July 2023
It was cloudy outside but I grabbed my shorts and pulled them on. It was a warm morning and I was so happy that I could let my legs be free from long clothing and enjoy air and sunlight! I walked with Bob and Missy to school, meeting the other village kids on the way. When we got to Kiyo’s house, her son, Hiroto was his happy self, bouncing around the street, chatting with the other kids, running here and there. I stepped in line with Kiyo and we chatted as we walked the short distance to the school. Hiroto came bounding towards us calling out something to his mum when he suddenly stopped mid-sentence and got distracted. He stood in front of us, looking at my legs. Since he blocked our path, Kiyo and I also stopped. Hiroto stretched out his pointer finger and slowly moved it towards my leg and very carefully touched a freckle.
I guess it must look strange for him to see someone wearing shorts. And I guess freckles aren’t so common on Japanese people, especially if their skin doesn’t see the light of day! Hiroto had found a very strange thing indeed! Kiyo and I were in stitches laughing!
Back at home I was still working on getting the plastering done. The walls had to be painted with glue first, as the old plaster had sand in it, and the sand just fell off with just the lightest touch! I had to move around the room slowly, doing sections at a time, moving furniture, boxes of books and anything else that happened to be in the way, from one side of the room to another, and back again… And then do it all over again for the plastering. I enjoyed the plastering though. I loved seeing the room change. From tan walls to white was very transforming, and really lightened up the space.
Okasan and I sat in the half plastered room. I passed her lunch to her: plain steamed veggies, soy beans and brown rice. I placed my plate on the table: left-over spaghetti from last night’s dinner. Since her flare-up with pemphigus, I was now cooking her completely separate meals, trying to align the pemphigus diet with the diabetes diet. Cooking separate meals three times a day was not my ideal and quite frankly, a stress! She was grateful for her lunch.
“I’m so lucky, I get to eat in Debbie’s Restaurant every day!” She gave me a beaming smile and I returned it, grateful that there were no complaints about the very boring food. But truth be told, I'm so over cooking! She tells me every day how lucky she is to eat in Debbie’s Restaurant. I want to tell her that “Debbie's Restaurant” is looking for a new chef!
I’d had a very full week and it was now Saturday morning. As though he’d used up all his good behaviour in school, Bob was nearly always miserable on Saturday morning. Yes, at school he controls himself and is a good student. School teachers here in Japan love calling Shujin for things. All the time. Like courtesy calls, making sure the kids understood some instructison for something. Telling him the kids are fitting in well and making friends. Making sure he knew to look out for an information sheet that was coming home. Telling Shujin everything that is on the information sheet… It’s always good stuff. So different to Australia where you basically only hear from the teacher if your child is in trouble or has been involved in some sort of altercation! Shujin still always answer the phone in apprehension, waiting for the bad news about Bob! But it’s never bad. He’s a good kid at school.
Anyway, Bob was probably tired on this Saturday morning, and had very little self control and just poisoned the whole household with his grumpiness. I managed to make it through breakfast, purely because Shujin took responsibility of making our picnic lunch.
At church I took the kids for the children’s Bible study time. It was just my two kids. And Bob’s grumpiness was none the better. Outbursts, mean teasing, uncontrolled behaviour, obnoxious, attitude, I put up with it all. The recent realisation that he is ADHD was strangely comforting in the moment (I guess it stemmed from the thought, No wonder he is like he is!) but thinking about it afterwards in church, it was a burden. How was I going to cope? How would we get through the teenage years? And the added responsibility of Okasan with her dementia on top of that.... I was exhausted.
A visiting preacher was at church and before preaching, he shared a children's story which Shujin translated. In church, the Children’s Story is one of my favourite times, particularly in Japan at our church, since it’s the only part of church when there is English! In a nut shell the story went live this: While the preacher was studying at university, he went on a mission trip to Brazil. The Brazilians had asked him to bring a data projector. At the time Brazil had strict laws about bringing electrical goods into the country. You'd be taxed 100%! But if it wasn't brand new then it was fine. You could bring it into the country, no tax charged. So the Brazilians had told him to make the data projector look used; put his name on it and take it out of the packaging, etc. Despite following their advice he was still feeling a bit concerned about it. Well, on the plane he met a Korean who happened to also be Christian who lived in Brazil, and he spoke Japanese! He'd heard that this preacher was coming from Japan for a mission program! They chatted and the preacher shared how he had this projector for the mission program but was worried about getting it through Customs. The Korean man just said, "Don't worry, I'll help you. It won't be a problem. Just stick with me."
They arrived in Brazil and made their way to Immigration. The line was a mile long and was notorious for taking hours. The Korean said, "Come this way" and walked passed the line of foreigner travelers. So he followed. They went right to the other side where there was no line at all and when the Immigration officers saw the Korean they saluted him! Saluted! The preacher was so confused and thought Who is this man?! but just stuck by the Korean. They got through Immigration in 5 minutes, no questions asked. Once they were through the preacher enquired, "Why did they salute you? How did we get through so easily?"
"Oh, my son is the CEO of the airport. They were expecting me!"
At that moment, the preacher realised that all the worry he had had about the data projector was a problem that God had already sorted out! He praised God for His provisions and answering his prayers.
The preacher’s story was still very fresh in my mind as I took my seat at the piano and Okasan took her place behind the microphone. She had a song to sing next and I accompanied her on the piano. She'd chosen "Anywhere with Jesus I can safely go". She sung in Japanese but the English lyrics rolled through my head as my fingers pressed the keys and her effortless, clear voice filled the room.
Anywhere with Jesus I can safely go;
Anywhere He leads me in this world below;
Anywhere without Him dearest joys would fade;
Anywhere with Jesus I am not afraid.
Anywhere! anywhere!
Fear I cannot know;
Anywhere with Jesus I can safely go.
As I took my seat at the back of church after her item finished, I felt God's presence with me, encouraging me.
"Debbie you are looking ahead at the future (concerning Bob and Okasan) and worrying about what lies ahead and how you will cope, but it's OK, I've already worked it out. Anywhere with Jesus you can safely go."
For those wishing to hear the song, here is a video I found on YouTube: “Anywhere with Jesus”.