The joy of friends

Today something happened that I longed for for many years after we came to Japan.

Two Japanese friends came over for the afternoon.

Some missionaries find friends fairly early on in their country of service, but I did not. After nearly four years here we went on home assignment without being able to say we'd made any good friends (perhaps one or two members of the church we worked in in Sapporo would negate this).

In actual fact it is hard to say what a good friend is when you are in another country. How do you define someone who you like to hang out with, but with whom you don't share as deeply with as friends in your own culture?

Anyway, in our second four years in Japan I found some good friends. These friends were mums at my middle son's Japanese kindergarten. We hung out after bringing our kids to kindy and after picking them up. We ran an English Conversation Club for mums at the kindy. I taught them a little. They taught me a lot. I helped them a little. They helped me a lot.

It was a delight to have them over today.

The down side is that our kids aren't really friends. They have girls. We have boys. Our 7 y.o. is very conscious that his Japanese is not what it used to be and he hid in a bedroom most of the time my friends and their children were here.

Still, I'm delighted that we only live a couple of suburbs away from them and can still get together. We've got plans and I'm rejoicing.