Unexpected joys and regaining of health

It's only been a few days since I last blogged, but I'm feeling quite a bit better. Which is very good, especially considering all that I've ended up doing over the weekend. 

One very large tree at the park on Saturday: an Indian
Banyan. Obviously not all the trees in the park 
were native! My friends and I were imagining our kids
climbing in this tree when they were younger (and
probably even now).

On Saturday I spent several hours in a native-tree park with two of my best friends. It was delightful weather and fantastic company. The evening was also busy as my son and I socialised with our hosts over pizza and a documentary about the Thai soccer team rescue, followed by our usual weekend family video call.

And Sunday also ended up being very social. At 8.30 am I went to church with my two oldest sons, then talked to various people I knew there, some I first met as a child. The church now runs two services on a Sunday morning, to accommodate the restrictions the government had at one point for COVID, and so you can only talk inside after the 8.30 service for an hour before you have to leave. I ended up talking with an acquaintance who is an illustrator and author. After it was clear we needed to vacate the church building we progressed on to coffee at a nearby cafe, talking about writing, editing, writing retreats, creative process, etc. It was an unexpected delight, and one that has sparked some positive ideas and connections for the future. 

I then gathered my sons and we went for a Korean lunch in the home of a retired missionary; I first met her as a child when she came and taught my Sunday school class about Korea. We've stayed in touch all these years and it's wonderful that our eldest is now in the same church as her. She loves young people and enjoys inviting them round to her house, so our son isn't a stranger to having lunch with this lady.

After that we went back to where my middle son and I have been living and packed up our stuff. From there I took him to move in with his big brother. And I drove 30 minutes away to a friend's house, which is a real blessing to me at the end of this long period of living out of suitcases. These are our seventh abodes since mid-June, and we're a little travel weary! This is just for ten days and then we'll head to a hotel near the airport for our last night (hopefully) before flying back to Japan.

So, our sojourn in Australia is drawing to a close. We've still got a couple of appointments to take care of and I'm planning to spend time with my parents and sisters on Saturday. On Sunday I say see-you-next-year to the folk at our home church. And in the meantime I'm continuing to work at staying on top of the usual editing/managing/writing responsibilities I have for the Japan field, and thankfully I'm feeling a lot more able to do that this week. 

I came across the term "knowledge worker" yesterday while editing. It's the first time I've heard of that classification. And what I do fits it very well. My job is to "think for a living". I think it's a helpful term to understand some aspects of what I do. It was encouraging to hear my writing friend say on Sunday that recently, for some reason, she didn't have the headspace to cope with the larger editing tasks that her editor had asked her to do on her latest book manuscript. I often feel like that, only able to approach some of the harder editing tasks I have when I'm "in the right headspace". This month it's been challenging to try to push through getting editing work done while being below par health-wise. If you're a "knowledge worker" you have to be well enough for your brain to function at a higher level than if you're just doing relatively mundane tasks, like, say (for me), cooking a simple meal, or answering basic emails.

Back in March, I wrote this about one of the reasons we were coming to Australia at this time:

I'll stay longer in Australia with our middle son to do some reconnaissance for his future. He's still deciding about what his next steps are, and I hope that an un-hurried period in Australia as a young adult will help him consider what he might like to do next. Last time he was there he was 16, and in a period of high anxiety and stress at school, so it's really hard for him to imagine what life in an English speaking country might be like as an independent adult. 

It's hard to judge how well this reconnaissance has gone. But I think we'll be reaping the benefits over the coming year as we plan to relocate both our youngest sons more permanently in Australia. We've certainly been able to give them both plenty of "this is what it's like to be an adult or older teen" experiences. It's quite remarkable to do something they're familiar with in Japan, like going to the dentist, and see them experience the remarkable difference when they do it in Australia. Language makes a huge difference, and culture does too.

I'm heading into a more intense period of "transitionitis" again over the coming nine days, but hopefully not too bad, especially as we know that we're heading back "home" and into a familiar routine. And it's only one plane and two countries, not three and three! Hopefully I'll find some headspace to write here next week before I fly.

God at work through community

I don't always (or often?) hear about how my words or this blog have helped someone, but did last week. Let's trace some ripples in a pond and, hopefully, show how God's been at work.

When I was in Australia I spent a little time with a psychologist. She is the same psychologist who did assessment back in 1998 when we started on this missions journey. Each time we go back we're required to do a debrief with her and her husband, it's been great to have a long-term relationship with them, even if we rarely meet.

This time I went back a couple more times. I've written here about how that resulted in me being more intentional about cultivating certain friendships in Australia. 

It turns out that the two friends I stay in contact with daily have spent time with the same psychologist. It's been an interesting element to our friendship, because we occasionally reference this common professional and her words. One thing that keeps coming up, and originated with this lady is the concept of "lily pads". I can't even remember if the psychologist mentioned them to me, but my friend hasn't let me forget this very useful concept.

And so I mentioned lily pads briefly last week in my blog post. Each time I write here I share the link to my blog post on my Facebook page, so often people comment there, rather than here.

On this post last week, a missionary friend commented that she found the concept useful in general too, but that it is a hard part of the current situation. I replied saying that planning smaller things like baking on the weekend, a TV series to work through, or a book to read are helpful, or even necessary to staying healthy. She commented that she'd been trying crochet as something of a lily pad, but hadn't been having much success.

A few days later my missionary friend and I received a message from one of my expat FB friends in Japan who'd been struggling with the lack of plans, especially not being able to see family. She found the lily pad idea amazing and very helpful. That it had been so helpful to her blew me and my missionary friend away. It had been such a small interaction, but one that happened in a place that my expat friend saw and was inspired by. She went on from that and shared her revelation with friends of hers who had similar reactions.

What a fascinating, rippling trail of God's grace.

I think at the moment thoughtful Christians are considering what Christian community is all about. In recent weeks/months many of us have been unable to physically meet together like we are used to. What has community looked like in that time?

For me it has looked like all the below:

• worshipping virtually with others, while sitting in my lounge room,
• long and short conversations—planned and unplanned; text, video, or phone call; or even the occasional in-person physically-distanced chat
• generosity—both giving and receiving
• being a part of a loosely-formed book club around a book by a missionary that has helped us to reflect on God at this time
• the giving of grace—in my work, with my family, and with others
• seeking how to creatively bless other people near and far.

You can probably come up with different ways it's looked for you. I will probably think of more after I publish this!

Before I go I want to share another way that friends and colleagues have blessed me in the last little while.

Encouragement folder

Last week God knew I needed a bit of extra encouragement and I received a few other encouraging emails. After I shared some of the encouragement with my two "daily" friends, one of them encouraged me to set up an encouragement folder on my computer. 

I always pass encouragements related to the magazine I work on to my magazine team when I receive them, but I haven't really collected them. I also haven't routinely collected encouragements non-magazine related for my own benefit. 

I'm so excited to be collecting them now, even a couple of sentences in an email can be something to lift my day, and now they can last longer than a day. And that's important. Not only do I work at the pointy end of publishing at times (having to work with authors who aren't happy or don't understand why we've changed what we've changed), I also live with teenagers who sometimes seem to think it's important that they critique my every move and every word. We're spending more time together in 2020 than usual, so a bit of extra encouragement is not to be discounted!

How have you seen community in your life in recent weeks?

Looking back at last week's retreat

More than a week ago I wrote about going to a spiritual retreat. I guess I should get around to letting you know how that went.

The cabin I stayed in. It can accomomdate about nine in
beds, there were just two of us though, one upstairs and
one down.

This retreat was actually closer to the true meaning of its name than other retreats I've done in the past. Yes, other retreats have been a "withdrawal" from everyday life. But generally I've come home at least as physically tired as I left. I may have been refreshed spiritually and socially, but tired from the intenseness of being with a lot of people and a generally busy schedule.

This retreat was much smaller (12 people, plus the facilitators) and the intent was much more about rest. On each of the two full days (not Tuesday or Friday, the part-days) we had spiritaul input in the morning and free time all afternoon and into the evening. Our accommodation was also arranged spaciously, so if you wanted time alone, that was easily achievable during free time.

View from my bed.

I was, as I'd expected, very tired when I got there. I even found it hard to concentrate much on what was going on in some of the sessions. In some ways it would have been good to do less of the input/interaction time at the start of our "long weekend". On the Tuesday we travelled there after lunch and then had sessions from 4.30 till after dinner. My small group was still sharing about "where they were at" after 9pm and I struggled to keep my "nice face" on.

Wednesday morning was focused a lot on the problems, stresses, and griefs of our lives, especially in cross-cultural work. It was good to name it all, but also a bit overwhelming in the number of challenges we face. 

My kintsugi pot.

This culminated in an activity that provoked strong emotions in some. It's an Japanese method of mending broken pots with gold called kintsugi. According to this article, it began in the 15th century. The activity we did was a poor-man's version, as in we didn't use real gold, of course! But we did have to smash our own pots, which in itself was traumatic and far from easy. Some pots smashed too much and were super hard to put back together. Mine didn't, so I was rather quickly able to glue mine back together and paint over the glue with gold paint. I found it a bit troublesome to watch others (we were seated in a u-shape) try to fix theirs. The missionary beside me got a bit distressed. However, not only could I not help her, it was a silent activity, so I couldn't really encourage her either. Being both an encourager and a helper, I found this difficult to cope with. After a bit I put on another familiar hat and wrote down some of my thoughts.

I took it easy on Wednesday afternoon, reading a novel on my bed for a lot of the time. Wednesday night many of us joined in lighthearted board and card games.

Games, puzzles, and imprompu karaoke.

On Thursday morning we spent a lot of time dwelling on the Trinity and God's love for us. That was good, but I found it overwhelming after a while. A tiny bit like some of the scenes we see in the Bible where people see a bit more of who God is than they are able to handle. (See Isaiah 6 and Revelations 1). Nothing close to what those two passages mention, but a sense of the love of God being way too big for me to grasp to the point where I could barely even think about it any more.

Thursday afternoon I wasn't so lazy, I went for a 45 minute walk and also spent over an house in a "soul-care" conversation with one of our facilitators. Thursday night was a campfire. No, we didn't sing Kumbaya, nor did we have any majorly deep conversations or testimonies, it was mostly a fun time together. Probably what I needed! Confession: I did tell some camping stories, including that time we accidentally went camping in the snow ;-). 

One of my reflections on the retreat is that missionaries don't often have lighthearted stuff in their schedule. The needs are great and we can lurch from serious day to serious day without much break. I think that's especially the case in Japan where even hobbies are taken very seriously! It was great to have the "excuse" to have fun.

The mission holiday compound is almost wedged between the lake and Mt Fuji.
And entirely delightful (yet cool) place to be.

Most of the week Mt Fuji looked like this during the day (I
was told by early birds that it was often visible early).

On the last day the clouds cleared and Mt Fuji appeared in all its glory.

Another lake view from in front of the property.

There is a pathway around most of the lake. I walked a short way on Thursday:

I have definitely come back more rested than before I went, so just in that it was a worthwhile adventure. I'm left pondering if I can build something into my life on an annual (or more frequent basis) that wouldn't cost too much, yet would provide time to both rest and dwell on spiritual matters more deeply. Still pondering that.

Have you ever done a spritual retreat? How was it structured? What did you think about it? I've avoided doing one up till now for a couple of hard-to-articulate reasons, but I don't think it's so bad a thing. I'm not so sure how I'd deal with a "silent retreat", though.

Friendship goal

One thing I've been working on these last six weeks is solidifying commitment to be closer to some friends I already had here in Australia. 

Here's a special long-term friendship. This photo was
taken at the airport on the day we left for the mission
field in November 2000. We spent a weekend with
these friends when we first arrived back in Australia
in July. Friends who we can go deep with
quickly, despite great time between meetings.

It is a goal that came out of visiting the psychologist who consults for our mission. I went to talk to her about learning to better deal with the grief inherent in our cross-cultural lifestyle. She asked a lot of questions about my friendships and realised that though we have worked in the same organisation for 18 years and in the same location for the last 12, my friendships have had a lot of change over the years, even people who seemed that they would be there for the long-haul have had to leave for various reasons.

It's a common experience for people who live an expat lifestyle (check out this article):

Without realizing it, a lifetime of moving has caused me to neglect one of the most important areas in a woman’s life: that of developing close friends. Sometimes instead of shying away from getting to know new people, I actually do the opposite and try to make as many new acquaintances as possible. This is also not a healthy response, as I am avoiding getting close to anyone. (by Kristene, working with Wycliffe)

I'm not sure if things got as bad as that for me, but I have certainly found it a challenge to ask friends about going for a deeper commitment. However, I've been pleasantly surprised by the responses I got.

I've been trying to write this blog post for several weeks. In October I wrote:

Recently I have been talking to some good friends about the topic of "friends". I'm surprised at how little we actually talk about this with friends, but it is also a somewhat scary thing to talk about. Female friendships can be volatile. Any woman who remembers her childhood can tell you that. Any mum of girls can tell you that. Any primary school teacher will no doubt agree. As an adult we like to think that we're past all that volatility, but the risk of being hurt is there, the risk of putting too much emphasis on one friend and then having that fall through is there.

Nonetheless I've made some progress. And I'd have to say that it was timely, given recent events. I've had timely face-to-face times with two special friends in the last week that has helped me stay afloat (mind you both times I was unable to make it through the food that my friends bought for me). And with two other friends I've formed an online "support group" using Messenger. Though we've all been very busy, we've been encouraging one another through some tough stuff (not just my tough stuff). It's been exciting, even heady stuff.

Friends are costly, but also incredibly precious. Sometimes they also take a lot more conscious effort to develop than you might expect, especially in a lifestyle with lots of transition.

I go back to the psychologist next week and am looking forward to telling her about my progress.

Here's another post about friends I wrote a couple of years ago.

Another friend passes away

In August an American friend and fellow missionary passed away in Japan from a brain cancer. She'd battled it for nearly two years (I wrote about praying for her in this post in 2016). She and her husband were long-term members of the CAJ community, and also our Japanese church. She'd taught our boys and served us in the library many times. We watched the memorial service on our computer.

Last week another important person in our lives passed away from cancer. Carole was our pastor's wife at our church in Australia in the late '90s. She and her husband did pre-marriage counselling with us, and Geoff married us and baptised our eldest son in his strong Irish brogue. 

When I met them in Japan in 2012.

They were a great encouragement when we were just taking baby steps towards becoming missionaries. We served on the church's missions committee together and my husband served with Geoff in leadership at the church. During that period they also had a near-fatal accident and I visited Geoff in the spinal injuries ward. Then later they themselves came to Japan as short-term missionaries, teaching English in a rural church. 

They were always encouraging us and standing behind us as we continued on this missionary journey. They were always full of questions and keen to know how we really were. I wrote here about when I met up with them in Japan when they were visiting in 2012.

Carole was a bright, lively spark. There was never a quiet moment when you were having a conversation with her—her words often tumbled over one another like a waterfall. When they first arrived in Australia from Ireland (1996) it was difficult to understand her Irish accent spoken at quite a rate. It's hard to imagine that spark has now been snuffed out...at least on this earth. I'm sure that she's now livening heaven with her beautiful enthusiasm and passion.

As I write, David is at her memorial service. Another funeral I couldn't attend! The timing of it conflicted with school pick-up and having called in one favour from a friend for that yesterday (we had a work-commitment), didn't feel like I could do it again today. 

In April I wrote a poem called "Dates" that I published here on my blog. The final stanza read:

There is no end, indeed, on this sad earth. 

The dates keep piling up and I can no longer keep up

The worst are the farewells that can only be marked as "thank you for what you were".

But I rejoice for those who've been called heavenward, for as Paul says in Philippians 3:

But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the powerthat enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body (vv.20 & 21 NIV).

Carole and Lois were both ladies who lived significant portions of their lives in countries that they weren't born in. Their true citizenship, however, was in heaven. They've truly, finally, gone home. We miss them, but we also must be happy for them, for they are now in a place that has no "death, mourning, crying, or pain" (Rev. 21:4 NIV).

Thankful for today

Not taken today, but I'm enjoying sharing a Queensland
"bloom" with you from our local area.

Very short post to record my thankfulness for today. We're going away for the weekend (for work plus visiting family) starting in a couple of hours and I know that if I don't write now, this day will be forgotten.

On recommendation from our mission's state ministry leader, today I went to a women's event at a local theological college. Basically it was several hours of teaching and Bible study, which in itself was fantastic and refreshing (not to mention not having any expectations of me, aside from being a Christian woman who loves the Bible).

I was a bit nervous, walking into an event like this, not knowing if I'd know anyone. But thankfully there were three ladies who I knew from various arenas in the past, and another who made a point of meeting me (she was "staff" who knew that I was a missionary) and totally "got" where I am. Conversations with all four women were fantastic. They asked some of the FAQ, but went deep quite quickly and expressed something of an understanding of the challenges of what we're doing. I feel blessed, encouraged, and thankful.

Settling...and a car

Today it's four weeks since we landed in Australia. A lot has happened in that time. I wrote this Facebook status last night:

Tonight it’s a month since we left Japan. That means we’re about ⅙ of the way through our time in Australia. A bit of a shocking figure! I mentioned this at dinner and the boys were shocked too. We’ve worked hard to get as settled as we can, but still feel a bit rocky. I suspect we might not really get much past that this year.

My parents visited us last week and were surprised at how well set-up our home appears. They correctly guessed, though, that we've had experience in getting set up fast and, because we don't have much time to "fool around", we needed to set up fast. We also don't have a lot of stuff here in Australia, so it's not been that hard to organise it all. Also, most of our furniture is borrowed, we're not bothering to work hard at getting things exactly  right, or even stuff that's good quality. We're making do, and that's fine. On top of all that we had a lot of help at the start: a bunch of people moved all the furniture and boxes in before we even set foot in Queensland, without all that help (and especially the friend who coordinated all the people donating furniture), we'd be a lot further behind.

What's harder is getting emotionally settled. That's something that you can do a bit about, but in the end a lot of it is out of our control and just takes time. And because we're a family unit, one person's emotional stability struggles often affects us all. It's hard to write much about that without violating people's privacy, so I'll leave it to your imagination.

But really, I started this blog post wanting to tell you about one of the big things we have to be thankful for from the last month: this car.

No, this is not our car in Japan, it is our car to use in Australia. Very similar in looks, and, in fact, this was manufactured in Japan. A Christian couple has lent this to us for six months. We've so grateful. It's going to get quite a work-out, with some of our family living more than 800km away from our home base, as well as all the driving that our job entails (we're driving to Toowoomba for the day on Wednesday, about 200km of driving, and then back there again for the weekend on Friday).

We're in the car so much more than we are used to. That's just daily life in Australia; driving a boy to school each day, getting groceries in the car . . . actually pretty much anytime we go out, aside from a stroll around the neighbourhood, it's in the car. That's so different to our daily lives in Japan, and one of the many things that we're adjusting to.

I was grateful to have coffee with some local friends this morning. I wasn't there as the "returning missionary", I wasn't the centre of attention, I wasn't there in a work capacity. It was nice to just be accepted and welcomed. Driving home afterwards I felt just a little more grounded in the current place than I had before.

So though there are things that I'd like to be different, for us to be more settled, I am thankful, also, about so many things.

Here's a prayer I'd like to dwell on:

16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3, NIV)

To deeply know the greatness of God's love for our family at this time, that's what will help us through.

Vital community

Book Face, the cool bookshop/cafe where I spent my morning.

I spent the morning at a cafe with some ladies from our Australian home church. It was great. I'm flying back to Japan on Wednesday, so this was the last time to see them before July. Though it was hard to say goodbye, I am delighted that they have been able to keep a corner in their hearts for me to jump in and out of their lives. 

And not just them, there are others too. What a blessing God has given to have special friends both in Japan and here. Even though I can never be satisfied because I always have to be away from one community to be in the other, I'm not without community in either place.

It was timely to see this article up on Facebook this morning. I worked on it (as an editor) a few months ago. It talks about the importance of community in helping new missionaries settle into their new country. Though it was beyond the scope of the article, I think that it really helps a missionary (or at least this one) to have some people who love and accept them in their home country. That's asking a lot, because you go in and out of their lives, something that can make good friendship quite a painful thing. But oh so valuable to have, so that this missionary, at least, can feel "at home" in either place.

A different week

This week has looked very different to last week. This week I've dedicated to catching up with certain special/key people/groups. 

I haven't seen my son at all, though we've had some video calls and I'm proud to report that he's doing really well and seems ready to take on the challenge of uni classes starting on Monday.

I'm feeling tired, but really happy. So excited by all the amazing people who still count me as a friend, though I'm not an ideal friend-choice in that I'm absent for years at a time. God has blessed me abundantly!

I said, "Say 'sushi'!" which really did get them smiling.

Today I spent several hours with a bunch of ladies from our home church who meet for Bible study on Friday mornings. I spent a year with them last time we were home and will be back there from July. It was great to be there again and feel loved. What I really love about this group, though, is not how they make me feel, but that there is no pretension.  They're very honest about the struggles they face. There is also a very down-to-earth Australian feel about it all—I'm not on any special pedestal, and I love that.

But I'm going to try to get to bed a bit earlier tonight. It's tempting to stay up later and chat online to my family in Australia (10pm here is 9pm there), but tonight they're at an event at school, so I'm going to try to catch some more Zzzzzs.

Counting the blessings

This is one of my all-time favourite camping memories—when I accidentally
caught this sunrise over Lake Biwa. I think that writing this blog
and getting into photography a bit has helped me seek out beauty and
things to share with you. It's a mindset that isn't so far away from having
a gratitude to my creator for even the smallest things.

This morning in the Our Daily Bread reading we were encouraged to be grateful for the small things. I realised that I do thank God most days for the small things. I'm grateful that God's given me a grateful heart.

Just now I'm feeling under pressure from a variety of angles, as you'll know from my recent posts. There's a lot going on. But I want to stop a moment and list some of the ways God is blessing us through his people. Whenever we do these big international moves we have more needs and are more dependent on others that we are used to. It is always a bit scary, and then we get these wonderful surprises and the joy of being blessed practically by people's generosity.

Here are some things that have happened recently or are currently in the works:

• a friend to pick my son and I up from the airport in Brisbane on Feb 6
• same friend who will help us get a phone and negotiate our way through phone plans for my son
• same friend is seeking to get me a temporary phone I can use in Australia (my Japanese phone is locked, so it's not feasible to use it outside of WiFi in Australia)
• friends organised accomodation and a car for me for the two weeks I'm in Brisbane
• friends on both sides have offered help "with whatever"
• three friends in two different "groups" are looking at organising small get-togethers with people while I'm in Australia
• another special friend organising a get-away for her and me
• some other very special friends are working on a way for our two families to meet in early July (they don't live near Brisbane)
• we've got two meetings in churches already scheduled, personal contacts from leaders in the church who genuinely want to meet with us and hear how we are! Churches that have been with us for nearly two decades now.
• lots of people want to know how we're doing, how our kids are

That's a lot of blessings, right there. 

I nearly was in tears over the texting conversation that resulted in the first three points here. I'd had these things on my heart that day and that evening our friend contacted me and said, "Is there anything I can do?" When I presented these needs to him his response was, "No worries!"

I'm not being lighthearted when I say that being more dependent on others is an opportunity to be blessed by God. It's the kind of neediness that we humans tend to try to avoid, but somehow missionary life puts us in that kind of position again and again. 

It's at times like those that I can say, almost wholeheartedly: "That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong" (2 Cor 12:10 NIV).

Friday Fragments

Yesterday I did more than just ride to the park and take photos. I rode home via a large road that has lots of shops along it. I'm looking for a case for my camera, and stopped at a couple of secondhand stores along the way, which is always fun. I didn't find any reasonably priced camera cases that I liked, but I did see these:

Very fun. I find myself wondering if I could find a use for one of them, because they're so cute! I'd go back in a flash if I could just think of a good reason...

This next photo is from the park. What do you think these are? (I'm waiting to see your answer in comments below or on Facebook, if you're a FB friend.)

One of the other stores I went to is a discount store. Not one of my favourites because it induces visual and auditory overload. The idea, I think, is that they stuff the store with goods and people get a thrill looking for "just the thing". But there is so much stuff! I took a short video to give you the idea of not just the visual, but the auditory (turn the volume up to get the true effect). There was at minimum two different sound tracks playing, often more, depending on where you were standing (lots of shops in Japan have motion-sensored audio recordings that play when you walk past them plus the general shop songs as well as other seemingly random tracks urging you to buy various products you might be located near).

They also had these for sale! Um, no thanks.

I guess the below goes with the above? I showed the boys and they wanted to know what a "girdle" was.

Now this is the ladies rest room. I guess this is where stressed customers and staff go when they are feeling overwhelmed by the store. REALLY a rest room. Pity there were no sofas!

The beautiful tiles even extended to the toilet cubicles!

So this IS titled Friday Fragments. My Friday contribution is a random happening at a coffee shop. I'd planned to do three things this morning: go to an hour-long prayer meeting  at school, the doctor to get more asthma meds, and groceries. 

I ended up staying longer after the prayer meeting to help a new mum figure out how to apply for base clearance to come to track and field meets at the US base in April/May. Time well spent!

Then I spent two hours waiting at the doctor and pharmacy for my meds. Thankfully I had my phone and internet access, so I got some little jobs done while sitting there (like a meeting rescheduled, a couple of small emails sent etc., even the bare bones of a couple of blog posts).

By then I was feeling a bit flaky, so I decided to stop for a coffee at my favourite local coffee shop before going on for groceries. It brought back a special memory of doing the same thing with my mum on occasion, when doing errands with her on a Friday morning.

While I was there, I was again on FB when I saw a message from a great friend (my matron of honour). There was a spare seat across from me and I thought it would have been fantastic if she'd been able to join me for coffee (she lives in Wagga Wagga in Australia). Well, we managed to connect up, via Video call on Facebook! What a sweet surprise for us both. It's been months since we've actually chatted. Precious blessings.

"I will send down showers in season; there will be showers of blessing." (Ezekiel 31:26 NIV)