The Hard Stuff

(This is a post I started at Chistmas, but never finished until now.)

"At Christmas, we like to see things in their proper place. We unwrap the ancient legends and the oldest truths. We like our angels unchanged and our rituals familiar. We like the right faces around the table, the right carols to be sung, the promise that this is how it is and always will be, because that is Christmas. The one still point in a world forever turning." 

The above quote are the opening lines to an episode of one of my current favorite shows: "Call the Midwife." I sat down to watch it and wasn't able to finish until I had processed those lines. 

Because...what happens when your Christmas is no longer a "still point in a world ever turning"? 

This year the faces around the table were, while still cherished, not the right ones. 

This year things weren't in their proper place.

The week leading up to Christmas wasn't an easy one for me. On top of missing my family, and those I normally celebrate with, I had a rough week in language. We had a stretch of several tough lessons back-to-back that left me feeling like a complete failure at Japanese. 

It all came to a head at our church's candlelight service. I had been asked to read a section of Scripture in Japanese, so I was sitting up front during the service with all the other readers. We sang all the "right carols", but in Japanese, so my brain had to work in overdrive to follow along with the hiragana.

Then things came to a head as I thought, "Why the heck am I doing this? Why am I here in this strange place struggling to sing Christmas carols - something that should be so easy and natural." I fought to hide tears that were threatening to embarrass me.

Then the Scripture reading started again. I can't tell you what was being read at that point, because my brain had checked out, but all of a sudden God spoke to my heart. He said, "You have no right to go home and sing Christmas carols in English while millions here don't know the reason we sing these carols." Well. Talk about a reality-check, spiritually speaking. I could go home and live in a familiar setting, with familiar faces, but I would miss the blessing of obeying God's command to plant my life in Japan, and be used by Him. So yes, I have GONE, but now I will STAY.

Cart, Buggy, Whatever

Depending on your respective area of the United States, your name for that contraption you use to haul your groceries around the store in will vary. However, the point of this post is not to argue about that, although you might be interested in knowing that if you were in Japan, you would more than likely call it a かご. Fun fact for the day.

They aren't all this way, but at our particular neighborhood supermarket, to use a buggy you must first insert a ¥100 coin, like so:

You then push in the coin, then the red thing connected to the chain above pops out, then you're on your merry way. After you are finished, you reconnect it with the cart in front of it and your coin pops back out.

Even though I occasionally have to scramble for a ¥100 coin, I have to admit, they have a pretty brilliant system going on. ¥100 is approximately $1, and you definitely wouldn't want to run off and leave your buck stuck in a cart now do ya? That's a large drink at Sonic Happy Hour!! (Unless the cost has gone up since I left the States) Therefore, you very willingly return your cart to all its little friends in the cart corral, and no cart pushers are needed. 

Fun Fact #2: Jason was a cart pusher at Wal-Mart one summer. It was the summer I spent in Romania, so I didn't see him for 8 weeks. When I came back, he was super tan and muscular from his job. Hubba hubba. Moral of the story, dudes: Cart pushing can be a very, VERY beneficial job.

Japan Life - Store Parking

I've decided to start a series of posts called "Japan Life" in order to document the things about our life here that I found most interesting when we moved here. Most of them are little mundane things, but they're so completely different from back home that they fascinate me.

First up - grocery store parking...and I guess you could say store parking in general. Most bigger stores have parking decks on top of the store, and the ground level parking is reserved for bikes. This is the bicycle parking lot at the supermarket where we get our groceries. Notice the bike-sized parking spaces.

Mr. Finn waiting to be loaded up in the bike along with a few day's worth of groceries.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from the Stuart Clan in Japan! We went into Tokyo to spend the day with some of our fellow Americans, so this is us taking a train "over the river and through the woods."

Thank you so much to our friends and family across the globe who have prayed for us, given to the LMCO, and encouraged us by your words and care packages. It has all meant the world to us, and keeps us going each day, even when we're discouraged by our language learning and celebrating special days thousands of miles away from our families. You are all a part of the work we're doing here in Japan!

Crossing the Pond

Here it is: the long-overdue post with pictures from our trip over the Pacific. 

We actually ended up leaving a couple of days later than originally planned, due to some last minute medical issues needing to be resolved, but thankfully everything was cleared away and we were on our way on October 4. I think it worked out better in the long run. We said good-bye to our families at home in private, instead of having to go through a tearful time in the airport. My brother drove us there, and he and one of my dear friends were the only two there to see us off. This allowed us to focus on getting six checked bags, three backpacks, a rolling suitcase, a stroller, a car seat, and a baby through check-in and airport security. I was worried because our flight leaving has been late the last couple of times I have flown, and I didn't want to get a late start on our long trip, but our flights were on-time for the duration of our trip.

Mr. Finn saying, "I got this! You guys handle the rest!"

Not the best picture of us, but it was the least blurry of this set.

 We had layovers in DFW, and then on to LAX. The flight between Dallas and LA and our time in LAX was a bit rough. Finn was having a hard time, and we were super worried because we had the hardest half yet to come. Thankfully, the Lord provided a quiet place to rest once we made it to the international terminal and found our gate.

Mr. Big all up in his own seat.

Our almost-12-hour flight between LA and Narita was the one that was worrying us the most. We had visions of screaming babies and glaring passengers dancing in our heads. But wouldn't you know - God was so gracious to us, because Finn settled right in and slept about 8 hours total, only waking 2 times to be fed and put right back to sleep. He might as well have been in his own crib! Jason and I even managed a small amount of sleep ourselves. I will say this - having a baby to tend to made the long flight pass a lot more quickly than the flight we had to Japan last year.

We had no problems making it through customs once we landed in Tokyo, and all of our baggage made it!

My studly man hauling BOTH carts full of our luggage

 Once we made it through customs, we came around the corner to this welcome sight:

Several of our team members made the trek to Narita to welcome us to Japan. It was such a small thing but it meant so much to see friendly faces when we landed in a foreign country that we knew so little about. They helped us with baggage, entertained Finn, helped us exchange our dollars to yen, and got us and all of our baggage loaded up and brought us to our new home.

Our apartment gets Finn's approval

I can't even describe the level of physical exhaustion we were in by the time we made it to our new home. However, it felt so good when we finally were able to lay down and sleep in our own place in JAPAN. It's been a long road here.

Leavin' on a jet plane...

...Don't know when I'll be back again. I am writing today from LAX while waiting for our final flight to Tokyo.

What a week! We've had such a good lesson in patience and flexibility - things that will definitely benefit us in our new life.

We weren't sure at first if we would be able to head out this past Wednesday because we were needing medical clearance for a last minute issue with me. It came in at the eleventh hour, but because of some ticketing issues, we ended up not leaving on Wednesday after all. Fortunately, we only had to wait two days - days I think actually benefitted us in the long run. We got a little more time with our families and ended up saying good bye in a private setting versus bawling our eyes out in front of everyone at the airport.

It feels surreal that we're finally on our way. Since both of us have traveled overseas multiple times in some ways it feels like the same ol' same ol' but then we keep having these moments today when it just stops us dead in our tracks that we're really moving to Japan, and there's not a return ticket waiting on us. 

It makes it so much easier knowing that we have an amazing team waiting to welcome us, take us to our new home, and show us the ropes. If we didn't have that I would probably be sobbing on the floor at this point. I even find myself starting to feel little surges of excitement. After all, we've worked hard for this for the last four years.

When we get to our new mansion (yes, they call their apartments "mansions" in Japan, I'll post a few of the pics I took with my nicer camera along the way. Until then, I leave you with this one I snapped with my iPad:

                                                                  Goodbye America!

        

                         

   

Six Bags!

   With one week left, we're getting pretty creative with our packing. Here are clothes for Finn rolled up in my exercise mat and stuffed in part of our water filter.