Category Archives: Work

IT is always there…

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I’m writing this post on an important computer. It is the Hokkaido Regional Director’s computer. I’m here in the office updating Office to 2010 for him, which sounds simple, and is pretty simple really! But nothing is ever that simple…

I know this is an important computer as it is full-disk encrypted, so it needs a password on boot to begin loading Windows, which can only be entered in person in front of the computer. As the RD often works from the location of his main ministry and a reboot would mean not being able to access the system and do any RD work, often updates are left uncompleted or undone. And for this installation the computer will need to restart to finish installing some updates in order for the Office 2010 installation to run properly.  So I need to be here to enter the password when it reboots!

So here I am in the RD office installing Office! One of the less complicated parts of helping OMFers with their IT! :-)

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Coming up…

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It has just become the last day of 2011 here in Japan, in 24 hours it will be a whole new year. This past year has seen a lot of new things for Emily and I: a trip to Okinawa, a new pastor at the church we work at, the birth of our beautiful daughter Anna… We have had a lot of challenges and new things to learn, a lot of things to give thanks for, and others to continue to pray towards.

These past years have been years marked with change for us, 2008 I came to Japan, 2009 Emily moved up to Hokkaido and we got engaged, in 2010 we married and moved to Oasa, then in 2011 we welcomed little Anna into our family. 2012 looks like it will continue the trend as we prepare to head back to the UK in the spring time (with a estimated date of 1st of May).  Our return to the UK has a few purposes, first of all Emily can spend some time learning about and experiencing the culture that has influenced and shaped my development, also she will be able to study English and gain some experience in using it in day to day life! We hope to return to Japan with OMF in the future and English is a requirement as it is OMF’s internal language. We also need time to process Emily’s entry into OMF and hopefully gain a permanent residence visa for her to ease transition back and forth in the future.

But we hope it will also be a time of personal development for us. Emily will experience life and faith in another culture and I learn to be patient with her and help her as she has with me here in Japan! We hope that God will provide a place for me to work that will help me to develop for future ministry in Japan as well as provide for our family while we are in the UK. Whether that is towards the IT skills side, or more focussed on traditional ministry (or both?!) is to be seen. We also will be spending a lot of time sharing about Japan and the work God has for us to do here. We will both need to learn to trust Him to provide anew as we step into the next stage of our journey.

As we move forward into 2012 we are just at the beginning of this, we are beginning to become active in gathering the documents we will need for Emily’s visa application, thinking about timings as some of those may overlap with original documents needed for Anna’s UK passport application, and for my re-entry permit to Japan… We will need to get used to the seemingly endless streamers of red tape if we are to survive the coming years!

Maybe 2013 will be a little more settled…

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English anyone?

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It’s not really a big secret that I didn’t really want to teach English when I came to Japan.  I told myself English teaching was really not helping to sever the damaging link between Christianity and the “west”, that it wasn’t a viable reproducible way for Japanese churches to work, that I wasn’t qualified to teach English and couldn’t really deliver on the promise of improving your English that English classes or lessons automatically bring with them…

But really, as I shared at JLC a while ago, my problem was partly that I am not an English teacher.   The reason people want me to teach English is simply because I can speak it (apparently!) and I was born in an English speaking country, and I look like I was born in an English speaking country.
But a bigger part was just pride – I didn’t like that the most valuable thing a lot of people recognised in me was something so coincidental.  There are millions of people born in English speaking countries and any one of them could do English classes as well as I could, if not considerably better.  And what about the years I spent at school and university, learning how to program, develop software, work with databases, troubleshoot IT issues etc…  Isn’t that something not everyone can do?  Shouldn’t I do that while someone who knows how to teach English teaches it?

But the fact is the English is not the most important part.  I am a foreigner in Japan, I stick out and am noticed everyone assumes that foreigners speak English.  So that is what they come and look for when they see me.  I’m not wearing a sign that says “Bachelor of Engineering” or “Master of Divinity” or even “Tries to play the saxophone”, but I am wearing a face that says, or at least people assume it says “I speak English!”  And so that is what I can use.

So, in the spirit of swallowing my pride and using the tools that God has given to me, we (Emily and I) are running a kid’s English “club” (I still am reluctant to make the “class” promise that says you can learn anything from me!) and helping mums and kids from the church meet other mums and kids in the area, going to the English Speakers Group at the local university as a kind of living example of how to pronounce things (like towel, or eight… ha!) and inviting them to our apartment for pizza, or taking them to the Hokkaido Centre for one of FM Zero’s international nights

But basically what I have found is that there is no reason not to use the English card where it is appropriate.  It isn’t taking away from other opportunities, I can still speak Japanese with the people I meet when we aren’t studying, I am really enjoying my weekly IT time and cleaning up the office systems here, and also thinking about some exciting ideas with our RD about how to use IT to help smaller churches without pastors to worship each Sunday.

About the only thing that I am dreading at the moment is JLPT N2 in December, and the practice in November!!

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And all I got was this crummy iPod Touch…

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When my brother, dad and I used to go on weekend trips with the caravan we had a tape of Bob Newhart that we would listen to over and over again.  One of the stories he did was about a guy called Chuck who had retired after giving the best years of his life to his company and they presented him with a wristwatch, not best pleased in his lubricated speech to the party shouted “and all I got was this crummy watch!”

Yesterday (Friday) I finished my time at GCD,  I originally was going to go on til the end of September, but with my dissertation and other things to be done before the OMF deadline of 25th September it became clear that I needed more September to get things done and so, reluctantly, I handed in end of August notice.  My reluctance wasn’t because I want to make more money, or because I like getting up at 7 so I can make it for 8:30 (ish!)…  I genuinely enjoyed working with the guys at GCD.  I’m only 26 so I haven’t had too many jobs, but I haven’t experienced a workin environment or job like it; the work itself was interesting, fun, often challenging and only sometimes annoying, the lunchtime Halo matches and great attitude of all the guys (and later girls too) at GCD made for fantastic team dynamics and working relationships and of course the leadership team of the two Andrews made my two years (just under, but I’m rounding) without question the best job I have had so far!
Now every job has its down sides, but to be honest I’m struggling to think of them, even the annoying bits lead to great office banter and fun times.

So now I am full time dissertation for two weeks with smatterings of OMF thrown in.  I have to complete my introduction (the last bit believe it or not), then collate my references, proof read and redraft however many times, get it printed and bound and handed in before 1pm on the 15th September!

So what’s that title about an iPod Touch?  Well yesterday, as it was my last day, we all went out for lunch at Gowdy’s (local regular of GCD celebratory lunchtimes), then after a great lunch (as always – only downside was a sleepy afternoon!) Andrew G pulled out a box and a card, so I thought, “Great! sweets!” or something along those lines, but when I had fought through the sellotape I opened the box to find an iPod Touch 32GB box!  Of course I thought it was a joke, I mean an iPod Touch?!  But no, on opening the (smaller) box I found not only a sleek, shiny piece of 1 Infinite Loop’s finest hardware, but it had been engraved:

To John
All the best
from everyone at
xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx*

So now I have an iPod Touch and it is very nice, I’ve used iTunes a bit before for the store, but it is nice to now have everything in one place, at least for a while, and I am looking forward to a host of funky apps!  There were a few initial hiccups (mostly file formats, I had an MTP Creative Zen then a Sony Walkman, so I had windows media and atrac files all over the place) but the only crappy bit are the earphones!  Now this is my first foray into Apple technology (at least first piece I have owned) and no question it is a very shiny gadget…  I hope I don’t get sucked in to Jobs’ pie-chartless, spreadsheetless world of photobooks and floppy hair! ;-)

Thanks GCD, for the experience and fun of the past two years and for the ideal geek toy as a parting gift!

*the xs represent the GCD local network’s external IP…  Funny if you’re a geek like me!

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