It was a big weekend

It was another big weekend! They seem pretty common these days, indeed we seem to lurch from weekend to weekend. 

Friday night we had our usual Scrabble date at a couple of local restaurants (mains at one and a cheap dessert at the other).

David and I playing travel Scrabble on Friday night.
We had two strangers say, "What a good idea!"

Queens Park in Toowoomba. Looking beautiful in
the springtime after the rain they've had these
last three weeks.

Saturday we got to sleep in, then headed up to my hometown after an early lunch (1.5 hr drive). It was delightful to see the difference that rain has made in the three weeks since we made this journey.

This is a portion of my parents' front yard. The top photo was taken at the end
d of September, the bottom one at lunch-time on Sunday. In the intervening
 three weeks, they'd had 80ml of rain (just over 3 inches)

We dropped the boys off at my parents' house and then spent 3 1/2 hours with friends I've known since I was 16. They asked great questions and the time flew by!

On Sunday morning we visited a traditional Presbyterian church. The congregation contained more than half a dozen people who I knew as a child in the church our family attended at that time. It was great to also meet others, afterwards, who've been praying for us over the years. Just before we spoke the pastor gave a testimony about two Japanese exchange students they had had at their home (and at the church). Both had become Christians through their experience in Australia and are both persevering in their faith back in Japan. It was a moving story and such an encouragement to hear.

We went back to my parents' house for lunch. During lunch, a storm came through that threw down 30.5mm in a short period of time. The wind was quite strong and they lost power. It was exciting to see the rain, there has been precious little of it in the previous months of our time in Australia.

Three galahs drying off after the storm.

We followed the storm east as we drove back home after lunch. I didn't have a great trip, though. I had a stomach ache and nausea, and an hour after we arrived home I threw up. Thankfully I felt better after that and there was no more pain. However, I took it as a warning sign that I needed to rest (I think the probable cause was stress). I spent the rest of the evening resting and a good portion of yesterday too.

An awkward selfie of me reading yesterday. My favourite way to relax
and favourite place to read a book.

I'd like to rest more today, but am also aware that I've got responsibilities to attend to. Trying to balance up those two things is definitely not easy! Also weighing on my mind is my trip to Singapore on Saturday afternoon and then on to Perth for deputation—a total of 16 days away. Preparation is needed. So...one day at a time I venture forth. Very aware of this:

He gives strength to the weary
    and increases the power of the weak.
 Even youths grow tired and weary,
    and young men stumble and fall;
 but those who hope in the Lord
    will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
    they will run and not grow weary,
    they will walk and not be faint. (Isaiah 40:29-31 NIV UK)

Weekend synopsis

I'm struggling to get time for this...the weekend was busy and I wanted to write a bit about it, but I've come back to the reality of several important things (including a magazine to finish) to do before we go away for holidays/visiting family.

So this will be a quick one. On Friday afternoon we drove just over an hour to a place we've been to many times before: Tamborine Mountain. It's a little plateau that Wikipedia tells me is eight kilometres long, five kilometres wide and 525 m high. Not really a mountain by the standards of most of the world, but we're talking Australia here, the flattest continent! 

It's a place that, for more than 60 years, has hosted Christian conferences and camps. Mount Tamborine Convention Centre is a familiar place to us, though we've rarely been there in the last 20 years when we were in our young adult years we often went to camps up there. The weekend was nostaligic in many ways, not only did the place bring back many memories, the event did too. In 1998 we attended a missions conference there, International Outlook, as newly weds. It was that weekend in March that we began the long journey to becoming missionaries with OMF, we started filling out application forms.

Over the weekend we also met a number of people who we have known for many years. The furthest back was a man I knew as a child, he left to go to uni when I was around 12, but I saw him one further time when I was around 19. It's been a long time! 

The property is beautiful and well cared for. Eucalyptus trees everywhere. When you've never left Australia you don't really notice them so much as we do. In Japan we rarely see these trees, but they are everywhere in Australia. I can't stop taking photos of them! The weather over the weekend was gorgeous too.

Times have changed in 20 years. A barista at a missions conference!

More packed bags and in the backgroudn is
an exhausted boy asleep (he arrived
back from a school camp just before we left
for the weekend)

It was different being there with teenagers. They would have preferred to stay home, though our youngest soon found a couple of other missionary teens to hang out with. There were actually few teenagers around. I can understand why parents of teenagers don't bring them to events like this, though. We had to be there for work and had no other option but to bring our guys.

We spent a lot of time talking with people. I'm not sure how much good we did. The journey towards mission is long and involves lots of conversations, so who knows what part we played. This lady in the photo browsed our OMF stand and picked up our prayer card. She then sat down and read it. I was intrigued. I'm pretty sure I had a conversation with her the next day about Japan and students.

This is a former WW2 aircraft hanger, the main meeting room, about which we also have many memories, including that first step of getting application papers for OMF (not dreaming we'd be back there 20 years later as "seasoned" OMF missionaries).

It was a good weekend, in that we were reminded by the main speakers of the great need for the gospel in this world. Many still have not heard and have no opportunity to hear the gospel. It's the message that booted us into missions in the first place, it is good to be refocused on that need again, especially while living in Australia where it's relatively easy to forget the needs of the rest of the world.

Our long-weekend

We've just had a long weekend. It was the end of Japan's "Golden Week", ten days or so that contain a cluster of public holidays. However CAJ had just one day off.

On Friday I chose to do what I didn't want to do: watch two superhero movies (Ragnarok and Infinity War). One a DVD, the other an outing to the cinema. I decided this out of a desire to continue to keep a little bit of a connection with our teenagers' worlds. I'm not sure how effective that was, but I keep believing that I need to continue to make the effort because I'm sure that they are not going to.

Saturday we did the usual for this time of year: went to a track and field meet. It was the middle school finals. We had gorgeous weather. The sort of low 20s, clear-sky day that is a dime-a-dozen in Queensland, but much rarer here. We didn't even get a nasty wind in the afternoon, as has been usual in recent weeks.

The meet was on what I think is an artificial island on the edge of Tokyo harbour. It's in a park, which we haven't spent much time in, given that the only time we go there is to watch our boys compete. However with only one boy running and throwing on Saturday I had a bit more spare time than usual (and I forgot my book), so I went for a bit of a wander a couple of times. It really it quite pretty. Again, hard to believe that close by is major roads and cityscapes.

We didn't see one cloud all day: very unusual for this time of year!

Sunday was a usual day, with church in the morning and resting in the afternoon, as well as some baking for the week to come. 

I finished off this book. If you're interested in Japan and don't mind well-written historical fiction, it is worth a read. It's a story about Japan's most famous revenge story, where an illegitimate daughter of a Lord seeks to avenge her father's forced suicide.

The book is actually quite insightful. Japan has changed a lot since 1702, when it is set. But there are elements that persist in the culture. One striking thing was the language in which they referred to themselves, it was very self-deprecating. For example, "I'm but a stupid fisherman, Your Honor, whom fate has rowed far offshore." There's a good deal of tension as the protagonist is in grave danger the whole book and only escapes through a good deal of cleverness as well as amazing skill. She's quite the hero.

One final photo from the weekend. Yesterday marked eight weeks until we leave Japan. I surveyed the cupboards and found some unopened food that is expired, or that we won't use before its "best by" date. So I took a couple of photos and offered them to local friends using Facebook. 

It's a fact of life when you change countries, you have to repeatedly go through the process of reducing your "pantry" and then building it up again  Thankfully this time we don't have to quite get it down to nothing, but can keep the non-perishables that have long use-by dates. But I do need to empty the fridge and freezer so we can turn them off.

I wanted to include this photo, because it does show how mixed our pantry contents are: Japanese, American, and Australian foodstuffs! (I know you can get peanut butter in Australia, but this is an American brand and size—from Costco.)

Not camping this weekend

This is approximately where we're headed.

Tomorrow is the anniversary of our snow camp. Did you hear about it? If not, here it is: Remember the time mum and dad took us camping in the snow?

Us, last year this weekend.

In the last year we've had some great conversations with other people about this camping trip. Most have been in the realm of "you're crazy!" But we do have super memories. And it really is fun to have done something a little extreme like this and survived.

The amazing sight we discovered on our way back
from the toilet block on our first morning.

As I wrote when we went camping last month, we decided not to camp this year at Thanksgiving time (which had been our tradition for several years). It turns out that the weather is going to be quite favourable if we'd chosen to do it—sunshine with daytime temperatures in the teens, night times still low single digits. But we've made other plans.

We're still going to a campsite, but we're spending more money and renting a cabin instead. Hopefully a cabin that has a heater!

We're also going to a place where we know local church planters from the UK and will spend time with them and their teenage boys over the weekend. Because the weather is forecast to be good we should be able to have some fun at a local beach (but not in the water!).

If it's a good experience, we might even go back in warmer weather sometime with a tent. Apparently there are good views as it's up on a hill.

We're looking forward to getting out of Tokyo, even if only for two nights and three days.

My weekend

This last weekend I spent about six hours on trains over two days. 

Saturday
I travelled from our western Tokyo home to east of the capital for an OMF gathering that included some long-term missionaries, but mostly foreigners who aren't officially with OMF, but also have a heart for reaching Japanese. Most Our region of OMF has been trying to provide some support and encouragement for such folk and this three-hour worship, fellowship, and discussion time was part of that. I enjoyed it, but it remains true that our headquarters is a long way from home.

Sunday
Then on Sunday I travelled from home to Yokohama, south of Tokyo. This was an equally long journey. Just like Saturday, it involved three of four trains and about one and a half hours.

We met our friend at the train station nearest where the
church was meeting and we found an attractive little
pizza restaurant nearby. This is the salad that came
with the pizza. Minimalist, but tasty.

I took a friend to Yokohama and we met another friend who lives down there for lunch, Bible study, and then church at 2.15. We joined with a small OMF church plant for their worship time. 

My intention was to introduce our friend, who's moved to Yokohama, to a church down there. It was also a good thing to do. It's not very often that we get to see what other OMF colleagues are doing. Seeing a young church plant reminded me to pray for our colleagues even more. It's tough, slow work in Japan!

Consequences
I was pretty tired at the end of the weekend. But I'd been fairly tired to start the weekend. I've been dodging illness-bullets for some time now, but obviously not taking time-off over the weekend was all that was needed to end my winning streak and I ended up at the doctor with an infection yesterday afternoon. I was pretty wiped out from lunch on. Thankfully it's an easy-to-treat infection and I'm already feeling better.

I'm thankful too that my job is fairly flexible and it isn't usually too hard to take things easy if I need to. The trick that I haven't yet found is how to avoid these situations altogether. I don't think I'm terrible at managing my time, but somehow I get over busy and I periodically get physical reminders like this, that I need to take some time to rest.. Probably it's a great blessing that these are relatively small things, gauges to help me see when I'm getting too worn out.

At this point I'm looking forward to our holidays. We're going away for a while in July. The rest is much needed and much anticipated. For three of the nights we'll be camping at Lake Tazawa (check out the lakeside campsite) towards the north of this island, with other venues planned either side of that. I'm looking forward to new experiences and stepping away from most of my responsibilities for a bit.

A quiet weekend

It's been a quiet weekend, which has been weird, but very welcome after six straight weekends of wrestling.

The name of these harks back to when our boys were
younger. I modified Jam Drops to be Monster Eye
biscuits because not everyone around here likes
jam, but everyone likes chocolate.

Two of our boys were away on a youth group camp, leaving us at home with our 14 y.o. That was weird.

He was the boy who didn't wrestle this year, so we took him out to a restaurant of his choice. We went to a Japanese all-you-can-eat restaurant at our local shopping centre called "Farmer's Market". It's a great place that we've been a few times. At about AU$17.50 for lunch (and 70 minutes to eat) we did pretty well, especially with how much he ate. 

What was especially amusing was a five y.o. boy on the table next to us. He couldn't stop staring at us and I finally talked to him. He was fascinated by how much our son was eating. We chatted for a bit, then his family had to leave. By that time we were trying on a few English words. We tried out "See you later" and he asked, "Will I really? Do you come here often?" When his parents finally got him to leave he came back several times to say goodbye. It was hilarious.

At 4 I had a video chat with my life-long friend, Mel. That was, as usual, wonderful and life-giving. We're already making plans to spend face-to-face time when I'm back in Australia next year at this time helping our eldest to settle into university (Lord willing).

Not much else happened yesterday. It was wonderful.

Today we went to church as usual. We're now dealing with "fame" as various people stop us and congratulate us on our son's win. The first thing our pastor said to us when we arrived was, "Is your son coming today?" Well he wasn't, but our pastor wanted to tell congratulate him in front of everyone!

After church I met with my Taiwanese friend to learn a new Bible story and review the previous three we've learnt (see here about how this started last November). Unfortunately our Malaysian friend has moved and couldn't join us, but I continue to be amazed at how fun it is to go over these stories that I'm so familiar with, and help someone else to learn them. A very different feel to an intellectual Bible study.

It was a gorgeous day and I rode home as usual along the local rivers. The temperature was about 12C with no wind and a clear sky. Plum blossoms are appearing around the place. I've seen them on people's FB pages, but not had a chance myself to stop and take a photo on a nice day. Here is what I snapped on the way home today.

After lunch I had my usual time-out in bed, reading, playing games etc. Then I came downstairs and did some baking. I tried a recipe that's been in my typed recipe book since I left home (during university holidays more than 20 years ago I typed out a lot of my mum's favourite recipes, and I'm still using many of them). I don't believe I've ever made this cake: Gugelhupf. It's turned out well, though I didn't have a special Bundt pan to use. I hope the boys enjoy it. If it's okay I'll be taking some with me to the women's retreat I'm going to on Wednesday. I also made the Monster Eye biscuits that I put at the top of this post.

Then the rest of our family came home and all of a sudden we have a full table and and full washing machine. The fridge, however, is considerably more empty...

The lowdown on yesterday's day of wrestling

Sorry for the poor quality of these photos, I've pretty much
given up on taking photo. These are screen shots of the videos.
This feels like a retro photo. Our youngest son pinning his
opponent, something his big brother has done many times
before. Of course our eldest is much bigger now, so seeing
a younger, smaller version of the same thing takes me back.
The coach in the background is the same too: Coach Rudd
who patiently answered all our questions in those early years
of attending those meets.

Well yesterday, as expected, was a big day. We all left between 6.10 and 7am and got back between 4pm and 6pm. 

We didn't go so far distance-wise. 11km for David and our two oldest boys to the high school meet at the American School in Japan (ASIJ), about 45 minutes drive to get there. 22km for myself and our youngest to the middle school meet at  Yokota US Air Force Base. It took us about an hour to get there (longer to get home, because I missed a turn and took a while to figure that out).

Our school is at the top right in this map. These weren't our exact routes,
but are close enough to give you an idea.

This was the first time I'd seen our youngest son wrestle live in Japan. And one of the few times I've missed our eldest son wrestle in Japan. 

Our eldest son piling on the points in his second match
yesterday. These two have opposed one another many times
in the last two seasons. They've both won, so the outcome
is never certain. However our son has not been beaten by
him yet this season.

It was like going back in time, just a little. We cut our teeth in wrestling on two seasons of middle school meets. Going back to that was indeed interesting. Middle school meets are less intense and slower paced. 

But I missed sharing the day with my veteran-high-school-wrestling-parent-friends. We had a lot of parents at the middle school meet (eight parents for seven kids plus the coach), but most were at their first or second meet watching their brand-new young wrestlers. But it was fun to help them understand some of what was going on, like how a ref decided who won in the case of a match finishing in a tie. Or why a wrestler might do the move you can see our eldest doing in the lower photo here: grabbing the opponents legs and flipping them over.

However, those same high-school-parent friends were messaging me with regular updates from the high school meet. One even did a Live video on Facebook with our son's most challenging bout (the lower photo is a screenshot from that bout) and I watched it in the foodcourt at the air base just before we left for home. So encouraging to have friends do that!

The surprise for me yesterday were the girls. This is the first time we've had a female middle school team and only the third year we've had them in the high school team. They added so much life to the team yesterday. The boys were all pretty quiet and keeping to themselves, but the girls were interactive and bubbly. I've often felt a bit lonely as one of the few females around (though having enthusiastic mum-friends coming in the last year has been wonderful). I'm okay with hanging with "the guys" but yesterday was delightful.

Not just joy and personality, but they were so intelligent about their wrestling. They were asking questions, analysing the bouts gone, and planning ahead for the coming ones. Always learning. And they were good. They've impressed others too. I talked to some of the female wrestlers from another school who expressed their admiration (and fear). Additionally on the end of one of the videos we heard (presumably) a coach tell his wrestlers: "If you guys wrestled half as hard as the CAJ girls do, you'd be really good. I'm not kidding'. They're mean!" They are very intense, but there are smiles as soon as the bout is over. They have great on-off switches. And they really enjoy their wrestling to boot!

I enjoyed the status of being the mum of one of the wrestlers that these new wrestlers admire (our eldest seems to be a bit of a hero...), but I could encourage them in the knowledge that his early seasons weren't spectacular. They could barely imagine that he was once 12 and in grade seven, skinny and lanky, and not winning like he does today!

If you're wondering, our girls don't train with the boys, nor do they wrestle boys in competition. I think that is something that's quite appealing to them (this clear line is not generally drawn at other schools). Not only is it not that fun for a girl to wrestle a boy, it's not that great the other way either. 

The lowdown on the results from yesterday are this:

17 y.o. son: There were three "duels" (see Friday's post), but one school didn't have someone in our son's weight category, so he school full points for the team by just turning up. He won his other two matches too.
11 y.o. son: He had a round robin competition and was in a four-"man"-bracket. He won two of his three bouts and got a silver. 

This afternoon I'm trying to rest in preparation for getting back into "real life" tomorrow. Though my body has finally succumbed to a cold, after three days of a scratchy throat and slightly drippy nose. Perhaps yesterday was the last straw? Unfortunately it isn't a slow week, but if things continue to go south (especially with my inevitable asthma), I may have to cancel some things.

Snapshots of our weekend

Yesterday we spent a whole day supporting one of our boys as he did sport. It was our middle son doing track and field again, his last meet of the season. 

It was almost inner city, close to Tokyo  Harbour. Only 30km, but it has taken us 2 1/2 hrs to drive in the past, so we went by train, much more reliable. The closest stop is actually on the monorail to one of the airports. I took this photo out our window. Looking back the other way our youngest said he was able to see even more trains at once than these four. 

I was slightly shocked to see someone Asian with his feet on the seats in front of him. It's not usually possible in a Tokyo train because for maximum capacity they mostly only have seats along the sides. I was "relieved" to see he had his shoes off though. Oh how "Japanese" I've become in some ways!

This screen shot of a Google map shows not just location but the route you'd take if you walked! The train route was more roundabout, but faster than 6 hrs. Only 90min. Our house being the blue dot and the red "pin" was the venue, a bit south of the city on what I think is a created island.

It was beautifully sunny. I tried to be sun-safe: hat, sunscreen, shirt, plus an umbrella because there wasn't much shade in the stands, but my soft winter-white skin still got a little burned. It was also gusting at times so today we feel a little crispy. 

I dressed in a t-shirt and knee-length skirt. It was glorious to be so free of clothes (I think it is the first time this year that my legs have been seen uncovered outside of our house). But in the morning, at 23C, it was still a little chilly if you stood in the shade. Hence my light jacket. 

Here's my husband (closest to the camera) and his colleague (also a CAJ maths and science teacher) both wearing the same school t-shirt and both watching their middle-school middle sons at track! Our families each have three boys of similar ages and similar sporting interests, so we've spent some time together over the last year. Terrence lamented yesterday that he'd forgotten to bring his sunglasses, that would have completed the "we're twins" image!

Here is our son finishing strong in the 100m (he's in the yellow and blue). He missed his PB/PR by 0.15 of a second. I love the photo that my iPhone took! 

It's a little unnerving to see these kinds of signs around near this venue. Gentle reminders that we live in earthquake prone territory and in a tsunami-vulnerable area.

The only photo I've taken today is this: my mother's day present from the guys. It arrived with an interesting, amusing story, but I won't tell you because that might just embarrass some boys. I love it, it's a great addition to my little indoor garden half-way up the stairs.

And the weekend was . . . crazy

Another crazily busy, yet good weekend has just passed.

Saturday

• An inter-club wrestling meet all morning saw our two boys have a rare opportunity to compete against boys their size.

  

  Four of this class, my senior Ancient History class,
  were there on Saturday night.

• While they set up for the above I ran a couple of errands: picking up my framed cross-stitch (see yesterday's post) and a digitalised version of some old family videos, including our wedding video.
• After lunch we drove to my parents' house in Toowoomba and had another family birthday party (our eldest turned 16 during the week previous).
• Dinner was held at Sizzlers with my parents and one of my sisters and her family.
• During dinner I presented the cross-stitch to my parents.
• The boys went home with their grandparents and David and I proceeded on to my 25th high school reunion.

Sunday

• We spoke at the church I grew up in (though it isn't recognisable as such any more: different name, location and almost no one who I knew from the 70s, 80s, or 90s).
• Lunch was with precious friends. Our matron of honour and best man and their six kids. Energetic, yet fun. And as always, stimulating and scintillating conversation.
• Then we came home in time for dinner, leftovers, actually.

It was all good. Tiring, but good.

Reunion

I wasn't sure how the reunion would go and was nervous. However everyone was friendly and welcoming. I got lots of hugs from people I would never have hugged at high school! It was interesting to see how we've grown into (mostly) responsible adults. I had some good chats, but the most interesting thing that was said to me was that I appeared much happier and more comfortable in my skin. I guess that would probably be true for most people in the room. It gives me hope as I raise teenagers myself, actually. Those days of insecurity and uncertainty do come to an end. The night ended too quickly because we had to work the next day and needed a voice to do so (the music was loud, but it really only bothered me because it made conversation a bit difficult at times)!

Speaking

Our official speaking engagements are now finished. We've packed our "travelling circus" away for another home assignment and are looking forward to retiring to a more private life in a few weeks. 

It's less than four weeks till we go now and things are gradually falling into place or, sadly, disappearing from the house into boxes. My preserved wedding bouquet has disappeared off the wall behind our bed, not to be seen for another three years. We're saying goodbyes that will last for at least three years. It's sad and every now and then I get teary.

But I'm glad for the weekend, it was the last overnighter in Toowoomba this time and it was a good way to finish.

Super sized weekend

The weekend turned out to be another super duper one. I won't bore you with the details, here's a summary:

• We went to Toowoomba, the place of my birth and where my parents and one of my sisters lives.
• While there we saw David's sister who was showing her alpacas at the Toowoomba show.
• My parents we on a steam-train journey for the weekend. When I dropped them off at the station on Saturday morning I got to see the train.
• I had a morning-tea birthday party with my two sisters, one of whom had a birthday. Six of our nine children were there too. It's the first time in many years that I've been with my sister on her birthday and seen her open her gifts. Such a blessing.

  

  Yummy homemade ice-cream cake (I didn't make it).

• We went to the Toowoomba show on its last afternoon. Bad decision. Many of the exhibits, especially the animals, were already packed up.
• We were ambushed by a sizeable storm while we were at the show. Thankfully we found shelter, but when all the evening entertainment was cancelled we decided to cut our losses and go home. Walking through the rain to the car pretty much saturated us. (We had no umbrellas, who carries umbrellas in Queensland?) When we got back to mum and dad's house we found all the power points were out (rang the electrician and owner: dad, who got us fixed up super quick).
• Sunday morning we visited another supporting church. We're getting pretty tired of doing this, but it was a good visit nonetheless. One boy asked, "How many times have you told that tsunami story?" Yep, we're getting tired of telling the same stories.
• It didn't take us long to get home (just over an hour) and we had a quiet afternoon. I'm thankful for that after a crazy social weekend.

This was one exhibit that was still open: the model trains.
Amazing attention to detail. The club has their own building
on the show ground property.

So, how was your weekend?

I'm really slipping here! Daily blog writing is my goal, but with the way things are for our family right now, it isn't working out that way. Perhaps when we get back to a more normal routine in Japan in August?

Anyways, our weekend was like this:

Saturday
Morning: Wrestling training for the boys. Gym work for us.
Afternoon: Cricket. Yes, finally got to see some live cricket. 

Evening: Pushing a boy through an assignment

Sunday
Morning: Church, our home church.
Afternoon: Nothing! We rested, played computer games, ate. Nothing else.
Evening: David and I had an at-home date.

By last night I was feeling pretty rested. Yep, it was a good weekend. Here are some more details.

Cricket
We watched a couple of hours of two state teams playing one another in a first class (4 day) match. Queensland vs South Australia. It wasn't highly exciting, but unexpectedly relaxing. Great to have actually been inside a stadium while someone's playing. I loved it.

The most stressful thing was that I had a mild headache through the afternoon and then we had public transport woes on the way home. What should have taken one hour, took two and we were all a bit disgusted by that. Not entirely the fault of the public transport (they did have electricity out on our train line), in the heat of the moment we impulsively made decisions that seemed okay at the time, but turned out to be bad.

David noted as we neared home that it had been great to get out and do something just for fun. Just for us. So much of what we do socially is purposeful, it's because of our job that we're catching up with people, having them over, talking, talking, talking. Sounds a bit cold, but it's true. If we were just here long term, we'd see people, but not so many in such a short period of time. It's been intense. So going to the cricket was just for us and it was super!

Assignment
Yep, still struggling with that boy (see here). The school is working with us and we've sought some professional help that hopefully will help him get some better coping strategies for the future. So I'm feeling more hopeful, but it is still hard. Great to know that lots of people are praying for us all.

Church
Being back at our home church was great. We'd only been away one weekend, but it felt longer. We just feel comfortable and accepted there. Not as if we have a special label on our heads. We can relax.

Plus, people told us they were praying for us. That is something I struggle with in Japan sometimes, not knowing if people are praying, so it's encouraging to hear it face-to-face.

Doing Nothing
Coming home after church and eating lunch with just us. Then blobbing for the whole afternoon followed by another meal with just us. That was awesome and happens all too rarely at present.

At-home Date
Well you don't need the details of that, but, like the cricket, it was nice to just kick back and do fun stuff. Many of our evenings have been busy out (including youth group, wrestling, meetings, Bible studies etc), even the ones at home we've been helping our son with assignment work. So Sunday night was good.

I continue to be thankful for the many blessings and am trying to rely on God my Rock for strength every day.