How did you even get into wrestling to begin with, and other questions

Last week I wrote that hoped this week would be better, especially that I could get some traction on my work. I'm pleased to say that that has indeed been the case. I'm on my fourth straight day without any meetings or other external distractions and I'm also in good health, which is a great help.

There's no avoiding it: this is going to be a "wrestling" post. But if you keep reading, you'll find out why we're so interested in wrestling and how we got into the sport initially. If you were following my blog back in 2015–2017 you would have seen a lot of these during this time of year. Feb 2017 was really a pinnacle as we watched our eldest son go undefeated in his senior year. There has been less wrestling for our family since then, for various reasons, including a pandemic, but we're now coming to the pinnacle of our youngest son's high school wrestling career.

Current events

Saturday was a huge day, as predicted, but a good one. We got up at 4 a.m., and I joined my husband as he drove the team two hours to Yokosuka, the US Naval Base south of Yokohama. We got on base very smoothly (not to be taken for granted; it's kinda like entering another country via immigration, except there are more guns and rules about what you can do on the "inside"). It was too cold to linger outside, so we entered the gym and sat in there for 11 hours, with teams from 11 other schools. The actual tournament went for about nine of those . . . continuously! It's an acquired taste. It says something about us that we weren't bored! Although I did try to lie down for a while on the hard bleachers, it didn't last long when one of our team was called up to wrestle and how could you not watch and shout encouragement?

Our son didn't meet his first opponent until around noon, so there was a lot of nervous tension up till then (at least he and I had nervous tension). And, to be honest, that tension continued much of the day as he had not previously wrestled any of his three opponents, so it was a bit hard to know how hard they'd be. Great result in the end, though—he came through undefeated and won gold. We were elated, but pretty bleary by then. The adrenaline (and dinner) helped us get through the last couple of hours on the road to get home.

Thankfully last Sunday was a quiet day and by the time Monday came around I was almost good to go! And now it's Friday again. This weekend looks different: tomorrow, for the first time in three weeks we don't have to put an alarm on, as there's nowhere to go. 

This Sunday, however, we'll leave from school around noon with the wrestling team and our bags. We're going to the "big" three-day tournament called "Far East Wrestling Tournament", the final tournament of the season. It includes US military schools from the whole region (just Japan and Korea from what I can tell), as well as the three international schools from Tokyo with wrestling programs (us!). That's around 15 schools and probably over 150 wrestlers. When our eldest was a Senior we also went to this tournament, except it was a bit more complicated, as it was a couple of hours south of Seoul in Korea!

David and I are only going to the first two days. But we'll stay the two nights locally in a hotel, which will save a lot of driving and time, and hopefully help us cope with the nine-hour days in the gym. But it will be so good to be there cheering our team on, especially spending time focusing on our youngest son, who has more often than not just had to tag along as we did things with his eldest brother. He'd been dragged along to wrestling meets for several years before he ever got to officially do it himself. It's great to have the flexibility to invest some time in his life alone this season.

Why have you gotten so involved in wrestling?

I did have to admit to a small group of missionaries that I met on Monday that "we're a bit nutty". It truly is still a bit hard to explain our passion for wrestling, although it's probably better framed as "we're passionate about supporting our boys in their sporting choices". That generally makes more sense to people. It's not easy as parents to forge relationships with teenage boys, and we've been very thankful that wrestling has been one way to connect with two of them. We've spent so many hours attending meets, but even more talking about it!

Wrestling is also something of a family sport. It's reasonably common to see multiple wrestlers in the same family (parent and child, and siblings). One family from another school who we've met many times over the years has four children; all of them have wrestled at school! It makes it easier if everyone is doing the same sport, that's for sure! But it's also true that kids are different and not all enjoy it. That's been true in our family. Our middle son had a couple of goes at the sport, but for a few reasons really couldn't commit to it.

How did you get into wrestling to start with? (something Australians particularly ponder)

An Australian friend asked us this last month. The story is pretty simple, really. At our school there are only two inter-school sports for middle and high school boys in the winter season: basketball and wrestling. Our eldest son tried basketball in his first year of middle school and he didn't particularly enjoy it. During PE that year one of the teachers did a single period introducing the 6th graders to wrestling and in that short time caught our son's attention. 

He took up wrestling in 7th grade and was hooked by the end of that season. He's not strayed far from wrestling ever since. In fact he's still wrestling at 23. He's part of a private wrestling club near where he lives and has twice competed in the Australian Nationals as an adult. Last year he won silver (which I always have to temper with the understanding that this is an extremely minor sport in Australia, until we introduced him to this club in Brisbane, we knew no one involved in the sport in our home country).

Is it right to feel proud about sporting success?

This is a question our eldest asked on Wednesday when someone he doesn't know mentioned his achievement as a senior. We were watching our school duel with another school on their live feed and there were two commentators hosting the event. We're pretty sure that the guy who mentioned our son was a wrestler when our son won Far East in 2017.

I'd been pondering that question too as I posted videos and photos from Saturday on my social media and received lots of congratulations and "likes". It's pretty clear to me, though, that there are a lot of factors that go into a sporting success like our son had on the weekend. So many things we have no control over: 

• They are actually holding tournaments again. If he'd been a senior in 2021 or 2022, he never would have had this chance! 
• Physical and mental health are things that we have a little bit of control over, but not as much as we'd like to think, mostly it's a gift. You may not realise it, but it takes a lot of mental strength to persevere at wrestling, and even more to succeed. It takes years to learn and when you're out on the mat, there's nowhere to hide.
• We've learned the hard way that the US Department of Defense requires very little to cancel sporting events. More than once in our 12 years of involvement in wrestling, a forecast of snow has shut whole bases down and cancelled tournaments. 
• Our guys are natural athletes. There's no mistaking that they've worked very hard (our youngest's muscle definition is something to behold!), but they also have a certain level of gifting for the sport of wrestling, that's not something they've achieved on their own, though they've certainly capitalised on it. 
• We've also had the opportunity to send our boys to a school where there's good opportunities for sport, that is definitely not a given when you are a missionary.

So yes, I'm proud and very happy that my son has put a lot of effort into this sport and is seeing some nice rewards just now. But there's also a lot there that there's no reason to be proud of, just thankful.

Flashbacks

I've been writing about wrestling as long as we've been involved in the sport. In 2014, when our eldest was a 9th grader, I wrote this in a blog post:

So, I remain an enthusiastic supporter.  Good thing too, because despite this season being nearly over (one more tournament for our son), it looks like we're in this for the duration. Our youngest wants to join the team as soon as he can, which could mean I'll be watching wrestling live for the next 10 years!

Yep, that has happened! Though this is our last year as parents, and therefore the deep, gut-wrenching involvement that means you commit to spending 15-hour days doing this are nearly over. 

 Here's something else I wrote about the sport in that blog post that you might not realise: 

For a combat-type sport, it really is interesting to behold how non-aggressive it is. Even while wrestling, there generally isn't nastiness, the best wrestlers are well controlled in their actions. They really approach it in a "gentlemanly" type way, with handshakes all round and even the occasional hug between wrestlers. Sometimes the coaches shout in protest about a call the ref made, but generally it isn't too major. And there's generally no nastiness (at least that I've heard) from the supporters in the stands.

If you've gotten this far you might be interested in reading one more thing. At the end of our eldest son's high school wrestling career, I wrote a blog post reflecting on wrestling and the season that had just past: https://mmuser.blogspot.com/2017/02/reflections-on-wrestling-this-season.html

Off my game, but seizing the day

It's been a weird week and I haven't been able to settle well to work that needs deeper concentration. The main thing to blame is my schedule. I started the week exhausted from Saturday when I helped run a wrestling tournament (and continued straight on to dinner across town with friends), and end the week nervous about the really long day tomorrow at another tournament a long way from home. In the middle of the week was a day hanging out with missionary women and a funeral of a church member, plus a mid-week wrestling event, all on different days. Add to that two other days with meetings, but not even long meetings! 

All that is enough to throw me off my game. I can sandwich some work in-between other things as well as the next woman, but I find that writing and editing longer or more difficult pieces of writing, takes more concentration and doesn't squeeze well between other things. So I generally chunk my schedule to help me work that way (ideally, two or three whole days in a week without any external events), but it just hasn't happened this week. Oh, and I've been struggling with headaches on and off too, which never helps concentration.

Next week looks better . . . I hope it lives up to that expectation.

But for now I want to tell you a little bit about the funeral. We arrived at church on Sunday to the news of a sudden death the night before of a 65-year-old church member who has quietly served his community and church for decades. He was not obviously Japanese, having American heritage, but his heart was clearly centred on Japan. He was born here and spent most of his life here teaching English. He served the church by simultaneously translating one of the services each week into English in his little booth at the back of the sanctuary, as well as proofreading the bilingual PowerPoint presentation. So many people have been blessed by his service over the years! His Japanese wife and mother-in-law were clearly distraught at the funeral yesterday. He hadn't been ill and died while doing something he loved: watching sumo at home.

It was a small funeral, which surprised us. But we were glad to be present, at this beautiful Christian, Japanese funeral, representing some of the many people who have been served by this humble, behind-the-scenes guy. There are so many funerals that I haven't been able to attend in the last few years, usually because of family responsibilities and distance. I'm sure there were some who wanted to be present at this one, but couldn't.

It's only the second funeral in Japan that my husband or I have attended. Before we came to Japan we were told about Japanese funerals, in particular, about the very strict dress code and the need to own "funeral clothes." It's all black, except the men get to wear white shirts with their black tie and women can/should wear pearls (but no other jewellery except wedding rings). I own very little black (and no pearls), as it just drains my already pale face of all life. And almost none of the black clothes I have are "winter weight". My heart's desire was to honour this man and his family, and not to draw attention by my foreign-ness and what I was wearing or not wearing.

Thankfully I managed to do that, all while not getting frostbite! But let's just say I was wearing a lot of layers under the appropriate black externals!

The service was very different to the Buddhist one I attended many years ago, indeed it was very similar to a worship service. I was taken by surprise by the open coffin where we were guided to lay flowers after the service, but as we aren't close to the family, we didn't stay long after the main service. To learn more about Japanese funerals check out this article I edited a while back.

It's sobering to think that this man was only about 15 years older than us. Truly, a funeral is a good place to get a reality check in our busy lives. I'm always grateful for my husband, but this was a good reminder to seize the day as often as I can.

The fairly spontaneous dinner we went to last Saturday was very much a case of "seizing the day". It wasn't wise, at the end of an exhausting all-day event, but it was a rare opportunity for three families who get along well to get together. And we had fun. I'm really glad we went. Taking time to appreciate those we love is so important. For those of us who have no family in-country it's even more important to invest time in friendships nearby. Just this week we've heard of an expat whose cancer journey has taken an unexpected turn, and another family we know whose overseas journey seems to have come to an end (they aren't returning from home assignment, though continuing to work with a mission). Seizing time with friends that God has given you to walk with this current week, month, year, is important in this life where things can change so quickly.

I'm a frail field flower

Looking back after more than a dozen years of life with kids at this international school in Japan, I know that January has a habit of going from zero to 100 km/h almost instantaneously. I never feel ready. In fact it was quite discouraging to get to Monday this week (when school started back and I started taking work more seriously again) to find myself already tired.

It hasn't been exactly 100 km/h all week, in fact after a busy start to the week, I've been able to sit quietly at my desk for three days just catching up on work here. It's been challenging, but not impossible.

At the same time, though, I've had a rash of decisions to make about future commitments, starting with this Saturday: Will I commit to being at school by 7.30 to help set up for a wrestling tournament, followed by meeting friends for dinner that evening? Will I also commit to help providing food for the tournament refs and coaches, which means buying stuff on Friday? As I considered those questions, I took into consideration that I'd already committed to providing home baked goods for another event at school on Monday, goods that I won't have the time to make on the weekend, so will have to do it on Friday. And that I expect to be back at my desk working on Monday morning, as well as lead a meeting in the afternoon. Yep, 100 km/h is just around the corner.

And that's just one instance.

There have been a few other smaller and bigger commitments for the coming couple of months that I've thought about this week. Yep, the stuff that can easily get me into trouble by saying too many yeses. That's where it starts. Each yes seems small, but they quickly get out of control and by then, if you mean what you say when you say "yes", you just can't stop the train.

Frail field flowers in October

If you've read my first blog post for 2023, you'll realise that we're facing up to a big year, one that will probably get crazy busy. I've been searching for a passage of scripture to try to anchor myself as I head into this and I've found Psalm 103. I've pasted it below in its entirety for you. There are lots of nuggets in it to ponder. Just now I'm leaning into these phrases: "Your youth is renewed like the eagle’s" (v. 5 NIV) and "As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust. The life of mortals is like grass, they flourish like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more" (vv. 13–16).

God remembers that we don't have much in reserve, that we are pretty frail, not only that but he has compassion on us (the sort of compassion that us parents have for our kids, that makes us weak in the stomach when something goes wrong for them that we want to fix). On top of all that he also has the power to renew our strength. What great truths these are, and worthy of leaning in to when the future looks overwhelming!

               Praise the Lord, my soul;

    all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
 Praise the Lord, my soul,
    and forget not all his benefits—

who forgives all your sins
    and heals all your diseases,
 who redeems your life from the pit
    and crowns you with love and compassion,
 who satisfies your desires with good things
    so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

 The Lord works righteousness
    and justice for all the oppressed.

 He made known his ways to Moses,
    his deeds to the people of Israel:
 The Lord is compassionate and gracious,
    slow to anger, abounding in love.
 He will not always accuse,
    nor will he harbor his anger forever;
 he does not treat us as our sins deserve
    or repay us according to our iniquities.
 For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
    so great is his love for those who fear him;
 as far as the east is from the west,
    so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

 As a father has compassion on his children,
    so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him;
 for he knows how we are formed,
    he remembers that we are dust.
 The life of mortals is like grass,
    they flourish like a flower of the field;
 the wind blows over it and it is gone,
    and its place remembers it no more.
 But from everlasting to everlasting
    the Lord’s love is with those who fear him,
    and his righteousness with their children’s children—
 with those who keep his covenant
    and remember to obey his precepts.

 The Lord has established his throne in heaven,
    and his kingdom rules over all.

 Praise the Lord, you his angels,
    you mighty ones who do his bidding,
    who obey his word.
 Praise the Lord, all his heavenly hosts,
    you his servants who do his will.
 Praise the Lord, all his works
    everywhere in his dominion.

Praise the Lord, my soul. (Psalm 103, NIV)

Looking ahead to 2023

I've had a full week to start the year, though perhaps not technically "busy". We spent NYE with friends playing board games and enjoying just being together again. These are our camping buddies and we've spent several NYEs together over the last few years. They hadn't seen our eldest son since his last visit here 3 ½ years ago, and we only got one camping trip in in 2022, way back in March. 

Then it was church on Sunday and recovering from "the night before"; I have never been good at staying up late. One Monday afternoon we welcomed a school friend of our eldest son, the only friend of his from high school who is around this area at the moment. Then just after lunch on Tuesday we farewelled them both—our son to Australia and his friend, well we're not sure when we'll see him again. 

It was great to spend 10 days with our eldest. We've kept in pretty good contact with him over the last two years, with weekly video chats on Sunday afternoons, but there's nothing like living together, talking over multiple meals, during car journeys and walks to really find out how things are.

Tuesday afternoon David took a colleague and his wife to the airport bus and then we headed into town for the evening to meet friends and see a big winter illumination on a race course. Wednesday was a recovery day, and then yesterday and today we've each spent time downtown with friends over meals. Oh, and there's been cricket since Wednesday too (when it's not raining in Sydney). I've been avoiding going back to work, but the deadlines are catching up to me and this morning I've had to finally get a bit more serious.

Therefore, it's taken till the sixth day of the new year to find the space to write this, though I've been thinking about it all week. 

Thinking about the future like this is
a little bit like looking at an unsigned path in
the woods. You have thoughts about where
it might lead, what you might encounter on 
the way, but you really have no clear idea
at all!

In fact, we've been thinking about 2023 for several years. It's the year that our youngest son finishes high school, which is significant for anyone, but for missionaries it can be massive. Juggling the education of our children as well as a specific demand of our job (that we periodically spend significant chunks of time in our home country) has gotten harder and harder as the boys got older. Australian and American high school education systems aren't super compatible, and jumping between countries with children isn't fun at the best of times. So, we've been juggling home assignments to try to minimise the disruption to their education. 

This year after June, for the first time in 20 years, we will have no one at school. I was asked yesterday what I was looking forward to in 2023, and my first answer was "my son's graduation". The lady who asked was surprised, she doesn't have children herself, but noted that many people don't look forward to their last child leaving school. So, maybe I'm weird . . . but I'm putting it out here anyway, because there are probably people out there as weird as me, but don't want to say so.

However, the whole process of doing a home assignment is no picnic, even if no one needs to be enrolled in school. It involves a lot of admin and planning, changing jobs, international travel, using up all the stuff in our pantry, and moving house. And in our case this year, moving out of the house we've lived in for 13 years, downsizing, and putting the remaining goods into storage for the year. Then, when we get to Australia, getting stuff out of storage there, finding a rental (which isn't easy at the moment in south-east Queensland), (probably) finding second-hand furniture and white goods, and settling into a new house for however many months we have left once we've done all that. 

During this 2023-2024 home assignment, instead of school issues, we also have the challenge of helping start our two youngest boys transition to independent life in Australia. A task for which no manual has been written . . . although we've done it once before, each young adult is different and it's not going to look the same for any of our boys.

Wow, I've just looked back at the equivalent post I wrote at the start of 2020. Pre-pandemic. Yep, none of us saw what was coming that year. I had an idea of what I thought the next couple of years might include, especially surrounding international travel and what my older two children might be doing. The ensuing years have made me much more tentative about making predictions about the future. However the one long-term thing that I did have in that 2020 post that seems to be accurate was going on home assignment in 2023.

It is the fifth time we've gone on home assignment. I now understand why more experienced missionaries don't like doing it (something I didn't get when I was in my first term and so, so homesick). It's a lot of work and thoroughly exhausting. But there's always mixed feelings about changing countries. In some ways I'm more comfortable in Australia, and there are special people there who I'm looking forward to spending time with.

So as I look at the first half of the year, I see a lot of hard work. I'll be continuing on with my usual job, but at the same time planning on how to hand that over to others. I'll also begin working on the admin of planning for the second half of the year: a lot of email as I organise different speaking opportunities and other things related to our move. We'll have to work on things like material to present at said speaking opportunities too. We're also still parents, so, in addition to supporting our kids emotionally, there are things like sports events to attend, and then various end-of-senior-year events too. Oh, and did I mention downsizing and packing?

Two "big rocks" in the first half of the year are:

• two-night women's retreat in March
• OMF Japan field conference in June in Hokkaido

I've also got couple of "big rocks" tentatively in the calendar for the second-half of the year.

Plus a big birthday milestone in April, one that seems like it should apply to someone else a lot older than me . . . but then I do have a 23 year old son . . . 

We're also hoping to go camping at the end of March, and maybe in July also.

Close friends tell me I tend to be quite "regular", as in, I do hold to a fairly steady schedule of my own volition. My life is fairly full and I'm pretty happy with what I've been doing, so I don't see the advent of a new year as a need to change much. And so things that I plan to continue to do as regularly as I can in 2023 are:

• regularly walk with my husband
• study Japanese
• read lots of books
• listen to English sermons at least once a week
• stay in touch with close friends regularly, and when I can, in person
• bake
• writing (though I've got a project currently, beyond that and this blog, I don't have a specific writing goal for 2023)

I've picked up my long-term cross-stitch project during the last three weeks also, but I think I'm probably reaching a little if I think that that's going to be something that I do much of in the next six months . . . though it would be nice to get it finished before we come back to Japan in 2024 (Lord willing) as a couple for the first time!