Motherhood in All Its Glory

One day Nick was out on an errand while I was home feeding the baby.

The front door opened, which I presumed was Nick returning home, but no one entered. So I picked up the baby to take a look, and apparently our indoor cats managed to open the slightly ajar door.

Though the baby was in the middle of a feed, I set him down, which of course caused him to start to cry.

When I stepped outside, one of the cats quickly came in, but the other hissed and ran away, obviously reluctant to come back. I decided that I didn’t have enough “armor” on to pick up this unhappy cat, so I ran inside and grabbed what I could.

Now, I wasn’t planning on being seen on this particular day and didn’t exactly look presentable…

So there I was, chasing a cat in front of our house in a robe and oven mitts with the sounds of a screaming baby coming through a wide-open door in the background.

Behold, the glorious sight of a new mother.   

There and Back Again: Netherlands

Based in Rotterdam, Netherlands, (working in an old converted water tower!) Jesus.net is an organization that mainly excels at networking and implementing digital solutions to all sorts of humanitarian projects. The core group is probably only about 15ish people, but the number of other groups they are connected to has to easily bump them up to several thousands of individuals in all kinds of positions. In fact, one of those groups launched 'The Chosen' series, which takes stories out of the Bible and gives them high-production level treatment. It has been generally well received and the rights just got moved to the Jesus.net group.  There is quite a lot that falls under the conference umbrella; it's called Jesus.net, and at the core, it provides networking and resources to non-profits and ministries. All that to say, this group has some momentum and is looking to do a lot of good, so if you have an interest in networking or maybe have something to contribute, it might be worth getting in touch. Click their logo below if you want to explore on your own.

Some of their work include:

• A Miracle Every Day [+334K subscribers] is an encouraging daily message about life-inspired themes like dreams, doubts, struggles and wonders. Started in 2015 in French, currently the series is available in 18 different languages and distributed using the Salesforce platform.

• The Codex: We offer free courses about the basics of Christian faith, plus a wide variety of courses on topics such as prayer, forgiveness, marriage and identity through CODEX, the online interactive learning platform [+109K profiles].

• YouVersion: Yeah, that one.

---

My part mainly was to network and gauge the global field on interest in mental health ministry. Make no mistake: Japan is still our focus, both for this mental health care project and ministry as a whole, but that journey has been met with all kinds of hurdles (finances, skills, manpower, and the list goes on) which requires going outside our current bubbles to try and find more people who can meet those needs Japan has. This was the main purpose of going.

I found two things: Mental health, especially depression and anxiety, is widespread and is an epidemic in its own right. But I think many of us were aware of that already, right? What is worse though is that it is hugely impacting our pastors, missionaries, churches, and many non-profits trying to help others. Secondly: There was a huge interest in our small automated mental care program, but not only as a method to meet a need of and reach those who don't know Jesus, but it also became apparent that this tool is just as needed, if not more so, by those doing the reaching out!

In a few places of the world, some of the stigmas around mental health is starting to finally fade away. We can be more open about those kinds of struggles and find help, understanding, and often empathy. But even in those places, there exists another bubble where that stigma lingers, and I think that is often found in Christian circles. Just like we often reply with the perpetual "I'm good, how are you?" when greeted on a Sunday morning, hiding behind that "life must be good because I'm a believer and need to be perfect" mask, we do the same for our mental well-being: fake it. So it doesn't come as a surprise that a way of getting help and recovery for such struggles in a no-risk, no-judgment, and anonymous way would be extremely popular! Japan is no different. This is a culture where people need to be 'put-together’ and personal struggles need to stay in the dark, never seeing the light, until it crushes them.

So hopefully, as our ministry grows and we find the resources and help we need,  these mental care models can be shared with and adapted to any culture or setting that calls for it.

Of course we need to complete it first!

Revenge

Nerd Alert: the word リベンジ、pronounced rebenji, is a katakana word. Katakana words are words that are borrowed from foreign languages. In this instance it is derived from the English word for revenge. Usually the pronunciation and meaning are similar to the original word, but occasionally they slightly differ.

Revenge is a word I've been using a lot lately. But it doesn't quite mean what you're probably thinking.

In Japanese, this word is used to mean to try something over again. There's no nuance of malice. Rather, it's a determination to overcome a previous failure.

Most recently I used this word in the context of meeting my friend at a “flower park”. This place is about an hour away from where I live, but I really wanted to go, so I invited my language exchange partner to go with me. We agreed to meet in front of the building since I was going by train and she was going by bus. Miraculously we arrived at the same time. Just in time for us to both have the same disappointed look on our faces as we saw a sign saying it was closed. I couldn’t believe it! I didn’t check the hours of operation ahead of time, and I felt so bad because I was the one who made the plans. Instead we went to a nearby cafe and talked about our next meeting, to which she said, リベンジしよう！Let's get revenge!

Thus we went a couple of weeks later and had a grand time taking tons of pictures and celebrating her birthday.

So whether it's making plans to go back to a place that was unexpectedly closed, deciding to make a new attempt at a failed house project, or generally taking another stab at any faux pas (which, let's face it, I make a ton of), I have used this word a lot.

Those times may be しょうがない (can't be helped/that's just the way it is), but Japanese people seem to be such a determined group that they also have phrases like 頑張って(do your best) and ファイト(fight) that they very commonly say to one another. So rather than getting bogged down and wanting to quit, they have a fighting spirit. And I have to admit, saying, “I'll try again next time” will never get me as fired up as saying “I'm going to get revenge!”

Growing Pains

I’m getting old. There are two ways I can tell.

Firstly, never in my life have I been interested in nature, let alone gardening. But for the last year or so I’ve found myself stopping during my walks to admire the plants along the way. Honestly, I’m not sure if it started because we moved to Japan where they are great at cultivating beautiful greenery amidst the city, but gawking at flowers and going to nurseries for fun was something that my mom, aunts and grandma did when I was growing up. As a kid, man that stuff was extremely boring. Yet here I am, 29 years old and trying my hand at gardening for the first time.

It’s going… okay. I would say about half of my flowers are thriving and the other half are either dead or on their way. I’ve bothered my mom with countless questions, but even she seems to be somewhat stumped (from what she can tell across the globe). Am I watering them too much or too little? Is there too much shade or not enough? On top of that, there are all other kinds of weird factors such as Japan’s crazy weather (this spring we’ve had really hot days, a lot of rain, intense wind, and even a day of snow), invasive vines running under ground, etc. It’s hard to tell what exactly is causing the growth in some flowers and the death in others.

The other day we were listening to a sermon that briefly covered the parable of the sower, and my thoughts quickly went to my own garden. Sure, plants have basic necessities such as sun and water, but there are so many more factors than that. The soil, fertilizer, pruning, weather, surrounding plants, insects, and who knows what else has an effect too. Similarly, when living out a spiritual life, there’s more to it than just prayer and reading the Word. You interact with other people, you learn, you get burned, you bear fruit, you experience loss - you go through different stages of life.

As much zeal as you might have to grow, you can’t force it. You can encourage it, sure! But it’s not always as simple as “get more water or sunshine”. For me personally, I find that interacting with other people is a great source of spiritual vitality. Other practices such as journaling, worship through art and expression, etc. has proven to be helpful in past seasons, but it’s not consistent. Why? I don’t know!! I just know that there are periods where it storms and it almost feels like it doesn’t matter what I try to do to help : I can plant a stake, but the stem still breaks. Then there are other times when the weather matches up just right and I find myself (and often my buds around me) flourishing. I also know that sometimes there are unknown and unseen problems lying below the surface…

It can be a complicated mess, but it’s beautiful, and I can’t keep myself from looking into the amazingly varied ways there are to cultivate growth.

Also, I can see why the Bible has so many of these types of analogies.

---

In case anybody was still wondering, the second reason that I feel old is that my body hurts! To bring back the analogy of basics being sun and water, when it comes to physical health, if I just exercise and eat decently, shouldn’t that be enough? From my experience, the answer seems to be a NOOOPE.

Why is health, whether it’s spiritual, mental or physical, so difficult?

*sigh*

Another New Age? Virtual Environments are the new norm and at least they are easy to decorate!

Seen our ministry website at tokyoccc.com yet? That is the web portal for the community care center that we currently help run out of Tokyo. There are plenty of plans in store for this non-profit, from training care givers, offering resources to achieve better health, emergency help for those at risk of suicide, and even crisis response for disasters like 2011’s tsunami. Eventually this entity will work as a hub for both professionally trained and lay care givers to be networked and find resources to help themselves and each other!

But those aspects of T3C (Tokyo Community Care Centers) is for another day and another blog post. Right now, I am going to get into one of the first lines of defense: The restoration for mental health that we are developing currently.

Thanks (or not) to the recent COVID situation, there has been a growing trend to using a virtual means of nearly anything and everything: work, grocery, socializing, events, meals, leisure and more. I won’t go into the pro’s and con’s of this trend, but simply to enforce the idea that mental health needs to have an option in a similar means of delivery, and not just by meeting a therapist occasionally via Zoom.

This current project (codename: Echo) is meant to create a model of mental health care that is completely done inside a virtual space that is focused on some key achievements.:

• Individualized for each person

• Maintains a progression that can be measured and presented to users

• Is completely protected and safe (no info collection or sharing)

• Updatable with new content and resources as created or found

• Browser based to work on mobile, computers, and simple design allowing for app development later

• Abilities to be tooled for different languages and cultures

• Free (in every sense of the word)

Your first question might be: But people who are suffering need help directly, they need counseling! I would whole heartedly agree. Until we have an army of caregivers, to meet the literally overwhelming need of millions of people, this simply isn’t possible, at least not yet.

But this will help to address some key issues that you might not realize:

• Many people (especially shut-ins or hikikomori) are not willing or ready to see someone for help

  • This project creates a model where they can safely seek help on their own terms

• Some people who suffer from poor mental health simply need some techniques and strategies with some guidance to help them along. They might not need more than that in the first place!

  • This can save not only time and money, but even shed light on things they didn’t realize they struggled with.

• This “lowers” the barrier to entry.

  • Many great resources to better mental health and healing are locked behind so many barriers: needing textbooks to understand therapies, high costs to see professionals, time commitments in a hurried world, unregulated or verified resources.

Sadly, right now this is in the early stages, but there is enough content, a flow, and even something that looks useable! But it really needs some programming and development help which just isn’t something we really have on our team currently. Hopefully, we will get that help, even just temporarily, to help create (Let let me know if you can help!)

Peak 2000’s trendsetter, too bad the remake wasn’t so great

The Dangling Carrot

My heart has been set on pilgrimage.

“Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage. As they pass through the Valley of Baka, they make it a place of springs; the autumn rains also cover it with pools (blessings). The go from strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion.”

— Psalm 84:5-7 NIV

As some of you may know, I (Erin) have been in the middle of seeking how God wants me to use this allotted time of “ministry internship”. Now that I’ve graduated from full-time language school, I have the opportunity to find out what type of work God wants me to be involved with by exploring what ministries already exist out there and by trying things on my own as well.

For a while now I’ve thought that dance can be an amazing tool for ministry, especially here in Japan. In itself, dance is a beautiful form of worship and can rejuvenate the soul, but I also think it has the potential to create fellowship. Let me give some backstory.

The youth group of the church I grew up in occasionally went on short term mission trips where we learned various evangelism tools we could use to sort of “communicate” with the locals. One of those tools was performing through what they called body worship (I know that term sounds kind of cult-y, but it’s basically worship through dance that also communicates a message – it looks a bit like sign dance if you any of you know what that is). After the trip, we would go home and perform the skits and dances we learned at our church. Soon after my first experience with that, I had the thought that it’d be fun to choreograph something myself! So I rounded up a few of my friends and our little team of 4 did our first original routine. From then on we occasionally did performances in bigger groups of 6 or 7, sometimes I taught simple routines at youth group that we all did together, and from there other members even started to choreograph themselves!

It was a super fun ministry to do with my brothers and sisters in Christ, and it was such a refreshing way to praise God.

The girl in the middle is our host family’s daughter

Then when Nick and I first came to Japan in 2015 and stayed with a host family for a month, it turned out that the two teenage daughters participated in a dance workshop every summer that was taught by a secular American group. They graciously invited us to watch one of their practices one day, and I was blown away to see how deeply affected those teens were. They seemed to just throw all their cares aside for the moment and seemed so vulnerable through the practice. It just made me think, wow, imagine what this could do if it were intended for the Lord!

So the thought of me using dance for ministry in Japan was born in my mind. Yet, there was always something that kept me from feeling attached to the idea. Perhaps it’s as simple as saying that God never really called me to do it. I just liked the idea of it. (Plus, there’s the fact that I have zero dance training and am truthfully nowhere near skilled enough to teach or perform – and that’s not me being modest. I am genuinely around the level of being able to make it through a Zumba class). Nevertheless, when it came time to decide what to do for an internship and I had nothing else set before me, I figured I’d try for the one thing I always thought would be super cool.

Thus began my sporadic adventures in taking dance classes in Tokyo. After insanely googling dance ministries that are actually active during the pandemic and exist in the area, I found myself signing up for random classes and workshops here and there. Though I usually felt like a fool not being able to bend or twirl as elegantly as any of the other girls, I continued searching for a place where I could make good connections in the hope of eventually finding a place where I could volunteer in some way.

Cue story time.

On one occasion I signed up for a single class at a workshop that was somewhat far away. Now, you should know that I am terrible at navigation and have a horrible sense of direction, so it was no surprise that I got lost on the way there. I almost gave up and decided to return home, but I finally found my way and was only going to be a few minutes late. Then I found out that I went to the wrong location. Now it’s really time to really go back home, right? Too late. Apparently somebody was already on the way to come rescue me. I’m thinking, great, on top of it all, now I’ve also burdened all these people. At least the actual place is apparently only a few minutes away by car, so it should be fine. Guess again! The car itself is only a few minutes away, but the destination is another 20 minutes. I arrive 30 minutes late to a 50-minute class. Finally class is over and I give my apologies and express my thanks, hoping to end this embarrassing episode. Then walks in a teacher I met at another dance class who invites me to stay for lunch and the following class (insisting that I don’t need to pay for these extra perks). It is then that I get the opportunities to meet the most wonderful people and have amazing conversations, particularly with the couple that runs the whole program and drove me to and from the train station. On the long train ride home, I couldn’t keep from smiling, thinking about how I almost threw away this experience because I had to keep relying on others for help and wanted to give up. It was definitely humbling, but in a fantastic way.

I was so hopeful that I had managed to do some quality networking at that workshop.

As it turned out… not really. It wound up being just like every other dance class I went to: somehow becoming a one-time type of affair where I made no concrete contacts and no opportunities came out of it in the end.

After months of still feeling lost in what to do as my next steps, I asked a friend of mine who is getting certified as a Co-Active Coach to meet with me a few times to help me get unstuck in my thinking about this whole internship thing. Dance didn’t seem to be working out, but it obviously meant something.

One day I described it to her that it felt like God was dangling a carrot in front of me. The picture I created in my mind was of me as a horse, pulling a carriage with a rider on it, heading down a road. I don’t know what’s at the end, but I just keep moving forward as the driver keeps me going. Then suddenly a carrot appears, dangling over my head. This has never happened before, so I wonder: do I stop to eat, or do I keep moving forward? In my confusion, I’m only able to focus my eyes on one thing at a time, as if the carrot and the end of the road were two separate targets. It starts getting frustrating as I feel that I’m not able to make progress toward either objective. What the heck is the point of this stupid carrot? It looks tasty, but part of me just wants to ignore it because it seems like a distraction and I’m not sure if it’s even attainable. But then another part of me thinks that it could be worth it if I just stopped my course and focused on the dangling prize.

Then this idea came up: what if the carrot is just a treat and nothing more? Perhaps God is giving me the blessing of dance as something to enjoy on the way of this journey. It is attainable, but it’s not meant to be the goal.

Once my coach and I confirmed those words, I felt so relieved.

This story might not sound like it has a great ending as there isn’t a solid resolve. However, it should be noted that those dance class excursions were by no means a waste of time. Beside the fact that I enjoyed myself through the sheer act of dancing, I was also blessed to have met so many wonderful people (albeit one time) who welcomed me, a complete stranger. God used those experiences to refresh my soul, and I think that is how He uses dance in my life. I still completely support ministries that use dance and am open to being involved in the future if God ever opens that door, but for now I’m at peace just knowing that I don’t have to force this hobby into the “ministry plan”. Instead, I can just enjoy it for what it is and the way it draws me closer to the Father on a personal level.

As far as what I’ll do concerning ministry… currently I have a few friends I meet one-on-one with on a weekly basis, and I would love to expand that further. Having lowkey hangouts, game sessions, and heart to hearts in my living room is something that is already happening and I am happy to continue doing. Now it’s just a matter of growing this fellowship.

Maybe a few things are still unclear, but that’s okay. My heart has been set on pilgrimage, and I can find strength in Him as He takes me along for the ride.  

The Grass is Always Bluer

That’s how the saying goes in Japanese anyway.

Since I’ve gotten the chance to connect with more people from back in the US over the last few months, I’ve noticed a theme in many of my friends. Of course many people are itching to get out of the house these days, but there seems to also be a trend of people itching to get out of the country.

There is all of this talk about other countries that are “doing well” despite the pandemic. People can live life there openly, so why not move there to work or even do missions! That’s what I’ve been hearing. Granted, some of these people I’ve talked to have been thinking about missions long before COVID came along, but either way, there is something about this time in life that has people considering the idea of going overseas.

If that’s truly what God is calling someone to do – woohoo! We love hearing about more upcoming missionaries! However, we equally love to hear about those who find fulfillment in where God already has them, and our hope is that those people still find another way to be involved in missions (advocating, mobilizing, etc.). In the end, God has the final say, and if the Spirit is leading you to missions, then you just have to do it regardless of what I or anyone else says. However, for those of you who have a passion yet feel unsure about whether you yourself feel called to go into missions, please indulge me by mulling over some of the things I’ve been thinking about.

Perhaps what this questioning boils down to is God’s calling. People often ask us how we know God’s call. Well… I honestly can’t give a catch-all answer. I think that part of it can be how He works things together in your life. For the two of us, we can find various events in our history where we saw a pattern of God nudging us toward either first world missions or Japan specifically, and we only continued to find affirmation after making the decision to become missionaries. Then I guess I would say another part of it is knowing God’s voice. People, myself included, seem to have a hard time differentiating between something that God has put on the heart vs one’s own desire. To make it more confusing, those things often overlap! For instance, even if we weren’t here as missionaries, I could imagine living in Japan just because we find it awesome. We wanted to come to Japan so badly that at one point we tried to forge our own way of going so we could get there as soon as possible. Though that door did actually open for us, we both knew it in our hearts that it was not the way God wanted us to go. It was a little painful (self-inflicted) to let that opportunity go, but God definitely enriched us as we took the (albeit longer) path He intended for us. I am certainly not an expert in this and have made my fair share of mistakes, but I invite you to ask if you are taking steps toward something God is asking you to do or are you forcing/twisting a desire?

Before arriving in Japan, I remember hearing that it’s important for missionaries to really know and remember their calling. For any other missionaries reading this, you’re probably thinking, how on earth could I forget? I’ve only had to recite it a hundred times. Well, that’s probably a good thing because there are going to be times when we think “what on earth am I doing here?”. Well, you have your answer in your calling. Cling to it! If you’re in the mission field and don’t have a strong sense of your call, I can’t imagine how you’ll endure the rocky places down the road. When you hit a rough patch when you’re in your home country, you can turn to family, friends, and be home. But when times get tough and you’re in a foreign land, as much you may feel accustomed to it, you’ll just never get that same sense of a “safety net”. So it’s best that you hold on tight to the reason that God has brought you there! It’ll be your strongest anchor. For anyone who is thinking about going into the mission field without a strong sense of his/her calling, I advise you to consider this.

I understand if you’re feeling a lack of purpose where you are right now, especially when it’s exacerbated by the feeling of being trapped while the world is shut down. But trust me, not a lot is happening in the mission field right now either. I personally have been feeling increasingly like I can’t find a way to implement any ministry ideas I’ve been thinking about, which could be considered my “job”. But I trust God and His calling in my life. Just because this timing isn’t fantastic, that hasn’t changed the fact that He has asked me to be here. So right now I’ll do whatever things I can, however small or mundane the tasks may seem.

You may hear of these other countries that are “doing well”, but trust me, the grass isn’t greener over there. It’s just blue. It’s not better or worse. It’s simply different.

What may seem like a mundane day-to-day work life to you is so incredibly important to us. If everyone was a missionary or a pastor... well… that just wouldn’t work. Those of us with “clergy titles” can’t function without the mass of people who surround us with support. For some reason pastors and missionaries have tended to get the spotlight over the years, but the reality is that it’s you guys who allow us to focus on ministry without having to worry about much else. If anything, we left you to figure out how to juggle everything else! If you’ve been feeling a lack of purpose lately, I hope you’re encouraged by this thought that all the seemingly “small” things you do to just keep your family and coworkers in Christ afloat have a huge impact and purpose for His kingdom.