Many opportunities

The home assignment sprint continues, more like a 400m than a 100m! 

Despite the busyness, so far we've had many wonderful opportunities to talk to a variety of people. Last Saturday we spent several hours meeting people at a church hall, people who hadn't been able to catch us anywhere else. This "open house" style of meeting is an efficient way of catching up with folk when we have limited time to make individual appointments.

I've had two different team meetings this week with colleagues in Japan. I'm thankful the time difference is only one hour! But each of these meetings have jerked my head around: I'm both in Australia and in Japan and it's a bit challenging. Certainly I wouldn't encourage newer missionaries to attempt such continuity of Japan-based ministry while on home assignment!

We've also been attending to medical needs: skin cancer checks and mission medicals and the action points from those (including an iron infusion for myself), women's health screening, etc.

We've cooked two Japanese meals this week for each of our younger two sons (and others), and spent extra time with them. I forgot to take a photo of the chocolate cheesecake I made them :D I'm treasuring these times with them.

As a result, this week there has been less opportunity to rest, and that's probably why we've been feeling more ragged heading into another full weekend.

I really want to write more here...but I'm almost out of time and energy this week. 

We've got a whirlwind of things on in the next four days. These are some of the things going on:

• Three public speaking opportunities (which need Powerpoints and scripts finalised).
• 300+ km of driving over two days.
• Meeting up with two different couples over coffee and then a meal on Saturday.
• An online meeting with Japan-based colleagues for David.
• Planning and shopping for our own food (not something we've had to do in the last five weeks as we've stayed with people who've provided most of our meals).
• Packing up, then unpacking into my parents' motorhome (our mode of transport and accommodation some nights in the coming 2 ½ weeks).
• Answering some emails and finishing up a few Japan-ministry bits and pieces before we go on holidays from Monday.

We're tired and hankering after that holiday—just have to get through these final days before we get there!

Our holiday will include time on our own as well as time with family, including four nights with our granddaughter and her parents.

Please pray for God's strength and grace in these coming days!

Another unexpectedly unusual week

It's Friday and I have to say that this has been an odd week. Looking ahead to June last week, I didn't clock this week as being especially unusual, but it has ended up that way. Here's a few bits and pieces:

Music practice

As I mentioned last week, I'm playing the piano for worship at church this Sunday and also at conference next Friday. Hence, practise was needed. On Tuesday I took three trains across Tokyo to meet with others from our mission to practice for an hour...and then took three back again. Three hours of travel! Because it is such a distance, I usually try to combine such a journey with at least one other thing. This time I managed to snag a friend/colleague for lunch. Precious quiet moments in a tiny Tokyo cafe.

Piano: I've been playing since I was 
four...it's like another "first language".

I also spent an hour and a half practising at school yesterday (the easiest piano for me to access). David found a practise room and I had a great time. It took me back many years to my childhood and teenage years when I spent at least an hour a day practising and three hours a week at my teacher's studio, many times playing the piano in one of her two practice rooms. As I've eased back into playing these last few weeks, I've realised that playing the piano (and reading music) is like a first language to me. I still find it very easy to sight read (i.e. play from written notes without first hearing a piece)...much easier than trying to play chords (what guitarists use). And to extend the metaphor...much easier than trying to operate in Japanese.

Being stretched

This week I've had few stretching experiences.

On Wednesday I took seven trains (after six the day before). My day only contained two main things: I took three trains to met a colleague from one of my teams for a catch-up about work and how he's doing. Then I caught another three trains to meet another colleague who is moving back to Australia. She's newer in Japan and needed a hand with driving a larger vehicle to shift some of her furniture to another new family who live about 45 minutes away. My job was driving! Usually it's David who does things like this, but he wasn't available when they were, so I volunteered. The vehicle was a HiAce, a little bigger than our 8-seater vans that we've owned most of our years in Tokyo. But I managed. Between us we also managed to hire it from a Japanese company. This is no small thing when you struggle with Japanese . . . it wasn't pretty, but we did it. And I didn't damage the vehicle in any way, so that was a relief! 

The van we hired to do the moving. 

When we were done, I took one more train to get home. In contrast to the day before I never left western Tokyo, just took a big train circuit, and never more than about 15 km from our house.

Then yesterday I had my annual Japanese medical. It's pretty much funded by the government. It was not very comprehensive, but they did a urine and took some blood and asked me if I had any concerns. The doctor, nurse, and I danced around in two languages, but, I think managed the basics. I really struggle with starving blood test. Breakfast is mandatory for me to have decent brain function and going without my mid-morning coffee is a double blow to my capacity. Then, having to speak Japanese on top of that . . . it's definitely not pretty. I haven't yet managed to explain to a medical professional how difficult I find it to function in my (very second) language without breakfast or coffee.

My big mistake, yesterday, however, was trying to be efficient. I also needed more asthma meds, so I thought combining that with my medical would be a smart move . . . and it was, until I got to the pharmacy next to the doctor. What I should have done was go and have my coffee and then come back, but I didn't. The pharmacy didn't have enough in stock to fill my prescription. This has happened every time I've been recently, so I shouldn't have been surprised. But this time it seems there were greater difficulties that I don't understand . . . the lady appointed to deal with me spoke loud and fast, but didn't seem to have all the information that she needed. Our interactions (entirely in Japanese) were punctuated with something like "chotto matte kudasai" (please excuse me) followed by her rushing back to talk to someone else (the pharmacist?). 

This back and forth went on for some time. 

I was sitting like a blob on the waiting seats, with a pretty massive headache and brain fog so thick that thinking was hard. 

Eventually she agreed that they could sell me two then and they would mail me the rest of the script later. I had to throw more complications into the conversation as I explained that I was going to be in Sapporo from Monday for five days, then back here for four days, then in Australia (I didn't mention Singapore) from the week after for five weeks!

I think we sorted it out, but now I look back, I'm not sure why it was so hard. Brain fog and headache contributed, for sure, but I'm hoping that it wasn't contagious and that she didn't also have compromised brain function!

The "medical" actually only took around 30 minutes, but the end result was that I pretty much was incapacitated for the whole morning. It was only after lunch that I started to be able to do anything much of value. And then I had a piano practice and staff family dinner at school . . . so yesterday I didn't feel like I got much of value done!

End of year feel

At both school (where David works) and OMF JHQ (our mission's national base) I found an "end of year" vibe. Certainly at school, where the school year ended this week, that was the case. I wasn't ready for it at JHQ. It's not the end of the year there, but with our national conference next week, there is a lot of "get this done before conference". And there are cross-overs between the two organisations. One key leader in OMF Japan has kids at the school, so they are heading off straight after conference on a short home assignment, and so she's been handing over jobs to people to take care of during the months she'll be away. Also so there was an edge of tired frantic-ness (overwrought?) there that I wasn't expecting.

Additionally, in both places there are people leaving after serving in each place for a long time. So there's an edge of sadness to it all as well.

Ah, I'd better stop writing here and get back to the things I need to get done "before conference".

Settling always takes longer than you think

We've already been in Australia for over two weeks and it's been really hard to find time to write! The most writing I did this week was our prayer letter, but finishing off a blog post was next on the agenda.

I wrote these few paragraphs 48 hours after we landed in Australia: 

I hesitate to write in the heat of the moment. Often a bit of time between an emotional experience and writing about it is helpful. But I also know that this new-to-Australia feeling will soon slip away and I’ll miss an opportunity to capture how fragile I feel when I’m newly back in the country. 

Yes, it’s less than a year since I left, but it feels much longer. I guess in part because the cumulative time we’ve been away is getting pretty big. Certainly the majority of my adult life has been now spent in Japan. 

Stepping back into Australia is not like coming home after a short holiday. It’s both familiar and unfamiliar. It’s scary and intriguing. I feel a little like an alien trying to read the cues so I don’t mess up. I look and sound like I belong (mostly), but that’s not what it feels like on the inside. One of our early stops is always a branch of our bank. We need to double check our memory of our PIN numbers is correct, and change our contact details. 

Believe it or not, it’s all a bit scary till you get back into the groove. (I’ll come back to this later in the post.)

We’re in Cairns for a few days rest before we plunge into life in south east Queensland. I have to give a plug for the staff at Bank of Queensland in town here. They were friendly and helpful, and not at all shocked by having these vagabond Aussies who’ve been living overseas and moving to Ipswich dropping in on them in Cairns.

Wednesday August 2

We're now almost completely moved into our house now, eight days after we first walked into the house. That's a great relief, as we've been living out of suitcases since mid June. (I think this was the day that we unpacked books onto a bookshelf…we don’t own many books here, but just having them out of boxes is a big step towards feeling like we’ve settled for the time being.)

Saturday Aug 5

Back to today. I’m sitting on our front deck (yes we have one!) It’s mid-winter and I’m in a t-shirt with a light flannie (flannelette or flannel shirt for the non-Aussies). Amazing weather, but pretty usual for this place. The forecast maximum today is 23 (about average for this week), it’s not quite that warm yet, but the sky is blue with a few fluffy white clouds and I can see a lot of trees from where I sit.

This suburb (Springfield Lakes) is fairly closely packed with houses. It’s a relatively new suburb and the blocks are much smaller than the average Australian block, but it feels comfortable to us. It’s not as crowded as Japan. There are footpaths and grassy verges everywhere. It’s a convenient location: very close to shops, the train station, cinemas, post office, bank, even a free public pool. But it’s also very suburban and relatively quiet. Add to all that is a lot of parkland and footpaths through bushland and beside bodies of water.

We’re really happy with this location and with this house and so thankful that God provided us so quickly with a place to make our base for these 12 months. When we moved in last week, it was our sixth beds in July and we were very happy to stop.

Although we haven’t really stopped. We’ve stopped moving and stopped living out of suitcases and in a one-day-at-a-time mentality, but the act of settling into Australia has moved to a different level. Now we’re working on things like getting medical appointments, filling out forms for various reasons, proving our identity and our suitability for working with kids. And also working on young-adult-children type stuff like researching part-time jobs, uni Open days, getting Medicare cards for sons, etc. And gyms. Our youngest son is very keen to join a gym, and we’re doing what we can to help both of them feel settled, so this is a key piece. Up till now he’s had free access to a school gym, so paying to go to a not-so-cheap Australian gym is harder to swallow.

We also don’t have our own car yet. Thankfully our eldest son has lent us his car, but we’re actively searching for our own wheels. Car shopping is new, we haven’t done this in Australia for more than a quarter of a century. David is out this morning looking at used car lots, and yes, I decided to leave him to it and stay home!

This week also held OMF medicals, psychological debrief, driving an hour to meet my parents for lunch (they live 120 km or 1½ hrs away), and grocery shopping (which deserves another complete post). As well as dipping our toes back into ordinary church life: young adult Bible study for our son and ladies Bible study for me.

And that’s not even including the subplot of David’s work laptop simply stopping working just days before we left Japan and the saga of him trying to figure out what to do about that! Finally yesterday both his new laptop and the backup data arrived, so thankfully that distraction is nearly over.

But back to the idea that life back in Australia is a little scary at times. Not that we’re afraid, it’s just that most things take extra effort because none of it is familiar. It doesn’t take much to tip us into confusion. We’re also struggling to keep longer lists in our heads, resulting in frequent disorganized behaviour and amusement from those who are closest to us.

On Monday I went grocery shopping before I’d had my mid-morning coffee (the first coffee of the day). A bad idea at the best of times, but when I was planning to do my first big grocery shop for the household, it nearly undid me. I stood so long in one part of the huge cereal aisle that an employee asked if she could help me (and normally the employees there don’t speak to customer unless spoken to). Thankfully I managed to get enough food to last us through to yesterday, when I did a top-up shop (with coffee on board). 

It feels good to be getting back into my groove in the kitchen. This afternoon I’m planning to do my first baking in my new kitchen. I’m looking forward to that. It’s another sign that I’m starting to feel settled here.

This has turned into a long rambling post. But it’s probably fairly indicative of the sort of conversation you might have with me if you managed to pin me down anywhere for any length of time just now!

I have lots of other things I’d like to write about, but I’ll keep them for now. The debrief on Thursday with the psychologist challenged me to think about dreams I might be able to follow, or pastimes to pursue during this year when our time is more flexible. I think that writing is one. Usually my time is quite bound by editing deadlines, but I’m much more free from those these next 12 months. We’ll see what eventuates. But for the short-term, at least, I hope to be blogging more often.

Looking back at 2021

 The last two years I've used some interesting and challenging questions to write this last post of the year, so I'm going to do it again.

David and me enjoying a pre-Christmas
date.

1. What makes this year unforgettable?

• Second year of the pandemic, what can I say...
• Personally we've had tragedy, ill-health, injury, despair, close encounters with suicide, exhaustion, a creative ending to a high school career, lack of clarity about the future, etc. Some, but not much of that was related to the pandemic. Altogether it's made for a very challenging year personally. I'm thankful for a fulfilling job that meant that even when I had no answers for the personal pain we faced, I found joy and purpose in my work, and of course God gave me hope.

2. What did I enjoy doing this year?

• Editing fiction in my spare time. I spent a couple of months early in the year editing a book by a friend of mine. First time to edit a book-length manuscript, first time to edit fiction. It was challenging in a good way and I hope I get another opportunity to do it again in the future (though it would be great if I could devote work-time, rather than spare-tie to such a project).
• Baking and reading: my two passions I've continued to love.
• Camping: we only made it out to two camping trips this year and one of those was shortened due to a typhoon. The pandemic made it difficult to book campsites across prefectural borders and we complicated things by trying to gather a larger group to do it.
• Walking after dinner: this has become one of my favourite things too, most of the time I love catching up with my husband during our 4–5 km walk, and I miss it when weather or work or other events mean we can't do it for a few days.
• Weekly video calls with our eldest son have been really great too. Often one or both of his brothers join and we usually end up playing online board/card games.

3. What/who is one thing/person you're grateful for?

• I'm grateful for a solid marriage, for a husband who is calm and committed to his family, and we've walked through a very hard year shoulder-to-shoulder. Many people don't have that. I'm ever so grateful I do.
• I'm also grateful to my friends. My daily-trio of friends as well as some other women who have emerged as even more precious than they were before.

4. What did you read/watch/listen to that made the most impact this year?

• Mmm. Hard question as usual. Looking at the books I've read (post on Dec 13), I would suggest the Bogel book about overthinking was probably the most impactful. I also have enjoyed listening sporadically to a podcast call Undeceptions, for example the episode about a same-sex-attracted Christian was eye opening and ultimately very encouraging, another episode I posted about here on Friendship was also excellent.

5. What did you worry about most and how did it turn out?

• This is something I can't share here due to protecting the privacy of my family. My worst fear didn't eventuate, but it still might, only God knows.

6. What's my biggest regret?

• Not being able to see my eldest son this year (it's been 2 ½ yrs now).
• I regret not being able to see any Olympics or Paralympics in person, despite living in the city where they were held.
• Not having the emotional energy to do some things that I used to do.

7. What's something that has changed about me?

• I think I've become a little less less zoned in on "what's next" for our boys. I've had a lot of my expectations for them stripped away (expectations I mostly didn't realise I held).
• I did more teaching this year than I've ever done (mostly in the first quarter of the year). I still don't think it's really my wheelhouse, but it was good to have the opportunity to help other adults learn new things.
• I've become even more discerning about who I bare my heart to.

8. What surprised you most this year?

• How many people are rejecting immunisation. Also I've been saddened by Australia's isolationist policy during this pandemic. There are times that it felt like us expats weren't welcome in our home country. And no, I don't wish to have a discussion about this here or on social media. I have steered clear of writing about these things on social media.
• I've also been happily surprised by some of the ways that I've seen my boys grow and change this year. As I wrote in this blog post, it's harder to anticipate when and what milestones older teens and young adults will achieve, but it's just as satisfying (or more) as when they  were learning to walk and talk.
• I was also surprised at how difficult it was to get used to being back in-person after many months of online meeting.

I'm going to add two more questions here: 

9. What Bible truths impacted you this year?

• "Be still and know that I am God" (Ps 46: 10) has been an ongoing theme since mid-2018. But I also spent several hours on an "accidental" retreat considering the whole of Psalm 46.
• Also I've returned again and again to Hebrews 12:1-3 and Isaiah 40. Both are worth looking up and pondering deeply.

10. What meta-themes have you thought about this year? (in no particular order)

• Efficiency isn't necessarily God's way or the best way.
• Letting go of control.
• Walking alongside older teens and young adults as a parent (of course all these first three are related!)
• Lily pads (see here)
• I got to ponder a wide variety topics courtesy of my work for example: pop culture in Japan, technology in ministry, history of the Japanese church, men in the church, the best uses of social media for mobilisation, rest, good editing practices, and macrons and other questions of the romanisation of Japanese (look it up, it'll either fascinate you or bore you).

Highlights:

• Two camping trips, including camping in a new prefecture.
• Several opportunities to spend time with family friends in-person for the day or evening.
• Immunisation against COVID-19 (yes, a highlight)
• Seeing the social media team that I lead continue to forge ahead producing excellent content.
• Editing a fiction book (as mentioned above)
• The new building and sports field at school. I've rarely been there and actually haven't set foot on the oval ("field" for Americans), but it's great to hear about how it's being used.

Lowlights:

• Aforementioned tragedy and ill-health
• Missed opportunities for good fellowship during online meetings, sometimes due to a lack of thinking-outside-the box by event organisers.
• Shortened winter holiday due to an unexpected and dramatic medical event
• Seeing my boys struggle
• Too many online meetings and not enough people-time some weeks.
• Church being online for most of the year.
• Not being able to get to Australia (which meant some thinking outside the box for a few items I'd rather buy in person there).

Other thoughts

Writing: I did plan to write a blog post every month based on a book called Come Closer by Jane Rubietta. I did it for four months, but then failed to finish the rest of the year. In fact this year I've only published 43 blog posts, that's an all time low (my highest output was in 2011 at 369). It's been a busy and stressful year and I've often been tired. I have written two or three articles for each of the four magazines we've published, plus various social media posts and a a couple of online articles for OMF. But really, my writing output has been very low, an indication of how the year has gone, really. There's lots been going on, but much that I can't share with a wider audience and a lack of energy to invest in writing as well. Contrary to that I've done a lot of editing and continue to enjoy working with other people and their writing.

Goals: these were my stated goals for 2021 (in my first blog post this year) and I think I've done okay at these. How we worked towards #1 looked surprising at times to some outside our household, but there were good reasons for what we did. Of course these aren't "SMART" goals, in that they aren't Measurable, but then I think that there is much that needs to be achieved in life that can't be measured easily and isn't short-term.

1. Looking after myself and my household as best I can
2. Taking care to look out for others who are within my circle of influence—keeping my eyes open for opportunities to serve them and others further afield, and
3. Working to the best of my ability in all the tasks that are mine to do.

I have pondered this blog post long enough and it's just getting longer the more I look at it, so it's time to release it into the wild. If you take up the challenge of answering these questions, I'd love to hear your thoughts (privately, if you wish).

Tidbits from recent weeks

In the spirit of sharing "ordinary life," which is where this blog started out all those years ago! Here's a bit of what's been going on in our house recently (aside from camping):

School

New building and field (before it was completely finished)

School started last week for the students. David started work again full-time more than a week earlier than the kids, and had been working part-time since the start of the month. I'm trying to figure out when we last had just one boy at school—that would be when our eldest started Japanese kindergarten in April 2003, before the one who is now our only boy at school was even born.

Another exciting development at school is the new building that replaces the old cafeteria, but includes a band practise room and a multipurpose room. It overlooks a new full-sized soccer field that is covered in artificial turf. The school looks very different! The 'field" has been gravel for many decades, so this is a huge change.

COVID-19

We've also been touched by COVID-19. We had one case in the high school and that prompted online schooling for just two days at the start of this week while they assessed the situation. We're back to usual on campus classes again now.

As of yesterday all the Tokyo Marshalls are now fully vaccinated, which we're very happy about, especially considering that the country is in the midst of a spike of infections that is far bigger than we've had so far.

Weather

The weather has been in the forefront of our minds, as it usually is in a Tokyo August. Oddly, we had a cooler wet patch in the middle of the month, which we were thankful for. Alas the unbearable heat and humidity soon returned and we had challenges with sleeping and close proximity. Only three of our six rooms are air conditioned, so that made for interesting times with teens who value their privacy. 

On Tuesday this week another cool change came through which dropped temperatures into the low 20s, a shock to the system, but most welcome. We've slept deeply these last couple of nights. A cool change at this time of year is unlikely to turn back into the worst of summer, though we might have one or two 30C days still to come.

Olympics and Paralympics

We've enjoyed many an hour watching these amazing events in our lounge room. The range of English commentary available to us online has been impressive, and we've often played the "guess the commentator's accent" game! It was sad that we didn't get to use the tickets we had to four different events, but a relief in some ways, as spectating in the Tokyo heat would have been very tough.

Lily pads

With holidays behind us, I've struggled a little to find "lily pads" to look forward to. We have talked about a possible camping plan for October and have booked our usual pre-Christmas holiday. But I've also made some smaller plans, which includes pulling out my sewing machine and trialling a weekly out-of-the-house work date with myself.

My work

These last weeks I've been working on the final stages of our Autumn magazine issue about Men in the Japanese church. We finished that on Tuesday afternoon. I've also been communicating with authors who have/are writing for our Winter issue about Technology in Ministry. There's a lot that's been going on in that area and it's a very timely topic to cover, alas that also makes it a challenge to fit everything into the space available!

Our social media continues onwards also. In August we covered Sports, for obvious reasons. Not as much Olympic and Paralympic news as we would have had if we hadn't been in a pandemic, but still, we managed to find plenty to share. In September we have a more challenging topic: Japanese church history. So in recent days I've been reading and trying to write summaries of various topics and eras that make sense and work for social media while at the same time keeping in mind our purpose: mobilising people to be more involved in mission. Yeah, not the easiest of tasks.

I also picked up a small writing gig: writing an article about missionaries and loneliness for our OMF US folk who are tackling that topic in September. It's a topic I've written about many times here, so it was interesting to pick it up again and try to write something fresh.

I've also just written our monthly news and prayer letter. We also have the responsibility of running a prayer night for our fellow 120+ missionaries at our online field conference in a couple of weeks. Planning needs to be done!

I tend to be easily bored, so I'm thankful to have a job that means I'm kept on my toes and have lots of different places to turn my attention, even if it can be stressful at times.

But for today, it's time to pull the plug on work and move into dinner prep and a relaxing evening. How's your August been?

On the edge of ordinary on the medical scene

Looking at July and August, all I've written about on this blog is holidays and camping! Anyone would think I've done nothing else. I actually only had 16 official days of holidays in those two months. Since we got back from holidays in mid July I've been at my desk most of each work day (aside from those two days of camping a couple of weeks back). It's always a challenging time of year to work, although as the boys grow older it's become much less of a problem. They are no longer running around the house during their holidays, demanding my attention at random times, so I've got a lot more headspace to devote to work.

David went back to work officially on Monday, so this week is looking more like business as usual, except that I've got two big boys sleeping away much of the day (yes, they are pretty nocturnal at the moment). When I say "officially", David's actually been in and out of school many days in the last fortnight. And he's been on his computer doing email and other admin things for a period most days, not to mention three Zoom meetings/training with OMF last week. Plus, he's been working on a project of digitalising a portion of his work that has existed on index cards that have been collected by dozens of teachers over the last few decades. So, I've not been alone in working at home here!

We do as much of our medical care as we
can in Japanese, but for some things we 
really need English service providers for.
We're thankful for the doctor near this
station who has been caring for one of our
sons over the last 2 ½ years.

In addition to that, we've been doing a few medical things. I wanted to write a bit about one of them—a visit to a dermatologist.

When you live in your home country you don't think about how the medical things that happen there are (sometimes) specific to your country. Of course you might think about how accessing medical care in another language is hard (and it is!), but I've got a different type of example you might not have thought about.

Skin cancer isn't common here

Australia has the highest rate of skin cancer in the world for men (not women, though we're close to the top of the list). Japan is not even in the top 20 countries in this list. But Japan is third on the list for stomach cancer and Australia doesn't feature in the top 20. (This data is from here.) 

These are interesting statistics, but the rubber hits the ground when you are not living in your home country. In Australia skin cancer is high on the list of things that your local GP will check if you ask them to (and in fact we've been told that the average Australian GP is better informed about skin cancer than the average dermatologist in Japan). Plus, there are many easily accessible skin cancer clinics that will give you a regular full body check. By contrast, in Japan, there aren't such clinics. And at annual government-funded medicals in Japan, they check for bowel and stomach cancer, but skin cancer isn't on the radar.

It just so happens that my husband has a family medical history (and now a personal history) of skin cancer, and so this is definitely on our radar as he gets older. I'm very grateful, therefore, that we live in one of the largest metropolises in the world. It's possible to find unusual services, like a doctor who has read up on skin cancer in Australia and is willing to "colour outside the lines" with foreign patients who have different skin and had different environment growing up to most of the Japanese population. It's not covered by our Japanese health insurance, but it's an awful lot cheaper and easier than going to Australia. It really is another example of how we live "on the edge of ordinary".

And life continues on...

Aside from all that, we're living pretty quiet lives here and trying not to be too stressed by the news of what's going on in the rest of the world. The pandemic is raging in Japan (between 15,000 and 20,000 new cases a day in the last few days, around 5,000 of those in Tokyo) and we're doing essentials, but otherwise at home. We're thankful that Japan is working hard to vaccinate—nearly 50% of the population has had one jab, that's 60 million people since they began in mid February. Maybe by summer next year Australia will welcome us back for a couple of months without requiring us to quarantine in a hotel at our own expense?

School (CAJ) starts the new school year for students from next Tuesday. I'm still coming to grips with the fact that we'll only have one at school this year. We're not sure what the year will look like for our middle son, but we're glad we have the means to be able to support him at this transition time of life, to give him a chance to figure things out.

Medical matters

I feel as though medical/paramedical stuff has taken a significant chunk out of our last two months in Australia. Looking back at the diary, we've had at least one thing almost every week, sometimes more than one. Some of it is routine, others...not so much.

Here's much of what we've had:

• two year medicals (OMF requirement and has resulted in some of the below)
• psychological debrief
• blood tests
• mammogram and PAP smear
• iron infusion for me
• several physio appointments for two of us for various minor injuries or niggles
• immunisation (catch-up for the boys)
• skin infection necessitating antibiotics
• three x-rays
• optometrist (two of us thus far)
• dentist (just our eldest, the rest of us did this before we left Japan)

Still to come:

• another blood test for me following up on the iron infusion and who knows if that might lead to more appointments
• more physio appointments
• wisdom teeth removal
• more psychologist appointments
• and who knows how many more injuries/illnesses that will need attending to, our youngest is on quite a run at present.

It takes time. I have to admit to being a bit over all the driving. Yes, driving in Brisbane/Ipswich is much easier than Tokyo, however there's so much of it. Most of the above has meant at least 20 minutes drive each way (some more than double that).

And for the most part we've not been significantly unwell. I'd hate to see the list if we were!

It is nice to be doing this in Australia, though. Much of the above would look quite different in Japan, even if you take away the language barrier. For example:

• Mammograms and PAP smears only happen once every two years. To get it you have to be a certain age and go in a certain month. For example, in our local area ladies in their odd years ( eg. 41, 43) who are born Jan to March can get these tests done in June, if you are born April to June you can have them in July. (These details may or may not be exactly right, but they give you the idea). If you miss that month of that year, you have to wait two more years unless you have a symptom that needs investigating! This means that people like us who aren't necessarily in the country on the right year or in the right month can fall through the cracks.
• You can't just walk into a physio (PT for Americans), it is much more medically focused, though I've heard that in Tokyo that there are therapy places you can go, I'm not sure if you don't need a doctor's referral. Thankfully we've never desperately needed that, except for the one time I had a very stiff neck and saw an orthopedic doctor at a local hospital who referred me to a physio in the hospital.
• The immunisation schedule is very different. The shots our boys are having aren't regularly available in Japan.

Does it sound like I'm whinging? I hope not. I'm really glad that we have such ready access to good medical care. I'm just tired of it taking up so much time. But really, compared to what some people deal with on a daily basis, this is nothing. It's good to stay in touch with my friends who have significant disability in their families, it helps me to stay grounded. 

But when people say, "What are you doing while you're in Australia?" It's hard not to think about how much time we've had to spend doing these self-care things, things that aren't really considered "work", but are taking up significant time and energy. 

And of course we're still adjusting to having one car, two people working from home, having a school run to do twice a day, and a fifth person who occasionally needs use of the car (and a parent) but who lives 30 minutes away! This afternoon, as we tried to coordinate our schedule to accommodate one car, a doctor's visit, an optometrist's visit, an x-ray, school run, and a simple trim, I exclaimed, "I just want to go 'home'!" Where there is no school run, the doctor and x-ray, would have been within 1 km from home, and I can independently ride to the hairdresser.

Limiting our focus

Whoops, looks like I accidentally published this as a very spare draft last week (note to self—change the settings on my phone-to-Blogger interface). I'm back now to pay it some serious writing attention.
____________________

A view from the weekend when we went for a stroll.

I've realized there's some things I don't have energy for right now. Both mental and physical. In order to stay afloat we're very focused. Focused on our family's needs, and the demands of our various jobs. Focused on extended family and key friends. Focused on getting done what needs to be done these six months. A lot doesn't fit these categories.

For example:

• Finding all the deals, at the moment I'm lucky if I get a sale or a good financial deal, but it's not something that I have the energy to wholeheartedly spend time on finding.
• Staying on top of what's going on in both Japan and Australia (though I've been able to drop into see headlines about the dramas in Australian politics today, I'm not particularly interested in finding out much more because I don't have the mental energy).

Probably lots is falling by the wayside. I know that there are people I'm not going to be able to see. We've already had to painfully express this to some who don't live in south-east Queensland. Next weekend is a complex one that I'll explain in another post, but it involves a fair bit of interstate travel and we will scoot past people who we would love to see...but won't.

Another way to look at it is the Spoon Theory that I wrote about several years ago here. At the moment, due to a number of factors, I simply don't have as many spoons as I usually have.

I'm fine juggling lots of things. It's actually my preferred way to operate, otherwise I have a tendency to get bored. But I'm juggling a bit more diversely than usual just now. Here's an idea of what's going on in my weeks:

• preparing for various public speaking opportunities (both the close ones, i.e. in two days, and further away)
• sorting out practical details of such events, such as transport, food, where all the family members will be etc. This includes emails to and from contacts at the various churches/groups
• actually doing the events
• taking care of my family: the usual physical stuff of driving to and from school, groceries, cooking, cleaning (though minimal that it may be), washing, and medical appointments (another blog post, really). The usual psychological aspects of parenting teens. And some less usual psychological aspects of parenting that I've written here about as well as some things I can't tell you on this public platform.
• taking care of myself: including exercise, medical appointments, time with friends, and squeezing in rest time
• Japanese study (yes, I'm still studying)
• editing work from Japan: managing the Japan Harvest magazine and editing for the OMF Japan blog.

Does that cover it all? Mostly. Really, at the moment I'm fighting the urge to curl up on the bed and read my book (or play an addictive game on my phone). But like most of you, there's other stuff that needs doing...it's just hard sometimes to know when to draw the line.

People do wonder what we do when we're on home assignment. It's hard to say what fills up our days. At times I feel like we work part-time. We aren't being paid by the hour and have no idea how many hours per week we work. I have no idea, sometimes, what to call "work" and what to call "rest". 

Yesterday I had an early medical appointment for a routine checkup. The technician asked what I was going to be doing the rest of the day and I was at a bit of a loss for words (seems to be happening a lot recently). I said I had a couple of other medical appointments (which was true), and she countered with, "So, a day off work." I just agreed with her, though for a missionary, getting medical stuff done while on home assignment has a tinge of "work" to it, because without ticking those boxes we cannot go back to our work overseas. So it is work, or is it not work?

I did spend time wandering around a shopping centre in-between appointments yesterday, so I guess that was time-off. Some of it was "work" (e.g. Besides the medical appointments, I sat in a coffee shop and did Japanese study, as well as brainstormed with David and someone else via Messenger about a speaking opportunity next week). So our work looks very different to most of our peers.

But I think I've wandered off topic here. Good thing I don't have an editor looking over my shoulder. 

Focus. During transition (and I think we will be in transition this whole year and a few months into next year) our focus needs to be quite narrow, which means that we pretty much march to a different drum to most of those around us. On the edge of ordinary . . . as usual.

Snapshot: an exception?

The other day I went to the doctor. The process at our doctor is like this:

1. Turn up and turn in your "membership" card and health insurance card at the desk.

Here they are: dad loaded them up on their bike: one
on the front, one on the back, and walked them
to the pharmacy, just a few shops down the road.

2. Wait

3. Get called for triage with a nurse.

4. Wait

5. Get called to wait down the corridor outside the doctor.

6. See the doctor.

7. Wait

8. Get called to pay your bill and get your script.

9. Walk down the road to the pharmacy to get your medicine.

10. Hand in your script at the pharmacy and medicine record book.

11. Wait

12. Receive medicine and instructions

13. Pay

It's very predictable. Especially when you're just picking up routine medication (as I was).

There's a lot of waiting time, but that does depend on how many other people turned up before you. On Tuesday it was busy, but not excessively, and there were two doctors working, so I got through steps 1 to 8 in about an hour. I then broke the pattern for a couple of reasons, and came back later for steps 10 to 13.

Just before I got there, a dad had arrived on his own with two little boys, about 1 and 3. I know it was just before me, because I followed him through all these steps, just behind them. I love people watching in situations like these and this trio was fun. 

Dads on their own with little kids is not a common sight in Japan, though it is increasing. I love it when I see it, because they're breaking stereotypes.

This dad was doing a fantastic job. He had everything down: entertainment (reading animatedly to them), conversation (talking with them, answering questions, pointing out the trains out the window—our doctor's waiting room has a window where you can see trains just across the street), and shoes (shoes in Japan don't go on seats, so parents have to take them off little ones who want to climb).

Towards the end the older one started jumping, despite his dad's firm direction not to. And the inevitable happened: he jumped on a low seat and fell off onto his head. Dad was right there, grabbed him and comforted him. They were at step 7, but then got called to pay. This guy stood up with the screaming three year old on one hip, picked up the younger boy, and collected his script, while holding them both.

I came away entertained and encouraged. Of course I don't know what this family's backstory is, but it was great to see him functioning as a great caregiver for two young boys. Hopefully these two will grow up knowing their dad (too many Japanese young people hardly ever see their dads as their dads work very long hours).

The challenge of new glasses

I really like my new frames, but wow, the new lenses
 are taking some adjusting to, and I don't know why.

I took the plunge a couple of weeks ago and went to a Japanese optometrist (with my husband for linguistic support). This is something I've been avoiding for . . . well 17 years (by doing it in Australia when we were there). But it was unavoidable this time, I was struggling with blurred distance vision. Plus I've had a lot of headaches. There are many possible triggers for my headaches, but I thought my glasses could be one, so I set out to eliminate that.

I've heard all sorts of things about the Japanese optometry world and not all of them good. But, I thought, it can't be that bad, can it? After all there are a lot of Japanese people with glasses!

Part of my concern is that for the last 2 ½ years I've been wearing transition lenses, the new form of trifocals! The idea being that for close vision you view through the bottom of the glasses and distance the top, with middle distance somewhere in the middle, but with no hard line between these different parts of the lens. They've been brilliant and didn't take much time to adjust to. When I got them I had made it to the stage where I had to take my glasses off to read, which is really annoying. My sunglasses are still that way, so I can't read a map or my phone with them on. I wasn't sure that Japan had transition lenses, but it turns out they do.

Another of my problems with using glasses for reading is that my favourite recreational reading place is on my side in bed. I deliberately got thin frames this time for side-reading comfort (my previous frames had thick arms which hurt my ear and head sandwiched between my head and the pillow). But it turns out that the ideal place to read through these lenses is a bit narrow and when I lie down the glasses get knocked to the side making it hard to read.

Sorry, I'm whinging here.

My hopes are pinned a little on the pair of reading/computer lenses that I've also ordered (recycling old frames). Apparently they will have a larger area for reading and the top will work for the long hours of computer work that I often put in. We'll see. They can be collected early next week.

Oh, have you ever tried putting on ear muffs with glasses on? It can be tricky! I've had a tricky time with my ear muffs this week pushing my glasses up off my nose, which means I'm looking through the bottom half of my glasses and not exactly road-worthy on my bike! And believe me, ear muffs are vital riding in sub 10C weather (if you have a helmet on), ears are quite vulnerable.

Ah, the challenges of middle age. I now understand why everyone in the "senior choir" at the church I grew up in had their own music and couldn't share. It was because most of them wore bifocals and had to have the music at a specific place in order to see it.

I do like my new frames—they are delicate and comfortable on my face. They've also got a cool design on the arms and the inside of the arms is teal, one of my favourite colours. I just hope that I get used to the lenses soon.

Some keys to living overseas

Free photo from pixabay.com

There are lots of things that are challenging when you move (or even travel) to other countries. Some are more obvious than others. For example, eating breakfast can be a challenge or being able to get around in a country where you don't speak or read the language are pretty obvious.

Here are a three less obvious challenges I've been reminded of in recent weeks.

Not knowing or understanding
The total sum of what we understand about Japan is much less than Australia, it always will be. Additionally, on a daily basis there is a lot less that we understand about what's going on than we do in Australia. I can't read all the signs, I don't get all the jokes. I'm pretty ignorant in many ways, compared to the average Japanese citizen, about life in Japan. That's something you need to become at peace with in order to live here long-term (although possibly I'm too relaxed about it).

Trust
We also need to have a trusting attitude, rather than second guessing everything, thinking that we know better. Some cynicism is good, but too much is unhelpful for being able to live here long-term. Not trusting produces increased stress. In order to survive here, I have to be fairly trusting, especially seeing as I don't have all the information that I might otherwise have had access to in Australia.

For example, I often don't understand everything the doctor says to me. That would be totally unacceptable to me in Australia, but here I do my best and get the essence of the important stuff: diagnosis and treatment. That works in a relatively simple medical situation. I may not know exactly what medicine I've been prescribed, but that's (generally) okay.

Not black or white
I read this recently in a blog post about resilience: 

Sue Takamoto wrote of a transformation that takes place in successfully adapted missionaries—“a move from black and white, egocentric thinking to an ability to become more flexible and open.”

This is so true. Things that are done differently here to my home country aren't wrong because they're different. They might be strange or mysterious to me. They might even be less efficient or inconvenient to me, but a willingness to accept them anyway is needed to stay sane if you're living here. 

For example, if I got upset because I had to wait an hour for a simple medical test result because there was no appointment system, that wouldn't help my stress levels. I'm not hankering after the medical treatment I might have had in Australia, because here is where I live. And of course that ties in with trust and not-knowing. I trust my doctor here, even though I don't understand everything he says.


Over the years I've seen foreigners struggle with these three things while in Japan. Because we've adjusted to living here long-term, probably people who've spent their whole lives in one country struggle to understand us now too.

Life's been a bit topsy-turvy this week

Feeding the family continues. I made these brownies from
scratch yesterday and some are already gone. That's a
good sign! It's the first time I've made brownies from scratch.
Probably they're healthier than the packet-mix ones, they're
certainly lighter in texture.

It's time for a "what's been going on in our neck of the woods" type post.

This has been a topsy-turvy type week, as is usual in our house, the first week that students are on summer holidays, with the usual schedules all out the window.

Monday to Wednesday David was at school full-time participating/leading various compulsory meetings and finishing off his responsibilities for the school year. The boys were "full-time" at home.

Well, that's not quite true. Our eldest went off on a two-night hiking/camping trip in the mountains west of here with more than a dozen of his friends. You might think it is crazy to let a bunch of teenagers do that, but it's safe in Japan and looking at the character of this group of kids, we had no concerns at all. Oh, and one of them was a scout while another has exceptional orienteering skills. So our son was gone from Sunday lunch time till late on Tuesday, then Wednesday was a recovery day.

Our youngest son hung out most of the time with a classmate who lives nearby and has both parents as teachers. The boys spent most mornings outside and afternoons upstairs in his bedroom here.

Our middle son was home almost full-time. The most extreme introvert of the family, he's enjoyed being a homebody and having few people to interact with.

Thursday and Friday David's been at school part-time, doing preparation for next week (summer school) and next year (handing over some of his classes).

Our youngest and middle sons continued a similar schedule to the above. 

Our eldest son had training at school yesterday for the two weeks he's left for today as a summer camp "leader" (Americans call it "counselor"). During those two weeks they have three camps coming through, first one is grades 1 and 2! Then 3–5 and finally from next Saturday is 6–8. They're going to be busy and have a lot of fun. But it also is a paid gig!

There's no doubt about it, having older boys is definitely a different parenting lifestyle. But I like it.

My week?
And through all the above? Aside from Monday morning, I've mostly been at home trying to catch up on what has been put on the back-burner over the last month as I dealt with a senior graduating and parents visiting. I'm finally feeling a little more on top of things again. 

Oh, as well as mopping up the final things from the events that I helped coordinate for the seniors over the last ten months. I'm so glad that that is almost completely done. I don't think I'll be volunteering to such an extent for our younger two sons classes!

I also went out with a couple of friends for dinner on Wednesday night and that was a lot of fun.

This morning I did one of my least favourite chores: a starving blood test as part of an annual check-up provided by the Japanese medical system. 

I'm a little peeved, though. From my experience trying to get a blood test for an OMF medical last year, I knew that in Japan you can't get health maintenance checks at the "wrong" time of the year. But I'm due (according to Australian recommendations) for a couple of female-health tests. However it seems that I'm the wrong age. You can only have these two particular tests at a certain time of the year and only if you're 41, 43, or 45 (you get the idea, an "odd" age). But next year, when I'll be the "right" age, the tests will be in the second half of the year (as best as I understand the schedule) and by then I'll be back in Australia for a year! 

Sigh. As I'm not particularly worried about anything, I guess I'll have to wait another seven months till I'm in Australia settling out eldest son into university in February, to get those particular tests done. It's going to be a great visit to Australia (sarcasm intended!), but at least I'll be able to do it all in English.

So, in a summary, in the last twelve days we've gone from seven people in the house, to five, to four, back to five, (with an extra boy in there for several afternoons, but not for meals) and now four for the next eight days. Then, from the 24th, we'll have six days of three of us in the house, when our youngest goes away to summer camp himself. My meal planning and grocery shopping has taken a bit of a hit. Not to mention my sense of "normal". I remind myself occasionally that it's okay to feel a little off-balance.