Noel in November?

Well, to be honest, I think the Christmas decorations were already up by the time I posted our October update. Christmas sneaks earlier every year, seems like. 

This month revolved around hospitals, vaccinations, consultations, rehabilitation (although really, “habilitation” seems more apt - he's not really "re" anything), with some mashed potatoes and spiced apple cider, a few pine cones and candles squeezed in between. And suddenly, it’s advent! But, just for a moment, I’ll pause and speak gratitude into a rainy evening.  

- Thank you to each of you who thought of us in the past week with our baby’s most recent hearing check. We’re grateful for the 50 decibels and louder that he can hear, and look forward in hope to his next hearing check at six months. We’re thankful for each of you who sent a quick comment with encouragement and love. Truly, we could not weather these days without our cloud of witnesses. 

- In a season where our church is suddenly without a pastor, we’re so grateful for many wise, creative voices who speak Truth into our community: God is faithful, beyond our controlling fears, God delights in diversity, and spreading out his people throughout the globe; at every moment, God reminds us: your technology, human cooperation, innovation and careful planning will never get you nearer to me. God strains toward humanity with an awesome intensity, while humans gesture limply back. Of all the world’s religions, Christianity is the one where God comes down rather than demanding that humans toil up. 

- We’re grateful for the deep roots of this city. For thanksgiving, we invited neighbors for their first taste of American style thanksgiving food - mashed potatoes served next to rice balls wrapped in seaweed and sweet bean desserts (better double the sugar, the husband said, they’re Americans). These friends pre-date many of the existing roads in our city. Their family goes back, “oh maybe to about the Meiji Era, you know 1870s or so”, on this same land. It’s humbling to be the newcomer, and we will always be foreign. We’re grateful for a small spot in this place with a deep and intricate heritage. 

- We’re grateful for a return to a new kind of normal, which allows our days to take on their rhythms and patterns: bike commutes, laundry, lunch boxes, walking the dog, chatting with neighbors. That friend who watches my three year old so I can sit over a cup of coffee with a friend in a tough season. And who let me watch her two year old so she can sit with a friend in a difficult marriage. 

- I’m grateful for support networks for moms and kids in this community, two in particular, and that I am able to begin attending them again after a long season of bed rest and hospitalization. For the woman who met me in the park with a curiosity about prayer, who also - of course - used to work at the hospital for children with disabilities, where we now go often. Grateful that we ran into each other enough times walking on the river and playing in the park that we just had to become friends. 

- We’re grateful - am I allowed to say this out loud? - to live in a country with an intact social welfare system, where we can rely on our city network to help support our new life with a child with disabilities. Gratitude, not politics. 

- Grateful for the generosity of a sweet relative which allowed us to get away for a few moments, just to sit over a steaming bowl of uninterrupted ramen. 

- And grateful now to begin advent with our kids; watch them anticipate the season, the stories and music; watch them wreak havoc on the decorations - the patient advent cast who travel daily around the house, enacting various plots and scenarios. Thankful they're made of sturdy wood! 

October overview

First walk to the park

Is it just us, or is your fall also so overwhelming, so unavoidably overscheduled? Back in July, August - well, March if I’m honest - we thought this was just a phase, this feeling of being underwater. If we could just make it through this appointment or make it past that event, we would breath easy again. Now, the waves seem to have become our norm. Two sermons carried me through this month.

Birthday campout!

Here are some of the snapshots: getting used to our new son, born missing his hands and feet - who’s doctors evaluated at the highest level of disability Japan registers. Sending my mother back to America after three months of constant help and cheer. School sports festivals. Pastors quitting our church. Celebrating the birthdays of two of our kids - so grateful they have made it to ages 7 and 5 (is she really only just 5?). Sitting with friends as they said goodbye for now to their beloved and only son - just 7 years old - after years of struggling with leukemia; his mother grateful to “hold him all the way home.”  

Sports Day!

So maybe you can see that the verses in Psalm 91 carried all their usual comfort and confusion, presented by a friend in a sermon this month. “Because you have made the Lord your dwelling place. . . . no evil shall be allowed to befall you” (v 9). We struggle alongside our boy of 7, asking why another boy, just his age, had his cells stop growing right and instead grow into life-robbing cancer? To ask with our girls who love babies why this little brother’s hands and feet didn’t grow quite right, even though “fearfully and wonderfully made”? (Psalm 139:14) We look at Jesus. Where else is there left to look? God did not spare his only son, so we too hold ours with open hands. 

Sushi with Grammy!

The second sermon, spoken in another country, by another wise friend, pointed us to Jesus in Mark 6. What parent can’t relate to a moment like this: “Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest (v 31). But even that didn’t work because everyone raced on ahead of them and crowded to their “quiet place” to greet them as they arrived. And then this command, one of my favorite, and also one I find most confusing: “You give them something to eat” (v 37 emphasis mine). Just when I congratulate myself on having remembered to actually bring my own lunch - I won’t be beholden to anyone else; I’ve got myself covered, thank you very much - Jesus says, good, can you also make space for those 5,000 men and their families at your picnic blanket? Thanks. The pastor reminded us, Jesus isn’t so interested in what you have or don’t have. In fact, the less there is of you, the more there is of Jesus.  

Passport photo attempts

We’re never prepared for what comes at us in life. But preparedness isn’t the goal, its rather open handed, honest reliance. The bread will last through each of those 5,000 hungry families. 

Please pray with us for our friends as they adjust back to being a family of five on earth and one in heaven. And for us as we adjust to being a family of six, minus a few fingers and toes. 

Please pray for our community. We’re so grateful for the steady leadership at Christian Academy, seeing the school through a season of growth and transition. And for our church. After one year of ministry, our pastor suddenly decided to move on to other work. We are reeling a bit, but grateful to see that worship continues; the church is the members, and those who continue to invest and attend every week. Please pray for the leadership team as they work to strengthen the vision of the church in the search for a new pastor.