A very encouraging week

Last week was very full. I was looking forward to it, as well as wondering how I would fare. I'm thankful to be past it, but also see that I managed to make it through without falling in a heap, which is really encouraging.

On Monday we had our monthly regional gathering for our mission. Around 50 people joined together to sing, pray, fellowship, and eat together. We heard, and prayed thoroughly, about some business matters. 

After a short break mid afternoon, five of us (plus a facilitator) jumped into our social media team retreat in the same location. We had a formal time of getting to know you, and then went out to dinner together. I was pretty "whacked". I struggled with a headache all afternoon and by dinner time it was making me feel woozy, but I managed to do all that I needed to do. I did head to bed at 8.30, though.

The next day we gathered after breakfast and spent the whole day thinking about things like decision making, team characteristics, some big picture questions about what we do and how we do it, and spent time growing in creativity. It was a big day that we followed with dinner out together, and an evening of creativity.

I knew this team was much younger than me, but it was confronting to spend significant time together and feel very middle-aged (the next youngest person is 13 years younger than me and three of our team are in their 20s or early 30s)! However it was a really good time. We are a remote team and most of us don't know one another well. I've learned over the 14 years I've worked in remote teams that trust is a huge component. If you don't trust one another, it makes your job far more difficult. This was a great time for building trust.

It's also a team that has undergone much change recently, and there is more change and uncertainty in the upcoming months. This level of team change is very challenging. I'm so thankful we had an experienced "team builder" help us as I'm certain I wouldn't have had the knowledge to do what he did, and certainly having someone outside the team to run it was a good move too. This retreat is something we've been talking about doing for a few years now, but the pandemic put a stop to a lot of that kind of initiative (and how often have I heard "but the pandemic..." uttered recently when people are reflecting on the last five years!?).

I got home from the retreat on Wednesday, in time for my usual mid-afternoon coffee. I unpacked, did a couple of "time sensitive" work things, and then collapsed on the lounge for the rest of the evening.

Thursday was a day I had carefully kept clear of other responsibilities. I didn't have high hopes for my capacity for work that day, but surprised myself and others by ticking off (US Eng: checking off) quite a number of editing jobs.

Our table

Friday was entirely taken up by an event we've been anticipating for over 12 months. Last year as we finalised our packing and moving, we realised we had a number of things that others could find useful. So we didn't throw them all out, we kept a few boxes of stuff and stored them, planning to try to sell them at Friday's school bazaar. At the bazaar we rented a table and filled it with stuff we were trying to get rid of. Between 10am and 4pm we sold quite a few things! We also sold all 200 pieces of fudge that I'd made. But it was also a great ruse for having our own "quiet" spot in the school gym where we could sit and greet friends who wandered past. I had so many conversations with friends, many of whom I've known for a number of years. It was a great encouragement to my soul.

It was fantastic to see the school community coming to life again "post pandemic" (yep, that word again). In October 2019, for various reasons, CAJ ended its long tradition of "Thrift Shop". That tradition had, twice a year, filled the gym with donated goods and provided us with not only many cheap household goods, toys, clothes, camping gear, and other miscellaneous items, but many hours of volunteering there over the years provided me with community and friends. That October was supposed to be the start of a new tradition, but any forward momentum got interrupted just six months later by a pandemic, and no more school bazaars happened until October 2022. It's taken a while to get back to a sense of wider community at the school, at least from my outsider position as a mum and teacher's spouse. So Friday was wonderful to behold.

These brand new size 28 slides didn't sell, would you like them?

We also are looking for a runner to sell these "spikes" to.
They've been used a couple of times (also a pandemic casualty).

Friends catching up! Such joy.

A little bit against what I thought was wise, social interaction continued through the weekend. On Friday night we watched a movie with our camping friends at their house. On Saturday, David helped rearrange one of our mission's storage places and had lunch with his two co-workers. I had a haircut and finally did some grocery shopping. That evening we met a couple visiting from the US, a couple who have listened to us and helped us through some tough times in the last few years.

On Sunday we visited another new church and to our surprise knew many people there. It was an English-speaking service and our various English-speaking networks in Japan all were represented. We also ran into an OMF colleague and gave her a lift back to ours for coffee before her next appointment. Straight after that we chatted with our sons for over an hour. 

Phew! I am really surprised that I am not more exhausted than I am today (Monday). Perhaps I'm getting back to some kind of new normal level of energy?

Whenever the topic of leaving Japan comes up, I'm reminded of this wide group of people I only know because I've lived my life here. When the time comes to move on, it will be a sad day, though I know that this is a mobile group of people who I will probably gradually say goodbye to as they move on over the coming years anyway. 

But for now I'm just thankful for a full heart from all this wonderful interaction over the last week.

Why did the chicken cross the road? and other linguistic challenges

Why did the chicken cross the road is a classic joke, but we recently found out that it's very much an English-speaking-culture joke. We had dinner last week with two colleagues, one Australian and one German. After dinner we served our Australian guest tea in a mug that had a version of the chicken-road joke. It was a "Far Side" comic. She loved it, but confusion took over as we tried to explain to our German guest the meaning of the joke. She's fluent in English, but didn't understand why that version (or the original) made us smile. (The joke turns out to have quite a history, check it out here.) Humour is so much more about culture than it is about language.

We continued talking about humour and I brought up the example of Mr Bean. I'd thought he was pretty clever with his non-verbal humour that seems to be appreciated across cultures, but our friend tells us that in Germany, Mr Bean is seen as "British humour"!

Most of our colleagues and friends are not Australia, many are not native English speakers either. Sometimes people in Australia notice that our English isn't quite as Australian as it used to be and it's because we've spent nearly 24 years living and working outside of Australia in multicultural environments. It means some of our word choices are different, for example, I tend to say "bathroom" more often than "toilet" these days, simply because it's less likely to cause confusion or offence. I used "rush hour" just this morning and found out that "peak hour" is more often used in Australia. Probably "gas station" comes out more often than "petrol station". I tend not to use colloquial words like "arvo" or "footy" and geographically-tied words like "ute" (pickup truck) and "regional" (yes, this word is used differently in Australia to other parts of the world). Our accent has become more "international" and we probably don't lengthen our vowels as much as many Aussies do.

My work as an editor and writer means that words are on my mind a lot. Almost all I write is for an international audience. Both my jobs are with international teams who speak different kinds of English, or have English as their second, or third language. Linguistic challenges are often on the table for discussion, hence my apparently well-known "Wednesday Words" Facebook statuses. The other day I tried to set up an online meeting with a British colleague and American colleague. Communication went a little bit awry with what I suspect was a hastily written email by our British colleague that confused my American colleague. Each of us had a slightly different understanding of what had been written. No big deal, as far as I know. But it could easily have been.

Working in an environment like this can make you think more carefully about the words you use and how you say them. A good communicator thinks more about their audience than they might have in their own country. For example, if I'm talking to an American, I would tend to say "ketchup" not "tomato sauce" or "candy" not "lolly". If I'm talking to a friend who speaks English as their third language I might choose simpler words and sentences than I would when speaking to my Australian or British colleagues, not because my friend is unintelligent, but as a way of respecting them by speaking in a way they understand.

It might be a surprise to you, but the differences between our English go way beyond spelling, word usage is a big difference, and not simple biscuit vs cookie vs scone. Will I stand at the back of the room, or in back? Is it good or bad news if I hear "you lucked out"? Is the chicken walking in the road or on the road? But I think it's time I hopped on my bike and rode on the road to the grocery store.