Enjoying some exciting days

It’s been two weeks since I last wrote here. Where did that time go? 

In school colours

Wrestling again

I've been at two wrestling tournaments in the last two weeks! The first was a single, but long day with a lot of wrestling and three or four hours of travel.

The second, the first four days of this week, were spent away with the school’s current wrestling team as a female chaperone and fan. Also as the wife of the team driver. I’d thought my days attending such events were over, but was grateful for an official reason to indulge again. It’s a sport that can really get under your skin and, yes, this event pretty much confirms that we’ve got the bug. And we saw a lot of wrestling. The days were long, I estimate we spent about 30 hours in the gym where the three-day tournament was hosted, with 300 or more other people. The sport itself is pretty quiet but spectators and coaches can make a lot of noise!

The first 60 to 90 minutes of the days in the gym started quietly as we were often the first school to arrive. It was a time that they had warm-ups and meetings, so I pulled out my computer and got what work done that I could. But once the wrestling started I inevitably found it much harder to concentrate and, having already dealt with the “lower hanging fruit” of my to-do list for work, gave up trying to achieve much more. Editing and writing take a fair bit of concentration and I was concerned that I’d probably make errors I’d later regret!

This was one of my favourite moments of the
tournament (it's a screenshot from a video I
took for the wrestler's mum). An unexpected but
vital victory in the finals of the duals.

Of course accompanying the team means you’re pretty much on from breakfast time to after dinner. They were long day, but not as emotionally draining as when our own kids were doing it, though I can’t claim to be tear-less for the whole event! We know how much these kids put into training and it’s amazing to watch and encourage and walk alongside them, especially through an emotionally gruelling three-day event.

What was particularly amazing to watch again was the value of a good team. I’ve seen it before: individuals performing above what you think they can do because they have the higher goal of wrestling for the team. The team aspect of this particular event was really on a different level for our guys, and they pulled together so well. Everyone’s contribution was meaningful, even one point made a difference (each bout they could contribute up to 5 points to the team’s total, it depended on if and how they won or even lost a bout). The end result for the semifinal and final came down to just 2 or 3 points difference between the teams!

The US Army base is situated on towards the
south-western border of the Kanto plain, and
has a pretty nice mountain view. Blue sky
like this also thrills my Aussie heart.

The guys achieved what no other CAJ wrestling team has achieved: won both portions of the competition. The team got the highest number of points in the individual portion of the competition and then also won the team-portion (duals).

We had another surprise when we arrived home on Wednesday night: a bunch of teachers and their kids were waiting for us in the car park with pop-out streamers and a big sign: Champs. So fun!

Both working (and matching in
wrestling team hoodies)

The other wonderful part of this whole event was doing it with David. This whole learning to live without kids at home after being married 27 years includes a lot of choosing to do things together. And this is a shared interest, so it was lots of fun.

Ah, but I’m raving on about wrestling before and most of you couldn’t care less about that!

Other exciting stuff

It's been a great week all round. A couple of "big ideas" I've been working on are starting to gain traction (running a small writers retreat for our mission and taking an international trip to meet up with others doing social media within our organisation). It's taken months of patient work to network, get permissions, and gather information, but I'm excited to see movement.

After some quiet weeks at work, I've also hit a busy time with the magazine: 23 edited articles to check with authors before shooting them off to our designer. They've all landed on my desk in the last 10 days or so!

But I love this kind of busyness. I've mentioned before that I struggle with the changes in pace that come with my work. Sometimes they are predictable, but day-to-day sometimes not so much. A couple of weeks back I started the week waiting on a lot of people to get back to me, and then on the Wednesday it all started pouring in!

However, I'm tired. I ended last week with a cold and then jumped straight into four days of what was like a busy school camp. We got back around 8pm Wednesday and straight back into work on Thursday. I'm very much looking forward to a quiet, restful Saturday tomorrow.

Coming "home"

The day after our son's wedding we farewelled our two younger sons as they flew back to Brisbane and then worshipped with my parents and two close friends at the church of our son and new daughter-in-law. They, of course, weren't there. 

We briefly farewelled my parents after church. When I say bye to someone I often mentioned something about when I'll see them again; this time we were able to say: see you later this year. Our plan is to visit for a short time in south-east Queensland during July. Mum asked if we had dates and I laughed. Despite the blog post I'd shared the week before about looking forward to 2025, we'd barely thought beyond that weekend!

Home, with a new tablecloth!

Then had lunch with our friends and farewelled them. I wasn't ready for the farewells, but they happened anyway. We then gathered our stuff and left town, heading four hours north to Cairns. Australia is a huge place with long spaces inbetween many places (Tasmania being the exception to that). If you've been to our native land and haven't figured that out, then you haven't seen much of it! It was a tiring journey, but we listened to radio commentary of the Aussie women playing cricket against England. We cruised into a very quiet looking Cairns around dinner time, watched more cricket as we wound down in the evening, and crashed on the bed.

The next morning we were moving again: to the airport and back to a chilly Tokyo. The trickiest part was always going to be getting back home from the airport when we were so tired. We'd parked in long-term parking and once again cricket on the (internet) radio helped us on our journey! (Yes, we're cricket-mad, and not ashamed at all.) 

The most immediate culture shock we had was figuring out what speed to drive! Yep, we've driven for nearly 25 years in Japan and in 13 days forgot that most driving is slower in Japan than in Australia. Quickly sorted that and we were home in 1 ½ hours by about 8 pm. It felt odd, but also good to walk back into our apartment. It's at the same time still new-to-us and very home-like. We moved around like we were in a dream, reminding ourselves that the most urgent thing was being prepared for David to leave before 8 am the next morning (Tuesday) for work, and getting some sleep.

Some Christmas presents from our
sons that we received before
the wedding.

I predicted that it would take several days to get back into the groove, and that is exactly what happened. By Saturday we were exhausted and very thankful for a quiet day with nothing at all on the schedule.

Now those 13 days in Australia seem like a dream, except that every now and then there are reminders from our time there: like photos, messages from our new daughter-in-law, and things that we brought back with us. As usual, things have moved on in our absence, so it has been a delight to have a few friends here demanding to see photos from our time away!

So, we're going through the motions, but sometimes my thoughts and soul are still catching up with where my physical body is. It remains true that the last 12 months have contained much change for us, and I think I'm still finding my feet in this new phase of life. Please pray that I'll be patient with myself and people around me as I walk through this.

Wedding week (the short version)

On Saturday our eldest son got married. I have not been as close to a wedding since my own 27 years ago. It was a very special experience! 

We flew to Cairns (far north Queensland) on New Year's Day. It was a red-eye flight (this seems to be the most common flight from Japan to Australia, we haven't flown anything else in 20 years of flying from Japan to Queensland). We're getting too old for overnight flights! We arrived at our accommodation as the sun came up and slept most of the morning and into the afternoon. We slept again that night and drove four hours south to Townsville the next day.

Townsville is a coastal city of around 200,000 people. We've driven through there once, and had lunch there once. It was new territory! Our first meal in the city was with our son and his fiancé. Such joy! It's been six months since we saw him and this was just the fourth time to see them in person together.

The weekend was a quiet one, but I did get started on something I'd been pondering ever since they got engaged in late August: what was I going to wear to this summer wedding? I haven't been in a place where I could buy summer clothes, so this had had to wait (almost every girlfriend was asking me...). I had three friends on quick-dial to give me advice from change-room photos and I found a dress quickly in a most unexpected place. Our future daughter-in-law recommended a second-hand shop close to where we were staying and she was right, they had a large selection of classier outfits for amazing prices. 

On Sunday we had the joy of worshipping with the soon-to-be-married couple and meeting some of their precious church family.

Scrambling over rocks at Magnetic Island.

Monday we put on our tourist hats and caught the ferry out to Magnetic Island with our son. It was interesting to see an island I grew up knowing the name of, but never had any idea exactly where it was or what it looked like. It wasn't as touristy as I'd expected. The buses also didn't run as often as we'd expected them to, so we got stranded for a while in the middle of the day. Lots of "shoulda's" but it all turned out in the end. The day ended back in Townsville with a casual meal with our son and his fiancé. We lingered a long time in conversation after the meal, it was a night we didn't really want to end. We've not spent much in-person time with our new daughter-in-law, but we're growing to love her!

Tuesday was quiet. We took a walk along the Ross River, and also did a little more shopping, and I found low-priced accessories to go with my dress.

Wednesday was a work day and the start of the influx of the rest of our family into Townsville. We helped decorate the church for Saturday. David worked on chair-shifting and high-strung auditorium decorations. I ironed tablecloths and curtains for several hours. My parents arrived mid-morning in their motorhome (yes, the one we drove around Tassie) and helped out for a bit too. It was tiring, but a great day to meet more of the young couple's biological and church family.

Thursday we met my own mother-in-law and then late at night welcomed our younger two sons at the airport. We also had coffee with the senior pastor of the church—he and his wife have a special part to play in the story of the young couple, so it was good to have a brief time with him.

Friday was the day for meals and hospitality. We had breakfast as a family of six for the first time: us, our three sons, and soon to be daughter-in-law. I'm glad for the advice from an older friend to lock in this event. Then we hung out with our younger sons for the rest of the day. Took them shopping, had lunch, and played host to another wedding guest. Dinner was a BYO picnic on The Strand (park on the coast in the centre of the city) with our wider family who had joined us in Townsville by then. It was also a worthwhile time to spend together before things got a bit more formal the next day.

Saturday morning was quiet, thankfully, and then the wedding at 3, coffee with family and friends at a nearby coffee shop while we waited for the couple to return from their photoshoot, and reception at 6.30.

That's a short one-sentence paragraph! It was a beautiful, simple, God-honouring ceremony. I was nervous beforehand, but didn't cry. David, however, lost it twice—once while the bride was walking up the aisle and again as he prayed on the platform for the newly married couple.

The Bridal table at the reception. 

There were lots of family photos afterwards: thankfully all inside in air conditioning. I definitely underestimated how busy it would be. I didn't have a pocket, so kept having to give my phone to others. And I didn't take many photos, but did get a few special ones, including a selfie with the bride and groom.

We left at 5 for a local coffee shop with family and a couple of friends. While we were gone key people transformed the church into a reception venue with stunning fairy lights surrounding a dance floor. This was no small feat—the church is a former gym, complete with exposed steel beams and basketball hoops. But it was gorgeous. I'm looking forward to seeing more photos from others; again I didn't take many.

The most unexpected element of the evening was the dancing. First of all, I ended up dancing with my son after their first dance. The song they were dancing to repeated, so on the spur of the moment he grabbed me and she got her father. No practice...just shuffling around together and saying precious things. But later the dancing got a lot more wild, including the Macarena! Most of the guests ended up dancing, and for the first time in my life I was on a dance floor with both my sisters (and my mum shooting evidence). It was a lot of fun after all the serious planning and logistics.

It's no secret to those who know me well that I love a good, deep conversation. One of the best conversations I had the whole week was on the day after the wedding. I had some things that needed to get to our son and daughter-in-law's house before we left the city (and country), and ended up giving them to the pastor's wife. We had a very special, short conversation before the service which will continue to give me a lot of joy. Our son is far from us, but, as well as a beautiful new wife, he has people nearby who love him and understand him well.

We're now back in Japan, after a day and a half of travel, but like Mary, the mother of Jesus, I have many things to treasure and ponder in my heart (Luke 2:19).

Looking ahead to 2025

I wrote this before we left for Australia…and haven’t got around to double checking it and publishing it before today (9th).

_______

I'm a bit squeezed for time on this one. We're leaving for Australia at 3pm New Years Day (today). So I won't make this long.

Compared to the last two years, 2025 is shaping up to be much less dramatic. Yes, we do have two short trips to Australia planned, but neither involves moving house or country. But other than that, it isn't going to be a dramatic year as far as we know.

We are starting dramatically, however, with the first wedding of the next generation: our eldest son. That's our first trip to Australia. We're looking forward to welcoming a new member to our family (I'm excited about adding another girl to the mix!). And also exploring a new part of the state we both grew up in: Townsville in north Queensland.

Then we'll return, mid-January, to a mid-winter Tokyo to finish out the school year (in June). June will involve more travel: Hokkaido for a field conference for our organisation, then David (and maybe I) will travel to Thailand for meetings, and then on to Australia to catch up with family and friends and take a short holiday before returning to a steaming-hot Tokyo in August.

But, apart from the above details, I haven't thought a lot about 2025. I have some hoped-for plans for work, but not sure if they will come to pass. We’ll see what surprises come our way!

Many things I did in 2024 I will continue to do in 2025. These things:

• regularly walk with my husband (I averaged about 2.5 km a day in 2023) walking average 2024 = 2.6k
• study Japanese
• read lots of books (my goal for the last 5 years has been 100 books a year, I nearly didn't achieve that in 2024, but I'm going to try again in 2025)
• listen to English sermons at least once a week
• stay in touch with close friends regularly, and when I can, in person
• bake
• writing

We've also added in a regular 16 km ride on Sundays to get to church (when we are well enough and the weather is cooperative).

So we await whatever other surprises God brings our way in 2025.