Delicious December

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 

from our crowd to yours!

"Start from where you are, with what you have, as who you are in this moment." 

Noah Pashapa (visiting pastor at Kurume Bible Fellowship)

Where we are. 

What we have. 

Who we are in this moment. 

November News

Confession: we put Christmas decorations up already - there is a chance it happened before American Thanksgiving but I won't confirm that. Even our neighbor boys told me it was too early, but when they left to go home in the dark, they agreed that the lights were beautiful. Japan doesn't do daylight savings; as the days get darker earlier, it feels right to get out all the lights. 

CAJ update: thank you for your prayers for this incredible school. We're thankful for the conversations in and out of class that Ryan is able to have with students. Next weekend is a concert of Nine Lessons and Carols. This is a very popular community event! We pray that those who attend will be blessed by the scripture and incredible truths in the words of the carols. CAJ high school is also facing a change of leadership. Please join us on our knees for the next person to fill this very important position. Did you know CAJ has a facebook page? Take a look!

Community update: Christmas is a great outreach season! Every group we know of has some kind of Christmas party. We're grateful for the many kids and moms who will come to our English Christmas party. Our prayer is that they experience welcoming Grace and Joy despite circumstances. This is something every tired mom needs!! Events (with different groups) are December 3, 4, 15, 18. Thanks so much for thinking of us on these days! 

KBF update: As regular readers know, our local church has lost nearly every individual in a position of leadership in the past three years. Despite the fumbling void this created, we know that God is present and continues to love this family; new people continue to come and programs are full! This month, the congregation invited an interim children's ministry pastor and an interim teaching pastor and we are so grateful for the ministry of these two! Please pray for them as they lead this extremely diverse and lively family. 

Family update: We wrestle with what it means to raise our family in this setting on a daily basis. We see our kids becoming TCKs before our eyes, which is poignantly bittersweet. We know, even at their young ages, they experience the tug and pull of their hearts stretched all over the world. Recently, our four year old talks about bridges all the time: Jesus is a bridge, we are a bridge. Our six year old is processing how to be kind to classmates who don't understand why its mean to say "English speaking people can't play with us right now." Our baby is adjusting to his new leg. Every kid is different and this little guy is definitely on his own path! Right now his challenge is controlling his prosthetic knee and learning to balance upright on his one prosthetic foot and one foot with only one toe. Each heart stretches to meet the daily challenges; sometimes we wear thin with all the pulling.

October Grace

Pottery in the park

One of the biggest stressors in my life these days is the constant weight of being too much. Too loud, too messy, too disorganized, too tall, too foreign, too rude, too casual, too needy and - my goodness - too many children! I’ll readily admit, some of this is just in my head. (My counselor and I are working on it!) Doesn’t every parent feel this some days? 

Biking on the new leg!

But there’s a very real societal pressure (that some of you are all too familiar with - it’s not just Japan!) designed specifically to shame and guilt people into behaving in a way that makes life easier for everyone else. If everyone is quiet, clean, orderly, fun-sized, polite, self-sufficient and simple? Well, everything goes a lot smoother doesn’t it! 

Date lunch!

I find myself gasping for Grace. It’s so easy to buy into the myths behind this too muchness. So we must live Grace for each other. For Ryan, it’s a goal to make sure every kid who comes through the door of his classroom feels that she or he is an OK person, worth listening to and spending time with. Grace of humanity. 

I remember arriving at Minneapolis airport, having flown 13 hours solo with four kids; I apologized in a weepy way for the chaos of my exhausted kids, and the woman organizing the security line said, “it’s OK honey, I’ve got five myself.” Grace. How can I - in the way I smile at those standing in grocery lines with me, in the way I greet other moms picking up our kids from school, in the way I talk with sales clerks and neighbors - how can I make them feel like I felt in that moment? So incredibly understood, and enough; recharged to face another impossible moment. 

This week, the mothers of my younger daughter’s class got together for lunch. This is about 45 women, plus at least 30 younger siblings. The room was so loud I could not hear my baby’s annoying musical toys over the chatter. A sign in the ladies restroom gave me pause. Roughly translated: “kids are masters of messiness. We were the same way when we were young. Please leave it to us to clean up after you and enjoy a relaxing slow meal.” Grace. 

To Mama

Set in September

This week I sat across the table from a sweet friend; for those of you who have been with us for a while, she’s a familiar character. We reflected together on the past two years in our respective families. Two years ago, her estranged husband wouldn’t even call her by name. Two years ago, we were heading into an extremely challenging pregnancy and an even more difficult parenting assignment. As we laughed and cried, we realized: God does answer all prayers, but rarely in the way we expect. She prayed for a return to the happy past, before the fight, and instead got a new, braver, rawer relationship. We prayed for financial stability and instead got a child who brought us into a social welfare network. 

These days, we find ourselves reflecting on the past and looking ahead with gratitude: one year ago, our baby came home from the ICU. Today, he is chirping with excitement as he crawls to tip over the recycling bin. One year ago, our pastor suddenly quit with one week’s notice. Now, we are still in a pastoral search, but our worship is full, and we have a rotation of speakers, and our kids program regularly has upward of 40 kids in bilingual classes. Last year, Ryan decided once again to postpone his next masters class in order to take care of the urgent needs of our family. This month, he completed his program and is waiting for his diploma. 

Such reflection of course points us to gratitude. We are grateful for God’s ongoing provision for us, and for the concrete ways in which you, our cloud of witnesses, live as the hands and feet of Jesus in our daily lives. Thank you for walking with us. 

Coming up: 

- CAJ high school students leave for School Without Walls this week, spreading out all over Japan to practice transferring their classroom knowledge to hands on experiences. Please pray for safety and rich learning experiences. 

- Our church will go on a one day retreat in October. Please pray for fellowship and unity as we enjoy spending time as a body and get to know each other better. 

Because of some accounting issues during a change of leadership in our fund raising organization, we are in a very tight financial season. Please pray for wisdom and discretion in our daily finances as we steward our resources and plan for the future. 

- Because of our son’s disabilities, we’ve begun to meet other families with children with various disabilities, mostly in the hours we spend in hospital waiting rooms. We are very aware of the loneliness and social isolation that often comes with a disability, and we’re also so impressed to find friends who are living out their abilities and disabilities with joy. Please pray for us as we engage with this new community. 

August heat!

We give thanks for a full and lively summer! The kids and I (Nelle) were able to connect our kids with many of their cousins, help them re-connect with their American roots, and spend some time away from home at a cottage by the ocean (also with cousins and grandparents).

 Ryan had a much different summer with an intensive advanced Japanese language course, but we expect (results pending!) this will finish off his masters degree and he will be able to move on to other studies and priorities in the fall! He’s grateful to have the coursework finished and looks forward to seeing how it improves and assists our life in Tokyo and at Christian Academy.

Christian Academy is in its first full week of school, and our Japanese schools start up the week after. We’re thankful for full classrooms, happy kids and equipped, qualified staff.

Our community: as the calendar shifts from summer homework and park outings to English classes, school trips and work commitments, we stretch thin. We're excited to re-engage with our Tokyo church and school community, and with all of our various neighborhood connections. Please pray for strength and wisdom as we begin the fall season. 

Our family: please pray for our family in this next season, as we continue to seek wisdom as parents of Third Culture Kids. We want our kids to stay connected to their American roots and family, while also being very comfortable and at home in our Tokyo life. Please pray for balance in their bilingual, bicultural education and all of the daily juggling that demands. Please pray for their hearts and minds as they learn to bridge and stretch between their worlds.

Our baby: our littlest turns 1 this week! He has an extremely rare, unnamed physical disability that we don’t fully understand. He will always need technology to live a normal life. We’re grateful that we are in a country with an in-tact medical system and with access to good technology. Now that he’s one year old, we have a month full of tests, new stages and new benchmarks. Specifically, he will likely get between two and four prosthetics, ear drainage tubes and/or hearing aids and a kidney exam in the next few months. Please pray.

x

Oh my, July!

You know it's going to go fast, but it's worth the blur.

July starts with a star-wishing festival, which is also the birthday of my neighbor's grandson who died of brain cancer two years ago. The country as a whole makes wishes for the future, and looks forward to good to come. Please pray for lasting and true hope for these dear people. 

While the kids just started their summer, Ryan is closing in on the end, with a couple more weeks to go. So glad we got to see so many of you, even if only for a quick hug. I think my mother counted 31 additional guests on our first day on Lookout Mountain through the always-open door (no really, there isn't a key for that door).

The kids and I spent a few days catching up with Lookout Mountain friends and cousins, and I got the opportunity to give a greeting and thank you in person to our home sending church community, as well as the wonderful prayer group on Monday morning. Truly, you are our lifeline, and our cloud of witnesses. 

On to Knoxville for a cousin's wedding with so many beloveds. This is holy ground, and our little taste of heaven, right there on that green hotel carpeting. We gathered our people to pray for our littlest, and introduce him to his crazy, wonderful family. We're not a perfect group, and we've all had our tears and challenges, but we love each other fiercely, and that's a mercy and a wonder. 

Back to Tokyo for the last three days of Japanese school, turning in homework from our trip and collecting our summer homework pile. Math, Japanese writing, pictures, tending tomato and green pepper plants. 

Now, the kids and I head out of Tokyo, which is experiencing a record heat wave, with many deaths and hospitalizations, and we will spend a few weeks near Sendai, where Ryan and I got married. Ryan will continue his studies this summer, and hopefully join us for a weekend or two. 

We are so grateful for your prayers. We truly could not be here without you. Thank you, thank you. 

Juggling June

June has come and gone with it's typical blur. It's a big month for schools on the American calendar, as well as for our little family, with two birthdays and an anniversary.

One of my favorite images from the close of the year at Christian Academy was watching my friend (fellow Covenant College graduate and second generation missionary kid turned missionary mom) watch her husband, current HS English teacher, (and also a Covenant College graduate) give the graduation address. It's a privilege to celebrate with this class, and we wish them well as they move toward adulthood. You can watch the celebration here!

For our kids, like for most of Japan, the school year continues through the end of July, so we're still mid-swing, with daily school lunches, pick up and drop off and homework, although thankfully, P.E. class includes swimming and water games for this month! 

This month emphasizes how much we bridge between worlds. All of our expat friends are off on eagerly anticipated summer travels and easing into their summer relaxation, while our Japanese community continues on. Bridging for us means that we will take our kids out of school for two weeks: once to take a quick trip to the ocean in northern Japan, and once to connect with our home church and attend a cousin's wedding in Tennessee. Because CAJ follows the American calendar, throughout the year, Ryan often has work on days that the kids have Japanese national holidays, so when he's off for the long American summer holiday, we sometimes take a family holiday too. It's all a balance! Friends on both "sides" are surprised: "What, your husband has 10 weeks off?! Are you sure he didn't get fired?" and "Wow! Your kids are still in school through JULY?"

Doing our best foreign imitation of a Japanese hospitality tradition, after that brief trip to Sendai last week, I visited each of our neighbors with a small memento from our trip. The area is famous for a particular samurai (Date Matsumune), for soy bean flavored things, for handmade senbe and for beef tongue. In the days after we came back, I brought beef tongue jerky to our mechanic and good friend; for neighborhood kids, soy bean flavored desserts and for the surrounding houses, cookies made in the shape of Matsumune's helmet. Silly, but its the thought that counts. As I walked from house to house and chatted and did the required greetings ("I'm sorry to always be a bother; hope you are all healthy; let's continue to have a good relationship"), I realized that when I first heard of this, I thought of it as more of an obligation - if you don't bring a small gift and a greeting, people will be offended. But as I've lived for more years in the same place, I realize it's a way to build community. It's a bid, an opportunity to connect and to clear the air of any needed conversation. It's also a chance to demonstrate that we're here for the long haul, and interested in the long term relationships.

We're so looking forward to seeing some of you next week! Will be so good to catch up in person!

And, May!

There is something so demandingly daily about May: each and every thing, person, task must be carried, cared for, fed, checked off, dispatched. For the graduates at CAJ, it’s a long haul toward June. When I taught English 12, we inevitably hit T.S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men” in early May, which seemed fitting; school years - like the world - often end “not with a bang but a whimper.” Japanese school is only one month into the new year, but that too hits a slick patch as the novelty wears off and the daily sets in. 

We all (secretly) like to think we’re one of the central characters, or at least a memorable side kick, in the world’s main story. Teaching, parenting, adulting, reminds you: even if you get all your lines right, all your assignments graded, all your laundry hung, you are a stage hand, crowd member #34,567, possibly just there to be killed off early as part of a big chase scene. A little blur at the edge. 

Jesus loved the crowds, though. Had compassion on them. Even when they drove him to seek solitude over sleep. He fed each and every person, with left overs for tomorrow's lunch. The throng made up of treasured individuals. In a month where both of us find ourselves awake at night, tracking the endless stream of details, errands, assignments, students, conversations, we take great comfort in a God of detail who daily bears our burdens. 

Picnic lunch!

I’ve referenced this passage from G.K. Chesterton before, but here it is at length: “[Children] always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that he has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.”

Exciting news! We’ve booked tickets for a quick trip to the states! We will visit our home church, Lookout Mountain Presbyterian on Sunday, July 8. For local folks, we would so love to see any of you who are in the area! Please email us if you want to meet up! 

Sports day at #2 Elementary School

Alive in April

This month let's reach in close for one event: communion at our church. Communion is a strange and messy part of Christianity. Friends new to Christianity find the blood and guts talk a little strange; our kids find it gruesomely fascinating. We’ve participated in communion practices all around the world: where taking the elements is itself a declaration of trust and faith; where it was the only meal a child experienced that day; where the table welcome (warning?) was so specific and strict that we didn’t feel holy enough to join in; where we were family gathered around a table at the resurrection. Once, a visiting middle schooler friend got bored during the service, tied his shoelace ends around his wrists, didn’t expect the cue to stand up for communion, and ended up shouting and leaping around, which of course tightened the shoelaces around his wrists all the more. Worship, right? I grew up in a more conservative context than our current one, where the bread and juice (never wine) were passed around to the seated congregation, so no one clearly saw who did and didn’t participate. Although we all ate and drank together, it was a very personal, individual experience. 

Seven months!

Ryan's notes

At our current church, which is non-denominational and the members range from a wide variety of countries, we all stream forward in big lines, and receive elements from servers who stand around the front stage. The kids from the nursery re-join the service to participate with their families, usually just at the quietest moment, inviting the sort of chaos that little kids bring when sprinting proudly to their families with flapping paper crafts and crayon drawings. It’s messy and lively, with the lines of those returning to their seats bunching up with those still going forward and people smiling and making way for each other. Being at the end of the service, our kids have usually spread out among friends and aunts and uncles. The baby with one doting auntie-type, the girls scribbling in the notebook of another, and the boy under the seats with legos. We all wander forward together. While at first I rankled at the public nature of the practice - it’s obvious who goes forward and who doesn’t, although no one is counting - I now love the messiness of this living organism. It’s the body at work. 

There are many ways to practice and remember that Jesus died so that we can live, just as there are many delightful families all over the world. The lively mess of communion reminds me that we’re a family. We’re together because God put us together, not because we got to choose each other. And the body is very much alive. 

Preschool entrance ceremony (Ryan's not really that tall..)

As you think of us this month, please join us in praying for our church, as we are in a transitional time, searching for a pastor and re-visioning our identity. It’s a large and well established church by Japanese standards, and we attempt to engage cross-cultural, non-denominational worship in all it’s grit and beauty. 

Bonus: Guest post from Ryan!

To see this article in its original context click here!

Made it through March!

One of the primary roles of a parent, teacher, or adult leader seems often to be reminding. Don’t forget . . . be sure to . . . did you remember . . . ? Nagging aside, this is also God’s role, and the role of God’s people. This Easter season, we look back with gratitude and look forward with great hope. Looking at the past steadies us as we realize that nearly every major organization in our life is in transition. 

- We remember that one year ago this season, we told our three older kids about their new baby brother, who, in utero, reached the size of their easter eggs. And we told them that, because of various complications, he might not make it to birth. Now, we celebrate this new little life, with all his added charm and challenge. 

- We celebrate resurrection, but we're still on this side of the fall. As we anticipated Easter, we learned of the sudden death of one of my uncles, a sweet and wise man, deeply connected to his community as a teacher and pastor. Please join us in celebrating his first Easter face to face with Jesus, and grieving our first Easter without him. 

- We remember gratefully the years CAJ students have been able to travel to Thailand to connect with local schools. My first year to chaperon this trip was in 2006, Ryan’s first year was in 2009. The Thai girl we have had the privilege of supporting through her years of school is now in university nursing school! We’re so grateful for CAJ’s years of connection to this little city in Chiang Rai. 

- We look back gratefully on our years at our church, Kurume Bible Fellowship. This is a transitional season for our church. We pray for a renewed sense of vision and purpose for our community as we search for a new pastor. Despite the inevitable mess of transition, we hosted more than 90 neighborhood kids yesterday at an Easter outreach event! 

- We look back on so many years of connection to CAJ; my grandfather was part of the original founding team, and my aunt was a member of the first graduating class. A year ago, I was asked to join the school’s Board of Councilors, taking on yet another point of connection to this school. We look forward to a new season at this school, and anticipate new ways to deepen connections to our local town, our city and this country. 

- We also look back gratefully at our years at our local Japanese schools. A few weeks ago, the school year wrapped up for the two bigger kids, and next week the new year begins, with V entering preschool! She is by far the most excited about the prospect of starting school. This school too is in a time of extreme transition; please join us in praying for the many new teachers. 

Lots of transitions, and we know God isn't surprised by any of them. Through every change, he remains faithful.