We've run out of sporting events

On Monday and Tuesday this week we attended our last interschool school sports event as parents. Yep, another one of the "lasts". The first one we ever went to was in September/October 2010. I've just gone trawling on my blog to see what I wrote back then. I can only find one post from that season, and it was the cross-country finals that year in October, but it's not a very interesting post and certainly doesn't hint that we'd most likely be doing this "sporting parent gig" for the next 13 and a half years!

This blog post from the following year is a little more descriptive. I'm glad to see that my younger self was also tired out from attending Saturday sport. Here's a portion:

Saturday was the last day of the season for middle school cross-country runners. I have to say I'm a little bit relieved. Missing out on my only sleep-in day, and spending most of our Saturdays at cross-country meets has taken its toll and we're feeling a little taxed in our household. It will be nice to have a few quiet Saturdays to ourselves.

A classic example of how a sports meet
can be a great opportunity to build relationships.
These chairs were brought by parents
supporting our team. No one seemed to care
whose chair they sat in. The one on the left is
ours. They became "team chairs" and there
was some lovely interaction going on
between team members and also between
supporters and coaches. I even heard one coach
coaxed to talk about how he and his wife
 (a teacher at the school) got to know one another.

David and I went walking on Tuesday night and while we walked pondered the ending of this parenting season. We decided it was a good thing, and that the future held "other things" that we could do on Saturdays. In fact, the Saturdays in the coming month holds some social outings with friends, as well as a night attending a symphony orchestra concert (birthday treat).

It's been a privilege to be able to walk alongside our boys and their sporting passions these last 13 years. I've written before that we're passionate about supporting our boys in their sporting choices. It's not easy as parents to forge relationships with teenage boys and showing interest in their sporting endeavours has been one way to show ours we love them. It also provides conversational topics, which as you may know, have not been easy to find at times in our house.

Getting involved in school sport hasn't just improved our family relationships, it's provided many friends and conversations with other adults and teenagers that we've treasured over the years. This was something I particularly missed during the pandemic: the opportunity to sit side-by-side with other parents for hours and hours at sporting meets. The family we go camping with is the extension of a friendship forged through travelling to and from sports meets! And that's just one example.

Putting the shot (he won gold for the
smaller school division and silver overall)

Before I ponder this any longer, I need to tell you that our son did really well at his last meet, the Far East Track and Field finals (with teams from military bases in Japan and Korea, plus some non-military schools from the Tokyo area like CAJ). He won two silver medals. One in shot put and one in discus. The discus event was an especially thrilling finish: he threw two personal best distances and beat a guy who was chasing him hard. He and his good mate topped the field at first and second place. It was really fun to be there and celebrate with them.

As I wrote back in February after the Far East wrestling tournament, "These moments when we get to intensely invest in our kids are soon going to get more difficult to find. I'm treasuring them." 

Well, we've run out of sporting events. There are just five weeks of school left. The remaining "attend-able" events are all in the last week of school—three events where we get to celebrate our son. You'll have to wait to hear what those are! It's going to be a big week of lasts. But also one of celebration: yes, we've made it, we got our boys through "grade school" as Americans like to call it.

 Correction: apparently “grade school” only applies up to grade 8. But “school” applies through to tertiary years. So I’m not sure what to write that everyone would understand. “We got our boys through high school.”?

An audaciously big question

I was recently asked to fill in a form for our organisation that included the question “What emotions characterize your last two years?” 

Yep, it’s two-year-review time. I’ve reviewed my attitude and just got on with filling out this form that includes lots of hard questions like this (I’ve been grumpy about this process in the past).

Last time I did this (2021) I also blogged about it. Here’s a portion of what I wrote:

“I don't think I got any surprises as I went through the questions this time, although the question about "What subjects have you thought about in the last two years?" always flabbergasts me: no one really wants a detailed answer to that! “

But back to what kind of emotions characterize the last two years? Words like sadness, isolation, and anxiety came to mind. That’s a different group of words than I usually have written on this form in the past (we’ve done this approximately every two years since 2000).

What’s changed? We’ve experienced loss, but not the sort that immediately comes to mind. I’m currently reading a book called A Grace Disguised (revised and expanded) by Jerry L. Sittser. This book is about how the soul grows through loss and is intertwined with his personal story of losing his mum, wife, and one of his daughters in the same car accident. That kind of loss makes most of us feel shocked and automatically we start comparing. He addresses this upfront in the chapter “Whose loss is worse?” I was encouraged by this:

"There is a different kind of loss that inevitably occurs in all of our lives . . . this kind of loss has more devastating results, and it is irreversible. Such loss includes terminal illness, disability, divorce, rape, emotional abuse, physical and sexual abuse, chronic unemployment, crushing disappointment, mental illness, and ultimately death. If normal, natural, reversible loss is like a broken limb, then catastrophic loss is like an amputation. The results are permanent, the impact in calculable, the consequences cumulative. Each new day forces one to face some new and devastating dimension of the loss. It creates a whole new context for one's life."

I’m so grateful this list includes mental illness and disability. These are the realm of loss that we’ve inhabited in the last couple of years. Not a sudden loss, nor one that has a clear beginning or ending. But a loss nonetheless. It’s helpful for me to acknowledge that this hasn’t been without consequence in my soul and the context of our lives has changed, even if it’s hard to see for the outsider.

I haven’t finished the book yet, but I’m looking forward to seeing where he goes with this. Part of the pain is related to struggling to see what the future holds. The dreams you had in the past no longer give comfort. Sittser writes:

“Loss creates a barren present, as if one is sailing on a vast see of nothingness. Those who suffer loss live suspended between at past for which they long and a future for which they hope. They want to return to the harbor of the familiar past and recover what was lost—good heath, happy relationships, a secure job. Or they want to sail on and discover a meaningful future that promised to bring them life again—successful surgery, a second marriage, a better job. Instead, they find themselves living in a barren present that is empty of meaning. Memories of the past only remind them of what they have lost; hope for the future only taunts them with an unknown too remote even to imagine.”

Some part of the practical, competent me says I’m being melodramatic, that this isn’t true of me, that what’s going on for us isn’t that bad. But then my body quietly whispers signs that I shouldn’t ignore.

I’m sorry if I’m writing in riddles here. I wish I could tell you more details about our story, but it really is not completely my story to tell, so I won’t, at least not right now. And that’s part of the isolation that I’ve felt. Not that I’ve don’t have friends who regularly ask me how I really am. But that I don’t have many people who I feel able to really open up to about how I really feel. I did dump some stuff on an unsuspecting friend the other day: someone I hadn’t seen for three years. She looked shell-shocked, and I realised that I’d overstepped an invisible line . . . Again.

Whenever I get to this point in a blog post I’m confronted by the decision of how to finish it off. There’s no obvious conclusion. But maybe back to the question of emotions that have characterised these last two years. I did have some positive emotions that I might have included in the list, like contentment and joy. Yes, I think loss can teach you that your soul can expand to allow you to experience immense opposites, even at the same time.

I highly recommend this book. In the “praise” section at the start, someone wrote:

“Our souls need stories of how other people have overcome challenges so we can believe that our own hard stories can be ones that testify to our overcoming as well.”

I hope that my blog can be also a vehicle for helping others, in a small way, to believe that they too can make it through hard times.

Emotional roller coaster—April 2023 edition

This morning, my Facebook memories reminded me of the last time we moved out of a house in Japan to go on home assignment. I wrote this just a few weeks after starting my blog in 2009: Thoughts on packing up to go . . . 9 weeks out

A lot of that sounds very familiar. What's changed? 

Emotions can be like the sight of this
bridge: there's lots of things here
warning me not to attempt going across
it. Approaching home assignment
is a little like approaching a bridge
like this—it looks pretty scary and
full of danger. 

1. My boys are 14 years older, and there're only two of them here. 

2. CAJ's Thrift Shop is no more. 

3. There's still a lot of sorting to do, mostly because we're seriously downsizing this time, however, we can't complete downsizing while we're still living here and I'm still cooking meals for the equivalent of five or six people.

4. I probably don't live as close to the line on exhaustion as I did in 2009! Mostly due to #1.

What hasn't changed?

1. I'm still experiencing those emotions. I'm still not sure about the Right Time to do everything that needs to be done. I'm still concerned (maybe even anxious) about how it will all pan out.

2. God hasn't changed. He walked with us through this last time and we survived, however ragged!

Big transition like this is an emotional rollercoaster that I hate. And apparently, I always have. 

I grew up in a very stable family. We moved once during my school years: when I was 15, and that was just to a neighbouring suburb. I went to two schools, and that was because one was a primary school only and the other was a high school only. I didn't have any experience of a really big transition until I left home at 17 to go to university. My parents are still married and have only recently moved out of the home we moved into when I was 15. They still live in the same town.

But boy, have I had some whoppers since I left home. Nothing prepares you for changing countries. One would think that that, having lived overseas for 22 years now, and having "moved" to Australia four times in there for home assignments, I'd have it figured out. Nope!

Oh, I know the stuff that needs to be done. I'm not a newbie at any of that. But emotionally, and physically, it's still a stretch. And I'm not holding out high hopes either, having seen many missionaries retire from the field after 30+ years of service: all of them are stressed about the transition.

However, as I look back at this post I wrote two months ago, I'm also pleased to see that we've already made many decisions that answer many of the questions I listed in that post. That's maybe why I'm feeling like every night when David comes home, I'm asking his opinion on one decision or another that has come up during the day. It seems relentless! But I am thankful that we're making progress, even if it doesn't feel like it as we continue to be loaded with more decisions to make.

We've got many dates in the schedule up for several months now: moving dates, flying dates, accommodation dates, even when we stop work here and when we start in Australia. Our first two months of work in Australia are filling up. I was talking to two of my best friends on Monday and we're thinking about the three of us doing a retreat somewhere . . . however, my schedule is planned way in advance of what they're able to think about at present. So we shelved that conversation for now!

But back to our weekend. On Saturday we spent all day at another track meet. Our second-last one (and the last one on a weekend). It was good to see our son performing well again. He broke his personal best in discus by 3 metres, a long way! And less than 2 metres behind the winner, his good friend and teammate. He didn't throw a personal best in shot put, but no one threw further than he did. 

The weather was a distinct player on Saturday. We always keep a close eye on the forecast before these events, because the weather is so variable at this time of year. As it was, the night before was quite warm and so when I walked to school at 7.45, I carried my jacket. The forecast was 18C. But, by lunchtime we could feel the temperature dropping and I was soon wearing that jacket. In the morning I put on thin, long socks, but had scrunched them down around my ankles. Around 2 pm I pulled them up to my knees, then a little while later I did the challenging work of putting leggings on under my tracksuit pants in the school toilets (never my favourite place to change). By 3.30 it was raining, on and off, and David and I headed for the shelter of the school bus, really thankful that our son had already completed all his events. Finally, not long before we headed home at 5pm, I put an extra pair of socks on too. 

On Sunday we went to see an apartment that might be available to us next year. It was beautiful, but also shocking. I really hope that this will work out, but it depends on a few factors outside our control. It was shocking because the reality of how much downsizing we'll have to do to fit ourselves into an apartment was evident. 

So I've had this emotional roller coaster running this week: really wanting to jump straight to the point where we move into this new place, skipping all the hard work that going to Australia will mean, but also knowing that isn't possible. Chomping at the bit to get rid of more stuff at home as soon as possible, but I also know that isn't possible, at least for most things (that hasn't stopped me from throwing some books and papers out and selling an ice cream maker).

With all that happening, I started work on Monday and realised I needed to rev up the editing engine and tackle the next stage of the next issue, all while feeling tired after a busy weekend. That pre-HA emotional roller coaster mixed with fatigue and a large list of things to do at work:  it was not a great combo!

Thankfully it's been a week without any meetings or other reasons to have to leave my desk. That meant that by today I'm feeling like I'm currently on top of things (which is part of the emotional rollercoaster, albeit a better-feeling part).

What I need to do, in the midst of riding this uncomfortable roller coaster is to keep going back to some metaphors we find in the Bible:

1. God knows we are but dust (Psalm 103).

2. And he is our rock, our refuge, our hiding place, our shield, salvation, stronghold, fortress, our strength, our rescuer, and our deliverer (Psalm 18).

If I am able to remember these things as I approach the "scary bridge" of home assignment, I'm probably going to manage everything a whole lot better! The challenge is remembering them when I'm feeling all over the place. I'm so thankful that there are a whole lot of people out there praying for us as we do this.

Lists, a book, and more lists

Birthday present from
one of my sons!

A birthday

On Monday I celebrated another birthday. I've had a lot of them now! It was a busy day on the other side of Tokyo with OMF colleagues, something I'm thankful for. I didn't have time for much navel-gazing or feeling emotional about how many decades have passed.

Great book

When God doesn't answer your prayer this is the title of a book I finished reading recently, actually on the train on my birthday! It's one of the easier books on prayer that I've ever read (and perhaps the shortest). But it was also hard to read: because it brought to mind the many griefs: people who've died, people who are alive but struggling with overwhelming problems, and other people who don't walk a path of faith in Christ. Not to mention those things that happen that just don't make sense.

The author, Jerry Sittser, comes to the topic from a place of deep pain (losing his daughter, wife and mother in a car accident and then being a single parent to his remaining three children). There are no cliches or glibness. It's very honest. He writes:

I view suffering with horror, and I recoil from it. I have seen too many people fail to bounce back. Yet I cannot fathom what we would do without suffering either. I have come to this conclusion with great hesitation. Adversity strips us down, exposes us, and breaks us, all prerequisites for genuine growth in the spiritual life...it drives us to God.

His theology is sound and he's happy to admit where he struggles and where he doesn't understand. The book has encouraged me to persist in prayer, to be more honest (God can take our complaints), and to be more willing to ask God to change me than to change the world around me (though that is a hard thing to pray).

I'd love to read it again, perhaps with one or more other people (it has questions in the back for groups). I'm delighted that this is in my local Australian library as an ebook!

Daily life

After over a week away from my desk I had to face my growing list of "to dos" on Wednesday. As home assignment gets closer, the lists of things to do continue to grow. Some lights are glowing dimly at the end the proverbial tunnel. But it does feel like the train is going faster and faster.

Lists and more lists. This is how I cope with an overwhelming number of things to remember to do. This week, amongst my usual work, I've also added arrows to calendars and made a few lists of what is in my head that I need to pass on to others who will take over my various roles. I've answered emails and written messages and emails about potential commitments in September, and March 2024.

Today, Good Friday, the Christian Academy in Japan, our school, has taken the afternoon off. I worked this morning at my computer and this afternoon has been a mishmash of various home and work responsibilities. This evening, we're meeting colleagues/friends for dinner at a local cafe.

Upcoming stuff

Tomorrow we've got our last Saturday sports event ever. I have mixed feelings about that! (We've got one more athletics meet at the end of the month, but it's a mid-week event.) We're hoping that the rain that is forecast will not eventuate!

On Sunday afternoon we're taking a short walk down the road to look at a possibility for our next abode in Japan (from next July). Still very much only a possibility, but I'm keen to take a look.

And then Monday it's back to my desk, and continuing to add and tick off items on my to-do list on my phone. The items on the list aren't just busy work, they are things like: 

• write 100 words for OMF Japan's monthly prayer letter about my ministries
• flat plan for HA photo album
• follow up with three people (after the 18th) about a topic they might write on
• list the processes for OMF blog editing
• write a call for proposals for the next magazine

Another online list (on Asana) tells me I also need to 

• edit blog posts by Megan, Simon, and Peter.
• get back to an author about his edited article

Important bits and pieces related to all sorts of things that I'm responsible for. And having them on the list means I'm not wearing myself out trying to remember it all. Hopefully, it means that the balls that are my responsibility to keep in the air and usher eventually into the right hands aren't dropped.

I'm well aware today is Good Friday, though nothing much of what I've done has been particularly contemplative. We aren't especially big on elaborate traditions in our family. But know that what today represents in the death of Jesus Christ, son of God, is central to my faith and my life, every day. Some people look at us and the various things that we have faced, especially in the last few years, and wonder why we're still here when in some ways it would have been easier to "give up and go home". The truth of the matter is that it's because of Easter.

I have a note in my Bible: "This is why we serve him." It's in the margin of Isaiah 53:12— "Because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors" (NIV).

Here's a different way of writing it: "He has poured out his soul unto death. He was counted as a sinner, and he bore the sins of many, and he pled with God for sinners" (Living Bible).

With regards to the hard things that come our way, in the "unanswered prayer" book, Sittser writes:

The real heroes in life are those who respond to adversity with dignity, faith, and patience. All we must do is be attentive to the little irritations and problems we face every day, asking the question, 'What is God trying to do in my life?' And then pray, 'God, use this adversity to transform me.' This might be the most difficult prayer you will ever pray because of the circumstances you face. It might take all the faith you can muster just to say those words. I urge you, nevertheless, to pray them, and then wait for God to answer it.

I wouldn't count myself as a "real hero", and I surely am not good at saying "God use even this to transform me." But I hope that he is transforming me regardless of whether or not I pray this.

Camping in Chiba Prefecture

It's been 12 months since we last got to go camping. I was highly anticipating this week's camping trip and I wasn't disappointed. It's still early spring here and so the weather isn't easy to anticipate. Because it still has the potential to be pretty cold we looked for a campsite that was a little sheltered, and not too high up into the mountains. And we found it, but we were also blessed with gorgeous weather.

We drove from the top left-hand corner
of this map, in a relatively straight line.

It's been 10 years this week since we last camped in Chiba. Last time it took us 5 ½ hrs to get there, it's no wonder we've been reluctant to go back! The problem with Chiba is that there're a lot of people between us and it, so going there means crossing to the other side of Tokyo. But we took expressways and a 10 km tunnel under the bay and it only took a bit over 2 ½ hrs this time.

The last time we camped in this prefecture, we were much closer to the Pacific. This time we didn't go as far east as that, instead, we were situated close to a lot of inland water: winding rivers and dams.

Last time we were a family of five, this time it was just the two of us with our friends and their two teenagers. It was a really good, relaxing time away. Typically, the three days and two nights seemed much longer than they should have, and that's good. It's a great way to quickly relax. It was a much-needed break after some busy months. And with only nine weeks left of the school year and 3 ½ months until we move to Australia, we really did need to take some time out!

We had a relaxing walk, read books, played games, chatted, enjoyed the view, and enjoyed playing with fire and cooking our meals. Our friend loves to ride bikes. He brought his bike and his son's, and he did several rides around the area.

This was an unusually flat and grassy campsite—the usual Japanese campsite is rocky and covered in fine gravel, so this was a really pleasant change.

The time we had available to go synched perfectly with the end of the sakura season and our campsite had plenty in full bloom. It was a delight to the eyes. I had fun snapping a few photos because you can't have too many sakura photos!

A broken bridge which we didn't attempt to cross. This is a popular fishing area.

Early spring flowers.

We taught our friend Triominos and played a couple of rounds of Nimuto (6 Nimmt! in German/English).

Getting the fires ready for roast veggies (in foil) and yakitori (chicken skewers).

A couple of sakura shots while waiting for dinner to cook...

Packing up. The inside of our tent isn't much bigger than our double bed airbed and has lots of screened windows. The rectangle marks the main floor space of how far the fly extends out to create a covered entry: a space large enough for two chairs and a small table if the weather is inclement.

And a tiny waterfall and hole-in-the-mountain that we checked out on our way home. With the right sun angle, you can get a reflection that creates a heart-shape (on the side) here, alas it wasn't at noon yesterday!

Yep, we're still in love with camping. We're downsizing our camping gear because we won't be camping with all our boys in tow in Japan again. But we're looking forward to many more adventures nonetheless.