Its Been a While... A Semester in Review

Hello Fam, It has been a wild ride this past summer into Fall. I apologize for the long delay in publishing an update, and to be honest, I have been agonizing with what to write over the past few months. It feels all the more real to put something in writing I wish I never had to write in the first place. Two and a half months ago I was dealt a blow with the sudden death of my father at the end of September. Even now, writing it feels like a ghost experience, but has been setting into reality as the weeks and months pass by.

Usually, I like to write a list of things that have happened, things to pray for, so if you are looking for that, please scroll to the end to get it. As I am still processing things, I have found that a little old list isn't going to capture it all, and feel it best sequestered to the end.

Things are a bit raw, but I will start with an update of the technical pieces. Language study: I have successfully made it through my first 6 months of it fairly unscathed and making more progress than I think I am allowing myself to see. Class has been a thoroughly Japanese experience, between being marked tardy after rushing into class 30 seconds late after the bell rang one day, to be handed bulk homework assignments on the regular, to enjoying the interesting student dynamics that has been influenced by each of our Sensei's. Their methods in teaching have ranged from incredibly effective and straightforward to needing a solid month to adjust.

I have found entertainment in the many language debacles that have come forward since getting past the "Hi, my name is Jessica" stages of learning a language and into "As a child, I made my mother eat her peas." level of making mistakes, and figuring out that such mistakes were made by a simple jumbling of a mere particle. Even through these, embarrassing they may be, they have brought a fun and joy to the more frustrating aspects of learning a language.

Frustrations hit in a few different ways. The most frequent frustration had been being unable to recall, words or properly apply grammar points I had just learned. Luckily finding places to practice these thoroughly in a lighthearted way has helped. From frequented coffee shops, to sporadic conversations, to making friends and family with the members of Kawaguchi Christ Church, even these frustrations too did pass. I didn't even realize some frustrations until I had opportunities to speak English with Rachel Schaeffer in one of our regular hang-out/ check ups. I realized then how relieving it can be to express deep thoughts, theories and complex ideas after having missed out on them for a little longer than what I'm used to. Yet all this still paled into my biggest frustration: failing. I can be hardest on myself, mercilessly cruel even when I fail. The past 3 months have been riddled with them.

The main failure was in my test scores. I continually had to retake exams 2 times, once I retook the same exam 3 times having made the same mistakes on each until I passed. In this way, it was as if I was paddling myself across the river of language learning while taking on water slowly, continually shoveling it out to stay the course. It was in this time I remembered words spoken over me from my consecration: "Stay the course." "Keep your hands to the plow." Still other words flooded in from friends and family: "God is with you." "God has you right where you are supposed to be." And despite all the opposition, yes, I held onto those words, and God to me- quite faithfully. And as surely as I sit here, I can tell you he mercifully delivered me to the other end of the river this semester. He showed me greater mercies than I had for myself, reminded me regularly to take my rests, even to the detriment of my homework a time or two. He reminded me of past experiences, of my limitations in this season of suffering, joyfully even.

Yet, despite the challenges and joys of language study, the added burden was outsourced. Nearly 3 months ago now, I got a call from my sister late at night American time, Sunday afternoon at church, mine. My father was getting rushed to the hospital with what was believed to be a stroke that threw into a heart attack. It took less than an hour to get a call with a sound I honestly never want to hear again in my life- just weeping. No words were exchanged but I knew, my dad had passed. Even through the shock of the call God was there ever faithful in the timing. I Could have been surrounded by strangers on a train, but I was in the arms of friends and family at church. It could have been in the middle of a semester, but it was no coincidence that he happened to pass while I was beginning break. We are only given 5 days of bereavement in excused absences, and yet this allowed me to take more time with my family than what was expected. Another blessing appeared in the combined efforts of my teammates to help organize my trip back, full with provision for direct plane tickets there and home again.

There is a lot that I need to unpack in the weeks that followed, the shock of losing my father so suddenly, helping to organize arrangements alongside the help my uncle (Who did so much for us in that time I hardly have words or thank you's enough for him, despite his own grieving), from attending the funeral wake and celebration of life, to writing a eulogy and simply grieving hand-in-hand with my fam, and just about everyone else around me.

There are more burdens and grief that I can't quite express in words, but many of you have been there once before. Through it all, the greatest comfort I can find is that I am fully confident, and fully assured in where he is today. Fabio (as I affectionately called him) is in the hands of Christ, waiting in eternal life. This, a great assurance, is not granted to everyone on the face of this earth. I could almost hear my father trying to berate me for returning to help bury him for 3 weeks: "What are you doing?! Don't you know where I am?! Aren't you supposed to be in Japan? What good'll coming back do?! Let the dead bury the dead!" He'd say in his rather "unopinionated" Boston-strong accent. Sorry to break his expectations, but there was a lot of work to do, and God granted me and the rest of my family the strength we needed to endure and do what seemed like the unthinkable.

For me, being so far away from the beginning of it all had left me feeling in what seemed a prolonged state of shock. This was the greatest reason for my struggle this last semester. This was what caused my little boat to keep taking on water as I struggled to focus and take in the same expected amount information as time kept rolling on for everyone else even when it came to a screeching halt for me. These things I find to be a common struggle for many in grief, but for me all the more real when my home this far away has stayed the same while my family and world was hit by an emotional truck in real time. Through all the pain it can be hard to keep your eyes up, but I've never been one to remain in the dumps for too long. I have to grieve, but I have to move.

So I thank God for the provisions he has made- more than I have the space to recount, from all the help from friends and family near and far, to the provisions in details. After returning from MA, I was met with the whole team at the river, teammates meeting me up and loving on me when I was feeling lonely, or overwhelmed by my workload. The beauty of being a part of the family of Christ and in sharing the same blood like this, you suffer with those who suffer, find joy with those who have joy and grieve with those grieving. So real has been the love of Christ in my teammates from Hazel and Don Schaeffer, to Don and Rachel and their boys, to Julie Harris and David and Eva Kindervater and many more!

Another great blessing came through my family at Kawaguchi. I was there when I got the news, and they were there for me from crying with me on the floor to embracing me fondly on my return. And I get to see Christ in each and every one of them. And this is what its been like: Christ upholding me in my waking hours and in my sleeping hours, when I am alone and when he has surrounded me with loved ones, and those loved ones with loved ones. He has and is taking care of my family the whole way down the line. Almost wordlessly he has sat by with my heart engraved into his hands and all of a sudden I understood "Jesus wept" in a way that I don't have words yet to explain. He wept, even knowing Lazarus' fate to be raised. Still, he wept. Still, we weep. I heard that sound I never wanted to hear again and Jesus was right there through it all, because he saw death and he wept. He knows the sound a soul makes when it is met with death and he wept.

So, while the world kept on moving on, Christ came beside me to help move me along, sit me beside and wait a moment before moving me on again. He gave me one little joy after another. I Found one little joy another. I am able to see the beauty of Tokyo and the people God has made therein one day after another and suddenly I am filled with a matter of determination. Nestled between the crazy downs in life, I have been granted a purpose and closure in ways I know not many have. I look forward to the days I can have those deeper conversations that I hunger for, for friendships I know that God has waiting for me somewhere in the future and waiting in the present. I take joy in the random encounters I have had with a new friend in Melissa the Ukrainian flight attendant I befriended on the streets of Shibuya. I take great joy in charging through language study with my fellow test addicts in class chanting together "One more time!" until we all get it right finally. I am given great joys in the advancements of technology to be able to connect with friends and especially family back in the states through whichever app or chat platform tickles their fancy. I take great joy that God is and will use me in whatever way he pleases to see the Kingdom of Heaven come to Japan and more family of Christ can be made to yet another end of the earth.

Because, after the tears, there is the morning.

After the mourning there are the skies.

After the skies churn again to night

Awaken heaven's lights

His glory seen hanging in tapestries

Creation to created things

To the All in All, all is singing

Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

And as promised:

Here is the list of quick updates (in a somewhat time-oriented order):

• I survived another semester of language study.

• God has been blessing me with new budding friendships from a Ukrainian flight attendant names Melissa, to my classmates at Naganuma School.

• There have been significant strides in my learning despite what I might feel.

• On September 25th, my father, Paul Bryant passed at the age of 57 from a stroke that threw into a heart attack in the matter of about an hour.

• I was able to get back to the states with the help and efforts of my teammates helping to arrange and purchase tickets.

• For 3 weeks I was able to return and work together with my uncle Kenny to help make arrangements and grieve with my family.

• For those interested in watching, below is the URL from the celebration of life service. There is a lot I want to say about my Dad and about his life, but to be honest I just don't have the will to write what might sound like his eulogy here again. But this I will say: My father was a firm believer in Christ and lived his life as a servant of God to the very end. He was a man larger than life, and could never fit into one mere bullet point, so I don't have the space to recount his faith, his life or his love for his family and all those he adopted into his fold here, but if you have need or desire to know more of his impact, please watch from the link below or Search "Paul Bryant Celebration of Life" Recorded and published by Faith Alliance Church in Attleboro on Youtube

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQVbRMHgRiw&ab_channel=FaithAllianceChurch-Attleboro

• I made it through these past few months of studying, despite having a number of difficulties and failures by the grace of God.

• God brought me to the end of my semester successfully, building new friendships along the way with some of my classmates.

• My family has been slowly but surely making their way through grief and trials these past few months while learning to adapt to life without a husband, father and friend.

• I have found the trials of adjustment slow and difficult as well, with the added twist of adapting in a new home and culture that has stayed very much the same. It has been quite an adjustment, unreal at times, and filled with just as much grief as with the joys of God's provision and faithfulness through the suffering.

And here is a list of prayer requests. Thank you as always for praying (even despite my faithlessness to update a little more frequently than 6 months).

• Please be in prayer for this upcoming Christmas season. For reasons obvious, this one will hit me and my family a lot harder. Not only is the absence weighing on our minds, but for many of us it is also the mark of a third month without our father.

• Please be continuously in prayer for me and my family especially as we navigate life without a dad, husband and brother.

• My mother, Christy, has been especially rocked please pray for her to be continually surrounded with God's love and comfort and the support of her church and friends.

• As for my siblings (of which there are 5) please be in prayer for them. I am only 29, but the youngest, Sarah, has only just turned 21. As enormous as this is for me, I can only imagine the weight that they all feel in his absence and being robbed that many more years of a father at such a young age. Pray they can get the help they need, in the time that they need it, and for some, the salvation of Christ and the hope he can bring them.

• Pray for this upcoming break from school for me. I have some adventures planned, but pray that I will be able to take the lessons I learned this past semester and practice them and ingrain them into my memory so that I can start off this upcoming semester well.

• Pray for my team, as they juggle the time between ministry, family, holiday fun and blues and entertaining guests, as well as for their outreaches in each of their ministries.

• Pray for Kawaguchi church as they too will be engaging in the Christmas season full with carols and trying to reach into their community.

• Finally pray for my budding friendships. I am a very extroverted person as we all know. Please pray for the friendships that are beginning to be established with some of my classmates and for the ones that God has set for me yet to come.

Thank you all again as always. Know I love you and am thinking of you. I miss you. Big hugs and blessings Hope you all have a great Christmas!

P.S.

For those who care on a random side note....

I dyed my hair. <3