have had a long-term impact on us. I think that now we are in a much better place as a family now than we have been for some years. It is good and we are thankful. God has helped us persevere through some tough stuff, I'm teary now even thinking about it. But all praise goes to him, not us.

However, I started this post with the intention of writing about the start of school and something about the challenges of our holidays.

I have no first-day-of-school photo. Our boys are very much of the opinion at the moment that photos of them, particularly posed family photos, are a ridiculous idea. I've tried a couple of times to get family photos this summer and it simply hasn't produced anything that any of us would want to share with anyone.

You can guess, therefore, that the battle of the wills in our house is quite strong. It always has been. Perseverance (or stubbornness) runs strongly through all five of us. And as you might know or guess, stubborn teenagers are sometimes not fun to be around.

This summer the boys have not been shy in letting me know their true opinion of just about everything: my cooking, my habits, how I talk, move, breathe, eat. I think my driving has been relatively critique-free, and probably something else that I can't think of now. But sometimes my growing-thicker-by-the-day skin has worn thin. I've taken myself into "time out" in my room more than a couple of times.

The boys have been out of school since June 11. That's a long time! However, it hasn't really dragged.

Our youngest did two weeks of "Summer school", keeping him busy for five mornings and five afternoons. He's also had a maths booklet to complete, fairly sizable, but a good review of all of the maths done in grade eight (helpful as he missed half a year while in Australia and studied different topics in maths there).

Our middle son has had a part-time job mowing lawns at school and a missionary property. He has also spent time catching up on on-line school work that didn't get finished in Australia as well as doing an extra maths subject so that he can do five subjects of maths during his high school career, instead of four. The latter has taken hours almost every day in the last month, but also David's, as both a teacher and parent (i.e. physical presence helps with focus). There was procrastination involved, but speeding through a year's worth of maths in just five weeks is no small feat, even if you are good at the subject.

We had our eldest son here for about two weeks and then we went away for two weeks. Plus two camping trips either side of that holiday.

David was acting head of school for a few weeks while the HOS was overseas visiting family, so he only really had a short break from being at school.

My holidays pretty much only contained those days and weeks we were out of Tokyo. In fact, our holidays made the weeks surrounding them quite busy as I prepared to leave and then caught up when I got back.

I think I had somewhat grand ideas about the "summer holidays". Many half-formed ideas that didn't get any further. We did have a couple of movie nights with friends, one BBQ, and a couple of other social gatherings. While we were away we made a concerted effort to leave work behind. I didn't check email for two weeks straight! I did get a good start on my new cross-stitch project and did a lot of reading too.

But now it is over for another year. We head into the last four years of having boys at school. I'm looking forward to the predictability and stability of that because I know that there are big changes coming up. Four or so years until everyone leaves. That doesn't seem so far away.

For now, I'm enjoying the peace and quiet of having no one here. Not even so much the quiet, as my boys are often quite quiet. But the peace of mind in knowing that there are no critics watching me. No one I have to check with if I want to go out or urge onwards with their work. No one who will be upset with my choice of music. I can have lunch whenever I want, without stepping on anyone's toes. (Of course, homework is coming . . . but not during my daytime.) Ah, the freedom. And of course they are happy too: they get to be free of hanging out with the annoying "olds" day after day.