October 31, 2008

'The best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft agley'*


I spotted this Kinko tree earlier this week from the train, so I went yesterday to find it and get a few shots. One of over 1000 shots I have to get posted... more on the delay below.





I'm at the end of a month in which I had plans to post so many articles...

Look out, here come the excuses!

...pick one:

1.I moved from Windows to Linux
2.Sharon and Andrew extended their August Tokyo visit, leaving me to fend for myself
3.Sharon stayed in Tokyo to help Naomi and I packed and send all their things
4.I turned over all my classes and prepared to move to Tokyo

Did you pick one? Good! You're right! They're all true.

(I've saved excuses 5 to 5,793 for a future post)

We've been up in the air over this move for some time, (that's why my arms are so tired) but when it finally became clear, things have moved so fast that I haven't had time for much else-- Sorry! I'm writing now, because thought I'd better let you know before I'm in Tokyo. I'm, in fact, traveling this weekend to make final arrangements for housing.

Why move?

Well, as you perhaps know, we moved to this beautiful mountain city two years ago, in large part to take the place of a family on their missionary way to Africa. Well, as the line from the Scots poem that's my title says, in English, 'The best-laid plans of mice and men / often go awry'-- And the couple ended up being in Africa months instead of years.

That time, plus the time it took for them to initially get off and, upon returning, to know where and how to get back on, led us up to early this year, when we, ourselves, began to see the need to move-- or, more clearly, the lack of need for us to stay. We already knew of situations where we could be more useful, but it took us until now to orchestrate the various ingredients-- kids schooling, work and ministry responsibilities etc.

As I said, when the pieces did begin to fall in place over the summer, the pace quickened and thus, I'm letting you know now, almost as I'm flying out the door.

We are very excited about our move. The Tokyo Metropolitan area contains more than a quarter of Japan's population and is exciting and challenging-- lots of people, lots of activity and unlimited opportunity-- for us this means potentially a greater part in helping to reach out to others for Jesus. I'm looking forward to doing a lot more teaching of Bible courses and Seminars, more writing and performing, as we did in Fukuoka.

I have a large backlog of posts to be polish and published, but it may be a couple weeks before I can get back into a regular rhythm of posting-- photos too . I hope no one has been holding their breath for the photos I promised to post on line and link to- sorry.

And please write, I always answer my e-mail.

Note: *This post's title is from To A Mouse a Scots poem by Robert Burns (1759-1796)