Disjointed, disruptive delights of deputation

Deputation, home assignment, furlough, visiting your passport country—whatever you call it—these trips are fraught with extremes of stress, joy, disappointment, encouragement, and all associated feelings. It’s a phenomenon unique to the missionary life cycle that significantly impacts our life journey. During our almost 14 years of missionary life, our family has completed six “home assignments”, and I’ve recognised some common stages, each with pitfalls and joys. Whether your experiences are similar or not, if you have mixed feelings about travelling to your passport country and engaging with supporters there, I understand!

Looming

The first stage, “looming in the distant future”, is characterised by emotional discussions searching for dates that suit each family member, our ministry partners here and there, our mission organisation, and our extended family over there. But the perfect time does not exist! We face impossible decisions like dates that suit supporting churches but leave our kids missing out on major life milestones, or, meet the needs of ministry on location but miss major extended-family events. Whatever we decide, it’s never ideal, and someone is disappointed.

Now-but-not-yet

In everyday life here in Japan we’re usually running at capacity, but as the time comes closer, details for there need to be planned. Deputation schedules, conferences, meetings, living arrangements, medical appointments, family events, school enrolments, car loans, and the list goes on. For example, here I’m taking the kids to soccer, chatting with other mums, but the back of my mind whirrs away: How to keep fit over there? Can a soccer ball go in checked-in luggage? Can we borrow bikes? Would bikes fit in the car? What car? Oh, I have to text that person about that car. Oh no! Did I just agree to cook church lunch here this Sunday? Oh dear! Focus, here, now!

It’s very hard to focus when half your brain is fixating on problems of another time and place. It’s exhausting!

Work, not pleasure, confusion

Another difficulty in the detailed planning stage is the endless potential for disappointing the extended family. The fact that we’re coming for work can be hard to explain. If we arrange to stay with one family member while in town visiting a supporting church, we have to apologise because—after scheduling all the home groups, youth groups and other events—we have time for just one dinner with them. So, they’re upset we’re coming to stay but “they’ll hardly see us”. Meanwhile, other family members assume we’ll spend all that time with the other family and feel overlooked. Weeks before we’ve even set foot in the country, we’ve already managed to offend a significant number of our extended family!

The Day

The travel day finally arrives. We survive the horrors of getting to the airport, get our luggage under weight (doing the last-minute shuffle between bags), survive security (losing a child’s beloved water bottle that somehow still, after all our checking, had water in it!), navigate immigration (finding working, non-sticky pens for endless forms while a clinging child whinges they’re thirsty), get to our gate, then finally sit on the plane and catch our breath. Then there are transfers. More luggage to cart, more overtired, stressed-out kids to urge quickly through airports, more paperwork, more lines, more security—me spread-eagled in the machine, Dene in his socks, hitching up his trousers (the clingy child attached to his leg), repacking bags while searching for shoes and belt. Eventually, we walk out into the bright light of our destination. The air smells familiar. The birds sound natsukashii. A car stops at the pedestrian crossing, and we bow instinctively, blush, and hurry across. We have arrived.

Reverse culture shock

Very soon, we visit the shops for everyday items. There’s always some new shock, often what people are wearing (or not!). I remember thinking, “Oh, I can see that man’s feet!” and quickly averting my eyes, only to see another man in flip-flops, then realising with horror the entire shop was filled with men’s hairy feet! Another time, my son stopped, mid-aisle, threw his arms out wide towards an entire shelf of ketchup and tomato sauces and loudly exclaimed, “Tomato sauce! What would you like?! Red, red, or red!” I’m often unable to make decisions and come out with a strange variety of items, mostly not what’s needed. I’m shocked by prices, bamboozled by variety, and invariably come away with fresh cinnamon donuts.

Getting down to business

By this stage, we’ve remembered how to function and are basically set up, so we start visiting the mission’s home office, supporting churches, and groups. We travel widely, but perhaps even if you stay in one place, you might also experience some of these common events of regular home assignment weeks:

“Tuesday night meltdowns” where family members take turns (hopefully) to decide they’ve had enough. The “When can we go home?” misunderstanding where a child asks to go home, we answer “Soon,” but they break down crying, “No, not that home, home-home,” and we have to explain it will be a few months yet. This last one is exacerbated when it takes place at your mother’s house, and Grandma realises her grandchild doesn’t think of this country as home.

Then there’s the argument-in-the-car-on-the-way-to-church combined with entering-the-church-to-be-confronted-with-a-larger-than-life-sized-poster-of-yourselves. For us, this argument often starts in the car with a child refusing to go to Sunday school, turns into a fight with one parent (despite our best efforts to be patient), who is then criticised by the other parent questioning whether that was the wisest thing to say under the circumstances, at which point the second child defends the first parent, the first child cries, and the parents fume while pulling into the car park. We all get out of the car, promise whatever bribes will get our kids to perform and keep us sane for the next two hours, plaster on our best smiles and enter the lobby to be confronted with a picture-perfect poster of ourselves on the wall. Oh, the irony!

Another occurrence is the “sudden memory dysfunction”. After a few weeks of taking our show on the road, I experience a heart-pounding moment in the middle of a talk where I can’t remember if I’ve said the next point today or if that was at the other church last week. I panic, mouth open, hesitate, take a breath, then from the front row, my son’s little voice pipes up reciting the next line.

But then I’m reminded of the joys of being on the road as a family. Our regular schedule in Japan has us all off in different directions, but for home assignment time, we get to be together. And Dene and I do enjoy working as a team, formulating presentations and considering how to communicate the nuances of ministry in Japan to an Australian audience. We make some awesome family memories.

“How’s Japan?” degeneration

In after-church conversations, we hope for scintillating exchanges with supporters, comparing analyses of Australian and Japanese cultures and sharing strategies for gospel ministry that best meets society’s felt needs. But often we find ourselves talking to visitors, or being shown photos of someone’s ski trip to Hokkaido, or hearing about the stress of renovating a second bathroom and laundry room (clearly, the irony that no one in Japan has a second bathroom or a laundry room is lost!). Eventually, we descend into that classic conversation:

“How’s Japan?”

“It’s good.”

But then there’s always a couple of people who are clued in. “I don’t want to take too much of your time, but just wanted to ask, how is that little girl and her mum going? The ones from your music class who came to the church event last summer. I’ve been praying for them and would love to hear if you’ve seen them again?”

Or “How are you going with that university campus group that was down to just one member? I’ve been praying you’ll find more Christians on campus.” And we realise that though we’ve never met in person, they’ve been reading our newsletters and praying more faithfully for little Miki-chan and the campus ministry than we have! And this person thinks what we’re doing is valuable and important for God’s kingdom. Our hearts are filled. We’re reminded to pray for Miki-chan, her mum, and that lone Christian on campus. We look forward to catching up with them all when we go back. We are encouraged!

Finance frazzle

Something I find very confusing and unpredictable about this stage is finance. Firstly, seeking financial support can be erratic. Some churches give massive amounts with very little prompting, while other churches give less than what it costs us to visit them. Secondly, our personal finances are stretched. People often want to meet at a café, and prices add up. But without our own home, we can’t invite people over, and with no fridge to store leftovers, even our daily food budget becomes expensive. Then randomly, (often older) folk press money into my hand as they shake goodbye, saying, “This is just a little something for you to enjoy.” Such generosity fills my heart.

Travelling can leave us financially vulnerable. But it also gives us opportunity to experience the generosity of God’s family. Cars to loan, houses to house-sit, offers of babysitting, dinner vouchers, a trip to the zoo, a youth group outing paid for. Over the years, we’ve received incredibly thoughtful gifts that remind us of God’s generosity through his people.

Friendship confusion

In between all the official visits, we’re helping our kids continue with schooling, maintain relationships with old friends they hope to return to, and navigate new friendships which they know they’ll leave (so may not want to invest in, but feel really left out when they’re not included, like not being invited to a birthday party). It’s a lot for young hearts to handle.

And it’s not only kids who struggle with friendships. I’m often grieved that some who were very close friends before we left have moved on and seem to have forgotten that we were close. But with a few good friends, we pick up where we left off as if no time has passed. And then there is the joy of new friends who show genuine care and interest.

End-blur stage

The last few weeks are often a blur of last-minute coffee catch-ups, tying up medical things, office meetings to plan our next few years, a few years’ worth of underwear and shoe shopping, and trying to get to the beach one last time. Then there is the packing, weighing, reorganising of paperwork, and plans to get to the airport.

After a restless night, filled with dreams of lugging kids and suitcases through unending corridors of unknown airports, we have another one of those airport-days. Finally, we walk out of the airport at the other end and breathe that familiar smell of “home”. Ah, the joy of sleeping in our own bed! We are exhausted! In the next few days, we gradually return to our usual schedule and greetings of “How was your holiday?”

I find the whole experience overwhelming—socially, emotionally, spiritually, even physically. The pitfalls, disappointments, grief, and stress all take a toll. But it’s wonderful to meet people who partner with us, who encourage us and share our kingdom goals. It’s reassuring that our family want to spend time with us because they love us. It’s refreshing to go to church in my heart language, to hear Biblical preaching and sing heartfelt praise in lively churches with thriving kids and youth ministries. It’s exciting to meet young adults with incisive questions considering a life of ministry and valuing our input.

The home assignment is an extremely stressful and demanding element in the cycle of missionary life, but also a source of great joy, encouragement, and evidence of God’s blessing on our lives.