18 March, 2024

Day 3: a lake, three beaches, and a conference

Can you spot Lake Macquarie in the background?

This day we woke up in a caravan park on the shores of Lake Macquarie. A peaceful caravan park where we only encountered cheerful staff and residents. We're still adjusting to the change to daylight saving that we copped when we crossed the Queensland-New South Wales border on Wednesday (for non-Aussies, Queensland is the only state on the eastern side of Australia not to have daylight saving). The sun got up after 7. It was very weird to wake up at 6 am and find it was still dark!

Cave beach

We packed up and left by 10, and drove a short distance to Cave Beach, where, surprise surprise, there are caves on the beach! Alas the tide was coming in and we could only just get to one of them. The winds were high and the surf pretty fierce, but we walked along the beach for a bit anyway. Then, after it started raining, we hopped back in our vehicle and drove north a short distance, in search of a walk along the shoreline and found another beach (ingeniously called "Coastal") after a short walk through bushland. We then drove to a sheltered spot, read for a bit and made lunch in our portable home. 

Long Reef Headland in Collaroy

Then it was time to face the trip to Sydney. We were surprised by the Pacific Motorway to the north of Sydney. It goes through a lot of uninhabited mountainous area, with large portions of hills blasted away to accommodate the road. I looked it up later (I get travel sick, so I only get away with a minimal amount of reading as a passenger); I think much of the blasting happened in the 1920s, presumably when tunnel technology wasn't really a thing in Australia! In any case, the middle part of our journey was prettier than we'd anticipated.

Lunch in the motorhome

Driving in big cities you don't know is never fun and doing it in a larger vehicle makes it worse. Google Maps is a huge help, but it even got a bit lost at one point and gave us information that didn't match the signs in front of us, so we ended up in a tunnel that took us too far into the city! 

Around 3pm we did stop for caffeine as we got weary, but then powered onwards to the beachside suburb in northern Sydney of Collaroy. We were too early to check in, so we parked and went for a walk up the Long Reef Headland, which afforded beautiful views up and down the coastline, then walked down to the shoreline and back around to where we'd parked, touching the southern end of Fisherman's Beach. I walked a bit more than seven kilometres in the day, which is actually very good considering how tired I felt in the early part of the day!

Dinner was, of course, fish and chips, and then we drove to the conference centre and checked into our room. This is OMF Australia's annual national conference, something we only get to every five years or so. But I'll write more about this next time.

16 March, 2024

Day 2 on our way to Sydney

Thunderbolts Way
This day we travelled from Uralla to Lake Macquarie (south of Newcastle, near the coast), 355 km. I’ve never travelled in this region before and it’s been delightful.

We took “the road less travelled” from Uralla to the coast: Thunderbolts Way and then Bucketts Way onto the Pacific Highway. It took us through and down the Great Dividing Range. This range is not “great” because it is especially high, although it presented explorers and settlers of this land considerable difficulty when they tried to go west from the east coast. It’s called great because it is so long. It stretches 3,500 km, from the very top of the east coast of Australian mainland to western Victoria on the southern coast. I grew up in Toowoomba on “the range” as it is colloquially known, but that’s only a tiny part of this huge geographical feature. It was fun to drive through a different part of it.

The road we took went through very few towns and those it did were very small (under 3,000). At lunch we stopped at a town, Nowendoc, with 146 people, but the only ones we saw out and about were tourists passing through. We stopped next to an information booth that had some great historical information about the area. It has a long history of agriculture, logging, and even a gold rush.

The road after lunch was windy and up and down, as we made our way towards the plain from a height of over 1,000 m (Uralla). The slopes we drove past were worthy of comparison with Japanese mountains, though obviously not so high. We stopped for a photo at one designated spot (see second photo in this post).

Cambodian street food stall
Afternoon tea was at another small town called Wards River. There were signs outside a small shop across the road that looked like ice cream signs, so we went to investigate. Turns out they were signs for Cambodian street food! The lady who runs it came out of her house next door just to serve us and we didn’t have the heart to say no. So David had a pink milky drink and I had a fried rice-potato-vegetable thingy with sweet sauce.



Probably the least interesting part of the drive was when we joined the Pacific Highway (major highway that follows the coast and links Brisbane to Sydney. They’re doing major roadwork on the highway northwest of Newcastle and we got stuck in traffic. I’ve never been to Newcastle…now I can say I’ve driven near it, but I still haven’t seen it!

Cambodian street
food!

We’re staying in a caravan park near the shores of Lake Macquarie. We didn’t get here too long before dinner and so only got a short walk near the lake. But nearly two dozen ducks joined us as we ate bacon and eggs for dinner under our awning! At the time of writing the first draft of this blog post I was looking forward to getting to bed. It was a couple of long days and I didn’t sleep really well first night, though it was lovely and cosy with the temperature dropping to around 10 degrees early this morning.

Lake Macquarie

Duck friends

15 March, 2024

The start of a long road trip

Warning: this blog is temporarily turning into a travel blog! Hang tight and we’ll return to normal programming in a couple of months. Meanwhile it’ll be this Aussie who sometimes feels like a visitor in Australia, travelling in her wide land to see what she can see.

I'm publishing posts with a few days delay so that you'll see our journey, but not know where we are at present (generally).

Monday and Tuesday

We got off to a rocky start to our motor home trip. Key to the whole adventure was borrowing my parent’s small motor home, but to do that we needed to fetch it from their place, about 1 ½ hrs from us. Our plan was to do that on Monday and bring it to Ipswich to our house so we could leisurely put our stuff in it on Tuesday. But David felt very weary on Sunday and woke up late on Monday wondering if he was ill with something. So we postponed our motorhome-fetching trip and instead spent a few hours getting a medical opinion and tests. Then resting. Thankfully nothing came of any of that and by the end of Monday he was feeling better. 

My parents kindly offered to meet us halfway on Tuesday, so we met them for lunch and picked up the motor home, packing our stuff into it in the afternoon.

Wednesday

I didn’t sleep well on Tuesday night. Nerves? Excitement? Both? This big audacious plan has been percolating for well over a year. We’ve known for several years that we could take long service leave during this home assignment, and this time last year a plan started to form about what we might actually do with this lengthy time off. So, after thinking about it for that long, it felt like a lot was riding on “getting it right”. And, of course, I’m always concerned that I’ll forget something vital. Going away for eight weeks is a considerable length of time…

We finally got away a bit before 10am, stopped close by to do a couple of last minute errands and realised I’d not packed my hat, so returned for that vital piece of equipment.

The first part of our journey is to Sydney to attend an OMF conference on the weekend, but we took our time about it. The first leg was Ipswich to Uralla, 463 km.

Uralla is a small town of less than 3,000 people. We stayed at their showgrounds. There were only a handful of others doing the same and we were thoughtfully placed a long way apart. 

It was a tiring day and I was grateful to be carrying leftovers from earlier in the week that we could just heat up and eat. But we did pull out the Scrabble board and complete a portion of a game and I got started with this travel blog. You're going to have to be patient with me, though, as I figure out how to balance this travel and writing!






06 March, 2024

An empty house, a retreat, and a long road trip

We're walking through a little bit of metaphorical whiplash here...and it's not just that we're now suddenly alone in our home after 24+ years of sharing it with our children, though that is not a small thing.

Next week we're leaving on a two-month-long adventure in a motorhome (I mentioned it in January here). So while our attention has been very much focused on our sons these last couple of months, we've now turned our minds to trip preparation in a big way. In addition to that I've got some writing and magazine-team admin work to do before we go which I've been trying to focus on yesterday and today, with patchy success!

I have an office space again, that isn't in the dining
room! We've moved our work stuff into this bedroom,
as well as some other things in boxes like Lego.

Our house is quiet. Periodically we're reminded we have children when they text us about one issue or another. They all came over on Sunday afternoon for several hours, as is our current weekly routine. That was fun, but it was also nice when they all went home! It's actually very satisfying seeing them move on from dependence on us. We've been preparing them for this for many years and it's great to see them living it and stepping up to the challenge.

Earlier in the week we nutted out more of a skeleton for the route of our journey around south-eastern Australia and now it's down to details about booking accommodation sites and investigating things to check out while we're on the road. I'm being a little guarded about sharing where exactly we are going, because this is not a ministry trip, nor is it a "catch up with as many people as you can" trip. We're hoping to unwind and relax on our own (most of the time). People have asked me to post a lot of photos so they can enjoy it. I'm also planning to blog about our trip as we go, but with a little bit of a time-delay so you will see where we've been, not where we are. I hope to allow you to vicariously enjoy some places in Australia that you've never heard of, or perhaps you have, but haven't seen them through the eyes of an Aussie who hasn't lived most of her adult life in Australia. 

As I thought about this trip I realised the trip is a little like a babymoon, but at the other end, an "empty nest moon"? It's certainly an interesting way to begin this new chapter of "coupledom". We're excited, but at the same time wondering how well we'll cope with two months in a motorhome! We've stocked up on a number of unplugged activities to relax with and are looking forward to seeing a good amount of "nature" on our travels.

I didn't plan on waking up to see the sun rise on
Saturday morning at our retreat, but took advantage
of it when I noticed the time. This awaited me out
the back door!

But, before I finish this, I can't neglect to mention the other big thing that happed last week. I went on a mini-retreat with two of my closest friends. We've never done this before, and it was fun. Our families (offspring included) enjoy getting together (we holidayed for a week together in 2022), but those times are not without many interruptions. It was super for just the three "girls" to get away together and hang out for many hours. We rented a cottage through AirBnB in the countryside to the west of here for the night. But the journey to get there was all part of the time away as we travelled together, talking all the way. It was a good Aussie experience, with an evening meal at an old pub (est. 1902) as well. 

Plenty of rain recently meant a beautiful vista
as we travelled some small country roads.
I'm so thankful for these two friends. We've been in touch via texting almost daily for five and a half years, though our separate friendships go back many more years than that. We've walked alongside one another through some really tough times and it's been a huge blessing. To be able to spend physical time together is amazing. So thankful to our heavenly Father for the blessings that he's showered on me recently!

More sunrise...

This was a bit before sunset the night before.

But, I'd better get back to writing that editorial that I've got to finish this week...and we'll see if I get back to writing here before we leave next week, or maybe not till we're on the road (the first part of our journey is work, but then around six weeks of holidays on the road—Yay!).

29 February, 2024

Moving our sons out (part two)

Eleven days after his brother moved out, our 21 y.o. also moved into his own place. It's a shorter story than "Part one".

He's moved one suburb over, only 8 km from us, and it was a vastly more simple process than moving internationally! His new place is a mostly furnished studio apartment (what's a studio apartment?) that is a converted garage, attached to a home. So it only took a couple of trips on Tuesday afternoon to move him in.

The more interesting story about this move is how we found this place. Often, during the last couple of months, I've referred to us as "detectives" as we followed leads in our search for the right place. Our son didn't yet have the finances to rent a place on his own and we didn't have any financial resources to help much. Plus, because of various issues I don't want to go into here for his privacy sake, our son wasn't going to fit into just any household or house-share. During our search we tried inspecting a couple of options, but it was pretty obvious that neither would work. As his mum I found it a distinctly uncomfortable emotional rollercoaster at times.

We had lots of people within our network praying: prayer partners, supporting churches, and others. We had people telling us about leads and putting notices in their church bulletins. And quite a few asking for updates.

His private verandah

Then one Sunday in mid-January I got a message from one of our supporters whom I haven't seen in many years. She sent me a screenshot of a church bulletin advertising a studio apartment attached to the home of a young Christian family. It sounded intriguing, so we asked for more information. Which lead to lots of detailed information about this private rental that the young couple have set up, and later a visit to see it. Overall it seemed like a good option, so he indicated his interest. And as he wasn't the first in line, we then waited weeks for news.

The waiting was hard, but in the midst of that we were planning for our other son's move. Then (what felt like a long time) we heard that the studio was his, if he wanted it. I can't tell you how relieved I felt.

What's intriguing to me is how we found out about it. The lady who sent us the ad doesn't go to the church where the ad was published, she knows some people there and plays the piano there sometimes. I don't think the owners of the apartment go to this church either. It seems to be a classic "Christian network" story. Whatever the full story is, we're thankful.

In the last weeks we've found a desk and chair, a second-hand bike, and bought bits and pieces including storage containers that will fit this small space. We've had things given to us, including food, plastic containers, cutlery, a blanket, and a fan. When we arrived on Tuesday we found the owners had put a few food items in the studio as a welcome gift.

On Tuesday we loaded up our car, and the trailer we borrowed for this season of moving, and headed over (a mere 12-minute drive). It didn't take long to move everything in. The interesting part of a studio apartment is that things don't always go where you might expect, because there are only one or two rooms. This one has a door in the middle, giving a little division between the "wet area" and the bed/living area. But the kitchen is kinda split between the two rooms. I was surprised to find the apartment includes a private covered verandah, which is a good place to put his bike so it doesn't get chewed by the family's energetic dog, but also to hang laundry. 

All in all, it's a nice little place, a good "starter" and I hope our son will enjoy the peace and quiet.* And that as he learns to live independent of us, that he'll grow in many ways that weren't easy to do when he was supported by us and living under our roof.

We now have no children left in our home, for the first time in nearly 25 years! It's different, but also good. It will take some adjusting to, but we're not sad. 

We've discovered that we're largely moving against cultural trends here too. As you probably know, many young adults in Australia (and in many other wealthy countries) are remaining at home for many years after they graduate from high school. The idea that we're actively moving our sons out has come as a bit of a surprise to some. But, taken in the context of our occupation and where we work, it makes sense. Japan isn't home to our sons, even though they grew up there. Their language skills aren't currently at the level that would enable them to live independently there. Australia is the easiest place for them to get a start on the next chapter in their lives (cheapest place for an Aussie to do tertiary study, for example), so if you understand the bigger picture, it's the logical choice.

I'm so, so glad to finally be able to tell you the "end" of this story. Of course we're just starting another chapter, the story of our lives as parents isn't over yet, it just looks different now that they are no longer living under our roof.


* One thing that makes it hard for him to live with other people is a sensory disorder called misophonia. It's a relatively unknown, and minimally researched problem that is barely recognised by medical professionals (or government agencies). Misophonia is an intolerance of certain sounds and associated cues. Typically repetitive aural or nasal sounds such as chewing, swallowing, sniffing, heavy breathing. It can cause people to feel uncontrollable anger. It's profoundly shaped our son's life, and, because we've lived with him for two decades, our lives and relationship with him have been impacted too.


22 February, 2024

Moving our sons out (part one)

We're getting close to being able to tell you the "end of the story", the end that we've been working towards and praying about for many months. The story of how both of our boys move out of home. Here's part one.

Last Friday our 18 y.o. moved out into a house near his university that he will share with two other students (24 km from where we're living). The house was found through a real estate agent that goes to our eldest son's church. One of his housemates also goes to that church and so does our 18 y.o. son now! We're thankful that they did most of the work finding the place, sorting out paperwork, and finding a third housemate.


We did the move the cheap way using our car and a borrowed trailer, so it took longer than if we'd hired a big van. But it wasn't a simple move from one place to the other. We picked up stuff like a washing machine and microwave from several places close to his new house as well as a bed and bookshelf from the far east of Brisbane (nearly 50 km from our house). We got home for the final time at 10pm on Friday night after driving around all day. Then we hopped back in the car on Saturday morning and picked up another item, then (because he doesn’t have a licence yet) picked our son up to take him to the optometrist because his glasses frames had started to break the day before. On our way back to his place we picked up one final thing: a two-seater sofa. When we finally got home on Saturday at 3pm we were very tired, but also very satisfied.
Saturday was a very different day to
the rain we encountered on Friday.

Everything seemed to take twice or three times as long as it looked like it should on paper. We encountered heavy rain, bad traffic, an ATM that wouldn't give me a $80 (no $10 in the machine, presumably), a Saturday morning market, parking difficulties, communication delays, and bad directions from Google maps. We forgot things and had to go back again, had to buy a new tarp, and had to take detours to get food.

Along the way we met an Ecuadorian who hasn't seen her family for over five years, a Belgian who has a new baby and is returning "home" via New Zealand, and a lady who works for the RSL (Returned Services League) and is committed to not continue contributing to landfill by helping her adult kids pass on their unneeded stuff. We met people who stood by our sides 24 years ago as we left Australia the first time. And more recent acquaintances who, in 2022, housed members of our family three times (including one emergency stay when a plane got cancelled), picked us up from the airport that same year when it took us 35 hrs to get from Japan to here (usually it's an 8 hr flight), and drove two of us to the Gold Coast to catch our flight back to Japan. We had things thrust into our hands and left on the front step that would help our son set up his new place with his two new housemates. What a wonderful confluence!

It was quite a process, but we felt satisfied at the end. Not only had we achieved a major goal (raising our son to the point where he could live independently from us) but we were able to physically help him move out. So many times in the last 25 years we've been unable to help our loved ones by being physically present. 

We've missed many significant family celebrations, including our eldest son's 21st. And have never helped our parents, sons, or siblings move house. We’ve even missed moving into our own house several times (when we’ve asked people to help set up our newly rented house before we arrived back in the country, so that we could settle the boys into school as quickly as possible). It was a joy to be able to help this time. It was fun to scour second hand shops and Facebook Marketplace, and to make lists of household products to add to my grocery list, all of this to help him get started in this new life.

But I can't finish this post without telling of how we're praising God for his great provision. Queensland has been experiencing a housing shortage for some time now, and people have been very fond of telling us how hard it is to find places to rent (which hasn't been very encouraging). But God's purposes for us haven't been thwarted. At least that's how it looks from our perspective. In order for us to continue to serve God in Japan, we needed him to find places for our sons to move to, and it's happening! 

We've been praying about this for years and many others have been praying in recent months. At our church on Sunday the worship leader reminded the church they've been praying for our sons' accommodation for eight months! So we're praising God for his provision and his ongoing leading. Of course he could have led us out of ministry in Japan and that would have been hard, but hopefully we would have been able to praise him for that too.

We've been watching a season of The Chosen recently and one of Jesus's disciples said, after witnessing a miracle, "I don't know why I continue to be surprised." This is how I feel. And I feel chastened regarding my lack of faith and trust in God. But also just thankful for God's provision.

Psalm 68:19 Praise be to the Lord, to God our Saviour, who daily bears our burdens. (NIV)

Part 2 is planned for next week. It will look different, but you’ll have to wait to hear that story!

15 February, 2024

Questions corner

Here’s one I prepared earlier. Our youngest son is moving out tomorrow and it’s been busy!

I've mentioned before that I write 11 prayer letters a year. I've been writing them since October 1998, so it's gotten to be a habit. The way that I manage to churn out so many is by using a template, and by making it in a newspaper-type format. Here's an example from five years ago. There are "regular" sections that I just fill in each time, like a calendar; a prayer list; a "on the home front" with personal news; and CAJ corner, which David writes about the school and his work. 

But when we're in Australia we change up the "CAJ corner" to something else. This time it's become "Question corner" where we answer good questions people ask us (or questions we wish people would ask us!). Here are some we've featured:

So, how’s Japan?
This is an impossible question to answer when it comes at the start of a conversation. It usually comes from someone who wants to engage with us, but isn’t sure where to start. In case you want to ask us a question when you see us, here are some suggestions of questions you could ask us in casual conversation:
Japanese BBQ we use while camping

 What do you miss about Japan?
 What’s something funny that happened to you in Japan?
 Tell me something you love about Japan.
 How is the Japanese church doing post-COVID?
 What’s a small thing that brings you joy in Japan?
 What’s the climate like in Tokyo?
 Tell me about a regular day for you in your work in Japan.
 Are Japanese people worried about the political situation in the region?
 What do you do to relax in Japan?
 We’ve heard you love to camp there, tell us about camping in Japan.

Is Japan’s population shrinking?
According to worldpopulationreview.com, “Japan’s population is projected to lose 20.7 million people between 2020 and 2050. The population is expected to shrink from 126.5 million to 105.8 million, a 16.3% decline. Japan’s population has been falling since 2011 due to very low fertility rates (1.42 births per woman) and an aging population.”

Fertility rates in wealthy countries around the world are dropping. Japan’s is the fourth lowest in the world. Pair that with proportionately the oldest population in the world (29.2% over 65 years of age) and you’ve got population shrinkage.

There are many cultural factors to this situation, including an education system that demands a lot of parents, especially mothers; low childcare support; and a nation that works hard and sleeps little, so there’s often little time or energy to find partners. A recent survey also revealed that around 50% of unmarried adults under 30 don’t want children. And Japan also accepts few immigrants, though there are pushes to change this, it probably won’t change quickly.

Japanese people are concerned about the future of their country. Pray that they’ll find hope in God.

Why are so few people coming to know Christ in Japan?
This is a really hard question to answer—people have written whole books on it. The truth is, we don’t know why the Holy Spirit is not moving more people to become Christians in Japan. It’s possible to discern various factors in individual stories, but the same set of factors don’t apply to every person. For example, one person might not want to let their family down by abandoning the family altar they are responsible for, another doesn’t feel the need for what appears to them as a foreign god. Many people are held back because they don’t understand grace and forgiveness, or don’t see themselves as sinners.

The pressure to conform to the group is strong in Japan and while Christianity is such a tiny minority (under 1%), it is hard for people to consider stepping outside that. Many people have never heard the gospel. Will you pray for this nation of 125.7 million people?

Why go with a mission organisation?

We’ve been greatly blessed by being members of OMF International. Here are a few reasons why:

  • OMF has provided so much on-the-ground support in Japan and in Australia. They’ve helped us when we’ve had medical needs, provided fellowship vital to longevity, guided us in important decisions, provided professional development, admin support, and language training. They also sponsor our visas and have helped us find housing.
  • The local knowledge and experience that they’ve got as an organisation helped us get to Japan and settle there in ministry.
  • They’ve provided us with a means to get the money people have given towards our support in Japan, in a way that doesn’t look like international money laundering.
  • They’ve got a much wider platform in Australia than we have personally, enabling us to develop a wider prayer and financial support team that would otherwise be possible, but also to tell more people about the needs in Japan.
  • They’ve supported us through challenges with our sons in recent years and given us much grace to do our best to support our kids, even when that meant taking time off.
  • Possibly the most important thing to us is that being members of OMF means we feel part of a greater whole—a body that is working together to reach Japan for Christ. That sense of purpose, and of working together with others is very important to us.
Why do parents send their kids to CAJ?
CAJ was founded to serve the children of missionaries, and that remains its main purpose. About 40% of the students come from missionary families (it varies a little from year to year). These missionary families are seeking education for their children in English, and with a Christian emphasis.

There are various reasons that these missionaries don’t use local schools. Sometimes they arrive in Japan with older children and it’s too difficult to start Japanese school at a later age when kids don’t have the language. Others try Japanese schools for a time and find the culture difficult, or maybe the students just don’t do well. CAJ provides an alternative option so that missionary families can stay in Japan.

Similar reasons apply to an additional 40% of students who come from a variety of Christian backgrounds: some are local Japanese Christian families, and a good number of Christian foreigners who work in secular jobs in Japan.
The remaining 20% of students come non-Christian families who desire an education in English, but don’t mind the values that CAJ weaves into its teaching. Our prayer is that all of these students will serve Jesus in their lives.

How can I prepare to serve in missions?
There are lots of things you can do. When we’re asked this question we say:
  • Read about mission: biographies, social media, etc.
  • Connect with a missionary and pray for them regularly
  • Find others who are like-minded about cross-cultural mission and spend time with them.
  • Find ways to serve others where you are: in your church, and in other ways too, like with AFES.
OMF Japan recently shared some tips on their social media from a helpful article by an MTW (Mission to the World) missionary that also included these tips :
  • Get cross-cultural (where you are, or on short-term trips overseas)
  • Study Scripture
  • Learn language/s
  • Evangelize
  • Be uncomfortable
  • Live with less
  • Pray more