Keeping healthy while working abroad

Four things that I am seeing are needed for the overseas worker's emotional wellbeing:

1/ Breaks from the location and work (holidays) – a break away refreshes you, getting you out of what can become otherwise a stifling situation without one realising until breaking point. Fitting around other people in your new culture and new mission culture takes a certain amount of effort, which is tiring. And when you are tired, and then face challanges, you are also less able to help yourself. Taking a break provides rest and perspective.

2/ Have someone, or better a few people, to talk to and offload on. This is best mostly done on the field – as only talking to friends back home can add to the gap that might already be felt between home and mission-field, and sometimes friends from back home can’t really picture your situation at all. Saying that, a few friends back home can be irreplaceable - for example my friend Sophie can relate well; she is Belgian but is living abroad (UK), and has also studied cross-cultural studies at Bible college.

3/ Having daily times with God and Bible reading time. Again, this gives perspective, (God’s perspective), and therefore guidance through life.

4/ Forgiveness, and mercy, from and to colleagues in particular. This is because love between a mission team is the most powerful witness. Lack of forgivness, esp in these closest relationships, also affects workers' health. Seing others as better than yourselves must also be the aim.

Visitors

We have three students from FES-Singapore with us on a short-term mission at the moment. So much fun. We did some tracting together, they did a fantastic sketch in church, I tried to translate the sermon for them(very badly), and we all enjoyed a baptism on church on Sunday night, and lots of meals with the church folk.

And this past week I've also had two friends visit here. The first was Ayako, who I knew from her year doing research in Oxford. She was here in Kyoto last week, for work, (at the same place where the Kyoto Protoco took place!), and she looked me up. (I've seen her both times I've been to Tokyo too.) Here she is, with her new family member, in my 'sitting room'.


My next visitor was this week - Nick, my former classmate from my Japanese evening class in Oxford.




Oh yes, and the guy to my right - that is my fiance, Simon!

Chinese worldview - a lot to learn

OK so I'm not in China, in fact I've never been to China! But I've just realised the Chinese are not in fact unaware of what 'the West' thinks of some of their policies, and neither do these views not wound them. For the first time I've had my eyes opened, and here is the poem that did it.

The Great Wall of China:
A Poem Dedicated to the last 150 years of this planet
by a Silent, Silent Chinese.

When we were called the Sick Man of Asia, we were the Yellow Peril.
When we are billed to be the next Superpower, we are a threat.

When we closed our doors, you smuggled drugs to our markets.
When we embraced Free Trade, you blame us for taking away your jobs.

When we were falling apart, you marched in your troops and wanted your "fair share".
When we were putting the broken pieces together again, "Free T'b't" you scream, "it was an invasion!"

So, we tried Communism, you hated us for being communists
When we embraced capitalism, you hate us for being capitalists.

When we have a billion people, you said we were destroying the planet.
When we tried limiting our numbers, you said it is human rights abuse.

When we were poor, you thought we were dogs.
When we loan you cash, you blame us for your debts.

When we build our industries, you called us polluters.
When we sell you goods, you blame us for global warming.

When we buy oil, you call that exploitation and genocide.
When you fight for oil, you call that liberation and democracy.

When we were lost in chaos and rampage, you wanted rule of law for us.
When we uphold law and order against violence, you call that violating human rights.

When we were silent, you said you want us to have free speech.
When we were silent no more, you say we are brainwashed racists.

Why do you hate us so much? We asked.
"No," you answered, "We don't hate You."

We don't hate you either,
But do you understand us?

"Of course we do," You said,
"We have NBC, CNN and BBCs…"

What do you really want from us?
Think hard first, then answer…

Because you only get so many chances,
Enough is enough, enough Hypocrisy for this one world.

We want one world, one dream, and peace on Earth.
This big blue Earth is big enough for all of Us.

Japanese worldview: a lot to learn

Last night I met with my pastor and his wife and children. I forgot to take a photograph as planned. But we had some very interesting chats. I started to understand the difference in worldview between my own (English one) and the Japanese one. As a new worker in only the second month of my first Japanese church placement, this is just what I need!

Like for example, can you imagine that the Japanese find Jesus’ death for them quite an annoyance? (For those that know of it and stop to consider it, that is.) Simon my boyfriend has written some useful stuff about giri, the concept in Japan where you must not be indebted to anyone, so must always repay gift for gift. (For example, at a wedding, guests give the bride and groom money as a gift. But the bride and groom return this favour by buying gifts for everyone who attends!) You therefore have to be careful when buying presents for someone, that you don’t get something too extravagant that they then have to live up to in their return gift. So can you imagine their feeling to hear that someone has died for them? What an imposition! How on earth are they ever going to repay this?! No doubt the Jehovah’s Witnesses are trying hard. Of course we can’t repay Jesus’ gift of life to us – that is the point. But it’s a pretty hard one for Japanese people to take – they’d prefer not to be involved in this interaction with Christ Jesus at all!

Another difference in my understanding and that of my Japanese pastor was over the word ‘sacrifice’. In my understanding, if I go and live in a poor country for the sake of Christian mission there, I am making certain 'sacrifices' – of the wealth of my life back home, possibly of the variety or amount of food I can eat, of a certain living standard at least. Likewise by living in Japan as a Christian worker, I am sacrificing a career back home, I am making the sacrifice of not seeing my nieces grow up day-by-day, etc etc etc. But the main word here is ‘I’, and the theme is ‘going without’ myself to achieve something which is unconnected with what I am sacrificing. In Japanese that is not a sacrifice. A ‘’gisei’’ (=sacrifice in Japanese) is when you don’t use something for yourself but instead use it for others. Therefore what you achieve is directly linked to your switching of the same resources to someone else. For example if my pastor sacrifices going on foreign holidays in order to invest that same money into his children’s education, that is sacrifice. If I go without food in order to give food to someone else, that is sacrifice. But it is not something to be admired exactly, as it is in British culture - it invokes the listener to feel sorry for you:, 'ah, poor you!'.

This is why WEC’s pillar of ‘Sacrifice’ is still one that the Japanese pastors apparently debate over how they can teach, and integrate, into their group of churches. Apparently they had long discussions over which Japanese word to use when translating the four pillars of WEC for use in their own group of churches. In the end they did settle on the regular word, “gisei”, with all the connotations as outlined above. But it still does not sit easily with some of them. Jesus sacrifice itself is not a problem – he sacrificed his life to give us life. He took our punishment for sin to save us being punished for sin. That is “gisei”. But it’s when I try and translate my understanding of the sacrifices I’ve made for the gospel into Japanese, as an illustration of what God sometimes calls us to in order to achieve his higher purposes, that the problems start!

The other thing I found out is that nearly everyone in my church is divorced. I hadn’t expected that – I had guessed one person was, but I had no idea that about five others were, including one mum of four young children, (I now see I have put my foot in it with her a few times). Most were already divorced before becoming Christians, and it was shortly after this happened in their lives that they sought out the church - and thankfully found what they were looking for. But not everyone; and the church decided that two of the elders who parted company last year should be able to stay on as separate elders, so it wasn’t like a punishment. Quite an unusual decision. All these people are obviously finding a lot of forgiveness and acceptance and fellowship in the church – now I can understand why people want to arrive at church at 10.30 Sunday morning and not leave until 6pm! And that is what church is for after all. I had my mind kinda transformed, realising I am part of a community of believers practicing the new life and forgiveness that Jesus offers. I also realized I have been trying to live up to a perfect Christian standard when actually I should just live to God’s plans for me and be honest along the route. But I also realized that teaching about getting on with your spouse is so important in the church.

The pastors are so kind to me – spending hours last night correcting my sermon/testimony for Sunday, having these kind and long conversations, giving me lovely food and even coming up with a menu for next time I visit as well! (I had presumed this might be a one-off visit!) I really trusted that they had enjoyed it when they said that.