A Six Month Review

This went quickly from a three month, to a five month, to a six month review. Thank you for checking back in and keeping up with us!

So how do I even begin to summarize these past months? A single word comes to mind, heavy. These past six months have gone by in a blur, yet at times the minutes and days have seemed to last forever. Everyday life being so concentrated by an assortment of emotions, transitions, and unknowns– that taking it one day at a time has been the only way to manage the weight of this season. Packing, goodbye-ing, isolating, acclimating, settling, birthing. Even though he has been quiet, God has been with me. When I start going under, his fingers grasp mine just long enough to bring me up to take a breath and keep me from drowning in the dark waters of heavy time.

Leaving Japan was the first hard thing, and this is right where I left off on the last post. It was a painful process to leave so much behind. Friendships, church family, a great neighborhood, a beautiful country, adventure…the list is long. Our family had become so entrenched and invested in such a short time, and we deeply mourned the loss of this second home. Covid-19 definitely created alot of extra stress for us during this time as well. The virus hit Japan earlier than in the U.S. and we decided to move up our return date, leaving the girls and me only one week to prepare. Unexpectedly, the virus shut down all of the schools in Japan that same week, on the same day the girls said their last goodbyes. Sonia cried her eyes out that day as she desperately clung to her teacher, not wanting to leave school or Japan. My heart was in pieces as all of the teachers joined us to exchange gifts and cards in the hallway before we walked out of the school gate for the final time.

We created so many memories that last week in Japan, and I have never been so emotionally and physically exhausted before. We took a final weekend trip to Kyoto, ate our last udon lunch with church friends, threw a pizza party for our dear neighbors, hosted a huge park play date in the rain, shared a pot luck dinner with our church English group, had a karaoke party with Loren’s coworkers, ate special Japanese lunches with a few friends, and had so many people stop by the house to say goodbye and bring us gifts. On top of all that, we packed, gave stuff away, cleaned, attended the last appointment for my pregnancy…and still did not do everything we wanted to do before we left.

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That last week was jammed packed, and in that time so many people shared with us how deeply they cared about our family and how much we would be missed. I honestly had no idea how big of an impact we were having on our friends and neighbors, simply through sharing our lives with them. It is hard to describe the culture in Japan, but I would say most Japanese have very high walls built up around themselves and it is hard to see over them or break through into any aspect of their personal life. For us to have entered into so many lives so intimately as foreigners, to share our faith, and to just love people so deeply, was such a gift. Sharing tears with those you have known for only a short while, because that is how much you meant to each other, changes you both forever. But that kind of living comes with a cost, and as we left I felt like a wildflower being ripped out by its roots, withering and fading, with parts of me left behind.

With as much stress as we endured abroad, these past few months in America have brought a stress level far above that ever felt in Japan. The girls and I flew back to America at the end of March, while Loren finished up work in Japan. At 22 weeks pregnant, I decided to spend a couple of weeks at my parents house as we acclimated to the 14 hour time change, and as we waited for Loren to return. Over those weeks, we watched the covid-19 pandemic hit the United States. It was such a strange time, not being able to see everyone we wanted to reunite with and being limited in our activities. Being away from my husband for so long and having him on the other side of the world made the situation even more stressful. We began to worry if Loren would even be able to return to America. It seemed like such a desperate situation at the time, not knowing how long he had before the borders shut down. At the last minute he moved up his travel date and had a week to finish packing up the house. We also decided that because of my pregnancy, he should self-isolate in a hotel room. After a month of being alone in Japan, he arrived in the U.S. and lived on sandwiches and bad coffee for two weeks before finally returning to us.

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After all of that, we got settled back into our house. By then we were all under a stay-at-home order in Michigan because of the coronavirus, and Loren was working from home. After two years at high speed in Japan, I embraced it as a sort of “life sabbatical”. I was tired and in my third trimester. But then the days started to pile up, and the restrictions kept getting extended. Their was alot of added stress for even the simple things, like grocery shopping. On top of that, no visits from friends, no church, no babysitters, no mom groups, no school for the kids, and even parks were closed. We lacked friendship, adventure, variety– and at times I felt trapped. Social isolation zapped my energy, my emotions, my creativity, my privacy, and my personal space. The trouble is, we were created for community, and we were not meant to be alone in isolation. Thankfulness began to be replaced by bitterness as I mourned my losses. The loss of a normal day, a normal pregnancy, and all expectations.

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Still in the middle of a pandemic in late June, we welcomed our fifth child into the world. A boy named Loren Miles. And now I find myself in August with a new baby, and honestly not much has changed. We are still battling the fears of the coronavirus, among many other heavy stories in the news. This month we have been school prepping, newborn nursing, hospital visiting, work life stressing, home renovating, inside the car eating, and are still cut off from most of the outside world. Circumstances are still heavy and we are ticking the minutes away under a dense fog of unknowns.⁣ And at the end of each day, all I can say is that we did it and survived. In the future, with hindsight, I know I will be able to see all that God has woven into this difficult season. Ways he has strengthened us and shaped us. And I am ok with that. I am ok right now with just getting through, with putting one foot in front of the other. And if you are out there reading this, please lift up a prayer to God’s ears for our family. Pray for my sanity, for our strength and resilience. Pray for this season to pass.

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And always, thanks for reading!
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