Change is in the air

The dominant theme in my week has been transition planning at work. Yes, I know, I've been thinking about this for months, and rightly so, it's more than one complicated problem that I've been trying to solve. But this week I feel like I made it past a tipping point in the planning and was able to get some plans rolling. Each day I've been juggling my usual work with communicating with people (via email or video call) about jobs I'm going to hand off to them, or how their particular job will change with me stepping back. 

It's exhausting and has come a bit to dominate my thinking over the last months. And, while I'm happy to be making visible progress, I think I'll also be happy to make it past the planning stage into the execution stage and see a visible reduction in my workload on this side of the ocean, to make room for new things.

End-of-senior-year pressure cooker

I'm very happy this is my last time as mum of a senior at high school. It's a lot of pressure and life is moving like a rocket for these kids at the moment. There is so much going on in these final weeks of school (graduation is two weeks from today), that it's hard for us parents to keep up. 

I'll be very glad for these two weeks to be over, but there's a bitter-sweet note too, as these friends with whom they have forged something very special, will be scattered around the earth, literally. Kids growing up outside their passport culture find "home" amongst other people like them, so at an international school the bonds are often stronger than you'd usually find in a school. During times we've spent in Australia it's their school and friends from CAJ that they have missed the most, even more than Japan itself. This is a much more "permanent" goodbye to that relatively safe place. Our youngest has been at this school since kindergarten, barring three home assignments, totalling 2 ½ years. During his life he's said goodbye to a lot of good friends, but usually one at a time, this time it's much bigger. So grief hovers below the surface of the craziness that abounds at present.

My experience of orchestral concerts has 
always been people dressing fairly formally.
It wasn't so on Saturday, but we had fun
nonetheless!

Something different

David and I did something totally unusual on Saturday night. We went to a symphony orchestra concert downtown. It was a suggestion I gave him for my birthday present. This is something really enjoyed doing when I was much younger: I have fond memories of my mum taking me to concerts as a young teenager. It's not something David has done much of, in fact, we have only once before done this as a couple, way back when we only had two kids, nearly 20 years ago! 

The concert was held in NHK Hall, which has a
capacity of 3,400! It was about ¼ or ⅓ full. NHK
is the national broadcaster in Japan, and the 
concert was recorded for TV and radio. Not sure
when they'll broadcast it. And yes, we were 
towards the back (there was a tier above us).

It proved to be a great experience, one that is very accessible in Tokyo. We can see concert-going in our future. We're definitely thinking about how life will be different as a couple and pondering how we can make that a rich and full experience, rather than the rather negative "empty nest" tag that it's often given.

Surprised by a book

I'm currently reading a book as research for writing an editorial for Japan Harvest on a topic I know little about: singleness. The book is called Sacred Siblings. Two people recommended that we publish a review for it in the upcoming magazine, but no one volunteered, so I decided to use it to help me write an article that I feel incredibly ill-equipped to write.

The book is not what I expected. It is very applicable to all people in ministry, but especially overseas ministry (their stated audience). I've been surprised to find that my experience as a married mother has come up many times in it. Married women with young children and single women have very different stories on the mission field, and not always in ways that you might imagine if you've not lived as each. It's interesting to have that written out in black and white, I'm not sure I've ever seen it acknowledged in print. 

I was struck by a story shared by one of the authors about two teams she was part of: one had a majority of married couples and the other had a majority of singles. She noted how the majority (no matter the makeup of that group) had a lot of difficulty seeing and accommodating the minority.

I'm nearly halfway through the book, but am already glad I've picked it up and hope that by writing about the book in the magazine it is picked up by others in the missions community too, especially the majority in leadership (largely married men with children).

My role is about to change in this area too with the remainder of my children leaving home, I'll soon be a married woman without children in Japan. I guess we've been living in the middle-ground for nearly six years now: with one of our sons living in Australia. I expect that this change to just the two of us here will give me a different perspective from that which I've had up till now—I've never been in Japan without children at home.

And such are the thoughts that are rushing around in my head at the end of this week. I'm also keeping an eye on the weather. I usually do a grocery run on my bike on Fridays and we have a rain front approaching us, so if I want to do it and stay relatively dry, I need to hop on my bike very soon! In fact . . . it's already raining, which is not what the forecast said . . . so do I don rain gear, or wait a little, or take the car?

We've run out of sporting events

On Monday and Tuesday this week we attended our last interschool school sports event as parents. Yep, another one of the "lasts". The first one we ever went to was in September/October 2010. I've just gone trawling on my blog to see what I wrote back then. I can only find one post from that season, and it was the cross-country finals that year in October, but it's not a very interesting post and certainly doesn't hint that we'd most likely be doing this "sporting parent gig" for the next 13 and a half years!

This blog post from the following year is a little more descriptive. I'm glad to see that my younger self was also tired out from attending Saturday sport. Here's a portion:

Saturday was the last day of the season for middle school cross-country runners. I have to say I'm a little bit relieved. Missing out on my only sleep-in day, and spending most of our Saturdays at cross-country meets has taken its toll and we're feeling a little taxed in our household. It will be nice to have a few quiet Saturdays to ourselves.

A classic example of how a sports meet
can be a great opportunity to build relationships.
These chairs were brought by parents
supporting our team. No one seemed to care
whose chair they sat in. The one on the left is
ours. They became "team chairs" and there
was some lovely interaction going on
between team members and also between
supporters and coaches. I even heard one coach
coaxed to talk about how he and his wife
 (a teacher at the school) got to know one another.

David and I went walking on Tuesday night and while we walked pondered the ending of this parenting season. We decided it was a good thing, and that the future held "other things" that we could do on Saturdays. In fact, the Saturdays in the coming month holds some social outings with friends, as well as a night attending a symphony orchestra concert (birthday treat).

It's been a privilege to be able to walk alongside our boys and their sporting passions these last 13 years. I've written before that we're passionate about supporting our boys in their sporting choices. It's not easy as parents to forge relationships with teenage boys and showing interest in their sporting endeavours has been one way to show ours we love them. It also provides conversational topics, which as you may know, have not been easy to find at times in our house.

Getting involved in school sport hasn't just improved our family relationships, it's provided many friends and conversations with other adults and teenagers that we've treasured over the years. This was something I particularly missed during the pandemic: the opportunity to sit side-by-side with other parents for hours and hours at sporting meets. The family we go camping with is the extension of a friendship forged through travelling to and from sports meets! And that's just one example.

Putting the shot (he won gold for the
smaller school division and silver overall)

Before I ponder this any longer, I need to tell you that our son did really well at his last meet, the Far East Track and Field finals (with teams from military bases in Japan and Korea, plus some non-military schools from the Tokyo area like CAJ). He won two silver medals. One in shot put and one in discus. The discus event was an especially thrilling finish: he threw two personal best distances and beat a guy who was chasing him hard. He and his good mate topped the field at first and second place. It was really fun to be there and celebrate with them.

As I wrote back in February after the Far East wrestling tournament, "These moments when we get to intensely invest in our kids are soon going to get more difficult to find. I'm treasuring them." 

Well, we've run out of sporting events. There are just five weeks of school left. The remaining "attend-able" events are all in the last week of school—three events where we get to celebrate our son. You'll have to wait to hear what those are! It's going to be a big week of lasts. But also one of celebration: yes, we've made it, we got our boys through "grade school" as Americans like to call it.

 Correction: apparently “grade school” only applies up to grade 8. But “school” applies through to tertiary years. So I’m not sure what to write that everyone would understand. “We got our boys through high school.”?

Good memories, no regrets

Is another wrestling post warranted? I do want to document that my youngest son was crowned Far East Champion of the 215 lb weight class on Wednesday. He wrestled very well and none of his opponents could find much of a chink in his armour. 

It wasn't our first rodeo, as you may know. We went to Korea to watch our eldest son compete in the same competition six years ago. Each of their journeys was quite different. Our eldest did a lot of off-season wrestling in non-school clubs, and also had a two-year rival who he had wrestled many times and not always won (though his rival didn't beat him during our son's senior year, he did make him work hard for the victories), so when they faced off in the semifinal and again in the final, the result was definitely unknown. 

Our youngest son hasn't been able to do anywhere near the same amount of wrestling during his high school years, for various reasons, including injury and a pandemic. He has spent a lot of time in the gym, though, building up strength and body mass. At the start of the tournament he was also unbeaten so far in the season, but it's also not his greatest passion, so in some ways the stakes didn't feel as high. 

Although no one told my body that. I had the same physiological reactions: lost sleep, messed up digestion, raised heart rate, general shakiness and difficulty concentrating. When I'm at a wrestling tournament, I can't read (and I'm a reading addict), nor can I even feasibly play a game; we tried to play Scrabble on the second day, but struggled. Two nights of waking at 2am and not really falling deeply back to sleep, plus two days of sitting in a noisy gym, really did a number on me. I was glad to not have an international flight and then travel on trains back from the airport like I did six years ago, but it's been hard to get back to work these last couple of days.

One way to tell that you're at a gym

hosting a wrestling tournament...

you find this on the back of the toilet

cubicle door.

It was fun to go away with David, even if it was for two days of wrestling! We enjoyed doing this together, and shared passions are important as you move towards a time when your kids all leave home. We made great memories and I have no regrets. Oh, and it was fabulous being able to support our son like this.

One fun memory centres around hair. Our son's hair is now wavy and long (below his shoulders), definitely tricky for wrestling, where you can't use anything but hairbands and product to secure it. His brothers have always kept their hair short, so we've never dealt with this before. I've never had much to do with my boys’ hair, actually! But on Monday one of the first things our son said to me when we saw him was, "Can you braid my hair?" Wow! I've had short hair for nearly 12 years and I can't actually remember if I've ever braided someone else's hair . . . I wasn't that kinda girl. 

Neither of us had a comb and my first go at it was straight after he'd warmed up, so he was sweaty! We didn't have hairspray and only two hair-ties, so it got messy pretty quickly after he helped a teammate warm up for a match (they use their heads quite a lot). He wanted me to redo it then, but we weren't sure when his first match would be, and I was already shaky. Braiding hair with shaky hands isn't recommended. 

I was particularly nervous that I'd get partway done and he'd be called up for his match. There's no waiting if you're called. It's something that new wrestlers (and their parents) have to learn about a tournament: there's no timetable, you simply wait for your name to be called, and it can be excruciating (and hard to figure out when to eat). Once you're called, you've got to hoof it to register that you're present and ready to go, with all the gear you need (in your wrestling singlet and shoes and warm-up clothes, plus a water bottle and headgear). This tournament was well organised and had wrestlers waiting "on deck" about three bouts ahead. A bout can last 20 seconds or over six minutes, but they don't tolerate delays.

In any case, I couldn't see myself doing a decent job of braiding his hair in that situation, so I went for a "first aid" solution. My networking came in handy: I knew the mum of one of the female wrestlers, so I went to find her and ask if her team (which had several girls with long hair) had any hairspray. She went right to work and found a girl quickly who dug around in her bag, pulling out not just hairspray but something that looked like mascara. It had a wand that you pull across the top of hair that is "done" to glue those flyaways down—I had to ask her how to use it. Her coach, who I also know, was sitting nearby quietly laughing as I explained how I only had boys and needed help here. She was great!

Well, it worked, and he made it through his first match without distracting hair in his face. Then we had time, and I had another go at braiding it and did slightly better.

The next morning when we met in the gym (our room wasn't near the team), I had a third go, before his final. This time I brought a comb I'd snaffled from our hotel bathroom and handed him some "action" hairspray that I'd bought the night before at the mall near the hotel, and instructed him on how to use it. Our boys haven't grown up with sisters, and he was only six when I cut my hair short . . . there are some things they just don't know!

It's a good thing the braiding was for practical purposes, not aesthetics, but I was pleased that because I was present I could do this one thing for him. In fact the whole couple of days was very much about being wholly present for our son (and his teammates). It was a joy to have the flexibility to do that.

Oh, and giving my sweaty son a shaky hug after he'd won gold was a highlight too. And he didn't pick me up, like he did his coaches!

These moments when we get to intensely invest in our kids are soon going to get more difficult to find. I'm treasuring them.

How did you even get into wrestling to begin with, and other questions

Last week I wrote that hoped this week would be better, especially that I could get some traction on my work. I'm pleased to say that that has indeed been the case. I'm on my fourth straight day without any meetings or other external distractions and I'm also in good health, which is a great help.

There's no avoiding it: this is going to be a "wrestling" post. But if you keep reading, you'll find out why we're so interested in wrestling and how we got into the sport initially. If you were following my blog back in 2015–2017 you would have seen a lot of these during this time of year. Feb 2017 was really a pinnacle as we watched our eldest son go undefeated in his senior year. There has been less wrestling for our family since then, for various reasons, including a pandemic, but we're now coming to the pinnacle of our youngest son's high school wrestling career.

Current events

Saturday was a huge day, as predicted, but a good one. We got up at 4 a.m., and I joined my husband as he drove the team two hours to Yokosuka, the US Naval Base south of Yokohama. We got on base very smoothly (not to be taken for granted; it's kinda like entering another country via immigration, except there are more guns and rules about what you can do on the "inside"). It was too cold to linger outside, so we entered the gym and sat in there for 11 hours, with teams from 11 other schools. The actual tournament went for about nine of those . . . continuously! It's an acquired taste. It says something about us that we weren't bored! Although I did try to lie down for a while on the hard bleachers, it didn't last long when one of our team was called up to wrestle and how could you not watch and shout encouragement?

Our son didn't meet his first opponent until around noon, so there was a lot of nervous tension up till then (at least he and I had nervous tension). And, to be honest, that tension continued much of the day as he had not previously wrestled any of his three opponents, so it was a bit hard to know how hard they'd be. Great result in the end, though—he came through undefeated and won gold. We were elated, but pretty bleary by then. The adrenaline (and dinner) helped us get through the last couple of hours on the road to get home.

Thankfully last Sunday was a quiet day and by the time Monday came around I was almost good to go! And now it's Friday again. This weekend looks different: tomorrow, for the first time in three weeks we don't have to put an alarm on, as there's nowhere to go. 

This Sunday, however, we'll leave from school around noon with the wrestling team and our bags. We're going to the "big" three-day tournament called "Far East Wrestling Tournament", the final tournament of the season. It includes US military schools from the whole region (just Japan and Korea from what I can tell), as well as the three international schools from Tokyo with wrestling programs (us!). That's around 15 schools and probably over 150 wrestlers. When our eldest was a Senior we also went to this tournament, except it was a bit more complicated, as it was a couple of hours south of Seoul in Korea!

David and I are only going to the first two days. But we'll stay the two nights locally in a hotel, which will save a lot of driving and time, and hopefully help us cope with the nine-hour days in the gym. But it will be so good to be there cheering our team on, especially spending time focusing on our youngest son, who has more often than not just had to tag along as we did things with his eldest brother. He'd been dragged along to wrestling meets for several years before he ever got to officially do it himself. It's great to have the flexibility to invest some time in his life alone this season.

Why have you gotten so involved in wrestling?

I did have to admit to a small group of missionaries that I met on Monday that "we're a bit nutty". It truly is still a bit hard to explain our passion for wrestling, although it's probably better framed as "we're passionate about supporting our boys in their sporting choices". That generally makes more sense to people. It's not easy as parents to forge relationships with teenage boys, and we've been very thankful that wrestling has been one way to connect with two of them. We've spent so many hours attending meets, but even more talking about it!

Wrestling is also something of a family sport. It's reasonably common to see multiple wrestlers in the same family (parent and child, and siblings). One family from another school who we've met many times over the years has four children; all of them have wrestled at school! It makes it easier if everyone is doing the same sport, that's for sure! But it's also true that kids are different and not all enjoy it. That's been true in our family. Our middle son had a couple of goes at the sport, but for a few reasons really couldn't commit to it.

How did you get into wrestling to start with? (something Australians particularly ponder)

An Australian friend asked us this last month. The story is pretty simple, really. At our school there are only two inter-school sports for middle and high school boys in the winter season: basketball and wrestling. Our eldest son tried basketball in his first year of middle school and he didn't particularly enjoy it. During PE that year one of the teachers did a single period introducing the 6th graders to wrestling and in that short time caught our son's attention. 

He took up wrestling in 7th grade and was hooked by the end of that season. He's not strayed far from wrestling ever since. In fact he's still wrestling at 23. He's part of a private wrestling club near where he lives and has twice competed in the Australian Nationals as an adult. Last year he won silver (which I always have to temper with the understanding that this is an extremely minor sport in Australia, until we introduced him to this club in Brisbane, we knew no one involved in the sport in our home country).

Is it right to feel proud about sporting success?

This is a question our eldest asked on Wednesday when someone he doesn't know mentioned his achievement as a senior. We were watching our school duel with another school on their live feed and there were two commentators hosting the event. We're pretty sure that the guy who mentioned our son was a wrestler when our son won Far East in 2017.

I'd been pondering that question too as I posted videos and photos from Saturday on my social media and received lots of congratulations and "likes". It's pretty clear to me, though, that there are a lot of factors that go into a sporting success like our son had on the weekend. So many things we have no control over: 

• They are actually holding tournaments again. If he'd been a senior in 2021 or 2022, he never would have had this chance! 
• Physical and mental health are things that we have a little bit of control over, but not as much as we'd like to think, mostly it's a gift. You may not realise it, but it takes a lot of mental strength to persevere at wrestling, and even more to succeed. It takes years to learn and when you're out on the mat, there's nowhere to hide.
• We've learned the hard way that the US Department of Defense requires very little to cancel sporting events. More than once in our 12 years of involvement in wrestling, a forecast of snow has shut whole bases down and cancelled tournaments. 
• Our guys are natural athletes. There's no mistaking that they've worked very hard (our youngest's muscle definition is something to behold!), but they also have a certain level of gifting for the sport of wrestling, that's not something they've achieved on their own, though they've certainly capitalised on it. 
• We've also had the opportunity to send our boys to a school where there's good opportunities for sport, that is definitely not a given when you are a missionary.

So yes, I'm proud and very happy that my son has put a lot of effort into this sport and is seeing some nice rewards just now. But there's also a lot there that there's no reason to be proud of, just thankful.

Flashbacks

I've been writing about wrestling as long as we've been involved in the sport. In 2014, when our eldest was a 9th grader, I wrote this in a blog post:

So, I remain an enthusiastic supporter.  Good thing too, because despite this season being nearly over (one more tournament for our son), it looks like we're in this for the duration. Our youngest wants to join the team as soon as he can, which could mean I'll be watching wrestling live for the next 10 years!

Yep, that has happened! Though this is our last year as parents, and therefore the deep, gut-wrenching involvement that means you commit to spending 15-hour days doing this are nearly over. 

 Here's something else I wrote about the sport in that blog post that you might not realise: 

For a combat-type sport, it really is interesting to behold how non-aggressive it is. Even while wrestling, there generally isn't nastiness, the best wrestlers are well controlled in their actions. They really approach it in a "gentlemanly" type way, with handshakes all round and even the occasional hug between wrestlers. Sometimes the coaches shout in protest about a call the ref made, but generally it isn't too major. And there's generally no nastiness (at least that I've heard) from the supporters in the stands.

If you've gotten this far you might be interested in reading one more thing. At the end of our eldest son's high school wrestling career, I wrote a blog post reflecting on wrestling and the season that had just past: https://mmuser.blogspot.com/2017/02/reflections-on-wrestling-this-season.html

More thoughts on friendship

Recently I was searching for something to listen to while I washed dishes. I'm a restless person who struggles with just listening and doing nothing else, so I've been slow at getting into Podcasts (I also don't commute or drive regularly). But there's a few that I've enjoyed dipping my toes into occasionally, and Undeceptions is one. It's a thoughtful, professional presentation on various topics that are often misunderstood or forgotten. The presenter is John Dickson, a Christian who is unafraid to address hard topics. He's an Australian apologist and historian.

The episode I listened to recently (over several sittings) is called "On Friendship". If you've read many of my blog posts over the years you'll know that I think (and write) on this topic pretty frequently. Friends are really important to me. It was great to listen to different perspectives on the topic, and especially men, talking about friendship. Often this is something we mostly hear from women about, so to hear guys talk about male friendship was really good.

I'm reviewing the transcript as I write, to remind myself of what was said, and here are some gems. 

John's guest, Sam Allberry, points out a reference in John 15 where:

Jesus is actually making a distinction between the kind of relationship he's had with his disciples and where things have now progressed to. And when he . . . talks about, "Greater love hath no man for his friend than this, that he laid down his life for him." It's interesting that when he is talking about the greatest expression of love, Jesus reaches for the category of friendship. He doesn't, in that instance, reach for the category of spouse or marriage as we might expect him to. (Like all the quotes in this blog post, it's from the transcript).

They talk about how a dominant cultural narrative is that marriage and sexual or romantic relationships are deemed the most important relationships, the real way to find intimacy. And the church has followed suit on that. Sam says, 

We've made the focus Christian marriage, I think in a way that's become unhealthy. A, because we've downgraded other forms of relationship that actually all of us need, and B, by doing so, I think we've put pressures on marriage that they're not easily going to be able to bear. And as a consequence we've made churches lonelier for people who are not married, whether that's people who haven't yet got married, or people who are divorced, or widowed, or people like me who've never married. Sometimes it feels like it's very hard to fit into a church family, and we use that terminology, if you're not married and don't have your own nuclear family.

We've downgraded other relationships and also sexualised the concept of intimacy. To the point of close friendship often being assumed to be a sexual relationship.

And they talk about the concept of mateship that is an Australian tradition:

I wouldn't necessarily say it's a form of intimacy, because if intimacy is being really deeply known and accepted at the same time, actually that's quite a rare thing. And we can have a lot of friendships, even long term friendships where it's not necessarily on a heart to heart level, and where it can even become awkward if someone is trying to introduce that element. And so we need mateship, that's part of what makes the world go round, and it's a social lubricant. But I think we need more than that.

An old photo of me and a friend with whom 
I've gone deep.

Interesting thoughts, especially today, Remembrance Day (celebrated in many countries as the day the WW1 ended). The Australian stories from wars are full of mateship. It's interesting to ponder the difference between an average mate and one with whom you've formed a deep relationship with.

So many great quotes. They talked about how marriages need friendship:

I've seen marriages implode because they were looking just to the spouse to fulfill every relational and emotional need in their lives. And I think there's a complexity to us whereby actually one other person is not going to be enough. And it's no slight on a wonderful spouse to say, "Actually I need friends alongside my marriage, not in place of it, but alongside it to augment it."

This is definitely true in our marriage and has been made even more clear over the last 18 months as my social circles have narrowed. My husband is wonderful, but he needs me to have friends outside our marriage, and when I spend time with my friends, that actually makes me a better wife and mother.

John quotes also from CS Lewis' The Four Loves, including, that friendship "has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival."

Last night it was a real joy to have a close friend of one of my sons visit us last night. To listen to the two of them giggling over their dinner (they had a youth group meeting, which meant they ate later than us) was precious. Even more treasured because they've been separated for five months due to his friend being in the US with his parents. They've survived being apart, but being together again is especially precious.

John also talks about how, in close friendship, there is a beauty about being known through and through with no judgment. No need to pretend you are something different to what you actually are. No need to present yourself in any other way than what you are. I think that's what I'm looking for in close friends: the ability to just relax and not have to put on any kind of act, to feel nervous about being myself or worried that I'll overwhelm the other person.

I think that's one thing that makes me very tired when I've been around a lot of people—that I've had to work so hard to find the right thing to say. I'm quite an intense person (even if it doesn't seem that way when you meet me, I put a lot of energy into interfacing with people). This exhaustion has been even more noticeable after months of not interacting closely with people in person.

I want my friendships to be deep, to both feel safe and to make my friends feel safe as we do life together. I'm encouraged by the recognition that friendship is important, probably more important than our culture and churches tend to make us think. 

Friendship for an expat is even more complicated and challenging than most people experience, and that doesn't improve with age. It's good to be reminded that it's definitely worth putting effort into friendship, even though many of our friendships are short-term, rather than the long-term that we long for.

How are you going/doing?

I've got some spare minutes and want to write here, but don't have any strong topic in mind. That's not good!

I had a writing friend ask me in an email if I'd been doing lots of writing. And I really haven't, although I have been writing, although much of it has been editing other people's writing. In recent days I've:

• written a prayer letter
• rewritten some elements of the Japan Prayer booklet (which is deep editing, basically)
• researched and written some Facebook and Instagram posts for OMF Japan
• written an email calling for articles for our Autumn issue of Japan Harvest.
• edited various short articles, from blog posts to magazine articles

So it really does feel like I've been writing, but nothing much longer than a few hundred words. 

At times it's been hard to stay focused and motivated. I know I'm not the only one,  that many people are struggling with staying motivated. I'm one that thrives on the next big thing. I like having things to look forward to on the calendar and whatever is there has steadily been scrubbed out. My emotions have been unusually turbulant, and that's been unsettling.

During a Zoom training meeting this week I unexpectedly found
my way back to this beautiful wallpaper (a photo I took during a
camping trip in Australia a few years ago). It was really lovely to
gaze at this image while listening to the speaker.

This week the school leadership decided that school wouldn't return to on-campus learning this school year. That means it's 17 more weeks until school begins again, Lord willing. I think the day they announced that I'd been feeling particularly frustrated with my "housemates." I was in trouble for walking too loudly, for saying the wrong things at the wrong times, for breathing while I eat. I tried to start conversations around the table and got shot down by teens. I couldn't find things to talk about that other people were interested in. And then school not starting again was like a nail in the coffin of my confinement. 

It's time to name losses and also lift my eyes heavenward. It's time to find some creative solutions.

So, here are some losses, in no particular order:

• face-to-face time with friends
• freedom to go out without concern about my health
• a haircut
• watching my boys run and throw at track and field meets
• the house to myself during the day, and the freedom that comes with that
• boys who are well-exercised, socialised, and are motivated by the usual rhythms of a class schedule
• a trip to Singapore for professional development and training with our mission
• a visit by our eldest this summer
• the opportunity to go to the Olympics and Paralympics this year
• mail that hasn't arrived from my family

Here are just some things that have comforted me:

• friends checking in that I'm doing okay
• randomly running into people (at appropriate distances)
• a small opportunity to serve other staff families
• opportunities to use my social media skills to encourage
• remembering that God is a solid rock that I can rely on
• the hymn "Great is Thy Faithfulness"
• opportunities to exercise in safe places
• books to read (loving my Kindle and the opportunity to borrow ebooks from the library, something I couldn't even do last year)
• remembering that many of those great writers of history were isolated or imprisoned at the time of writing (think Paul, John writing Revelation, 

OMF sent us a self-care assessment this week. It's taken me a while to look at it and I wondered if the topic headings might be good for you to see also:

Physical: food and drink, exercise, time out. I think I rate okay on most of these. Lacking on the "time out" front. I'm getting a lot less time on my own these days and that it tiring. 

Spiritual: personal devotional life and Christian fellowship. The first is about the same as usual. Second lacking a bit.

Emotional: this has been a bit of a struggle. It identified three different areas: healthy thought/feeling life, stress management, and leisure & fun. Probably it's healthy thought/feelings that I slip most on, not quite sure what to do with that. Mostly I've been trying to name what's going on inside and then reminding myself that that's okay, then try to apply scripture to that. Reminding myself that God is unchanging and nothing can separate me from him. Also trying to not pressure myself to be busy all the time. To understand that now, more than ever, I need to be content to be a little less busy and less focused on what I achieve.

Relationships/social: well I've already admitted this has been a bit of challenge. I've had some joy on that front this week and am planning more interaction with others this weekend online. A friend suggested that reading some girly books might not be a bad idea. Escaping into some female dialogue and stories might just be helpful. I love this creative idea and I'm giving it a go!

Ministry: appropriate use of time, and relationship with colleagues. This hasn't changed much for me. Much of my ministry was already done online and from home, so in that sense I'm very fortunate as I've had years to set up boundaries that allow me to stay healthy and balanced. This season has even allowed us more opportunities to connect with supporters in Australia. We've had one Zoom meeting with a prayer group and made two videos for supporting churches this month.

Areas of temptation/struggle: Hmm. Have I avoided difficult tasks? Probably. But perhaps not more than usual. 

Overall I'm probably not doing too badly. How are you? Is there anything you can change? Is there anything I can help you with? And if there's something you'd like me to write about, please let me know and I'll see what I can do!

Typhoon and wall-less school

It's coming to the end of another unusual week in our house and I'm feeling restless. I've had a couple of great topics for blog posts percolating in my mind, but no time to write about them. But I think what's making me restless are two other things.

Just for fun I added in some other photos from yesterday.
I went to a missionary-women's prayer and fellowship
day and we went for a stroll in the nearby bush. Ironically,
not so far from where our 11th grader was hiking.

1. We're waiting on a large tropical storm (called typhoon in this quarter of the world) to run over the top of us this weekend.
2. School has been unusual this week: it's an annual event called School Without Walls (nickname—SWOW) and has meant only two of us have been home these last couple of nights.

Typhoon
This has meant things cancelled: so we get another sleep in tomorrow, instead of cross country! But also, thinking about stocking up on supplies. Plenty of my Japan-based friends are posting about empty supermarket shelves. I'm thankful I was able to get to the supermarket early this morning and had no trouble getting what I wanted.

I did some preparation: I put my couple of outdoor pot plants in more secure spots, put our washing poles (what we have instead of lines and only rest in slots, so therefore potential projectiles) down on the balcony, and filled the bath with water in case we lose electricity. We will also pull our gutter ramp into the carport. It also just sits freely in the gutter to aid driving in and out, so in the event of us getting the 600mm of heavy rain that is forecast over the weekend, it will probably float away and cause a traffic hazard.

Aside from that there isn't much to do except wait. And pray that the winds weaken before it gets here, so that little damage is caused.

A bit over a third of the ladies at the meeting.

Beauty!

SWOW
All high school classes were cancelled for the week and they focused on other things. Our ninth-grader has been doing various group activities designed to get the kids to think about leadership and group dynamics. My husband went with the 10th graders (aka sophomores!) to a science museum on Tuesday and then on Wednesday for a two-night "camp" at Lake Yamanaka (where I went to my retreat in May). 

Our 11th grader (aka junior) went hiking in the wilderness west of Tokyo on Tuesday. It's a big event where they carry all their equipment and food with them and trek. The yr 12s or seniors, flew to Nagasaki (not totally sure what they were doing, but I think it's more to do with Japanese culture and history than leadership).

Again for fun: this is the comfortable outfit I wore. I was
blown away by how many compliments I received!

Well, anyway. It's been a strange week. Tension as our 11th grader prepared to go on Monday and then wondering how he's going. Then since David left, I think I've seen more of our youngest son's friends in one week than I ever have. They've dropped in several times in the last couple of days! I'm sure it's got nothing to do with the chocolate chips biscuits I made on Sunday! It's certainly been an unusual, but enjoyable experience for me to see my son enjoying hanging with his friends here. Especially to see them so comfortable in our house.

I started this post not long before I got a text from our middle son asking me to pick him up from school in the car (a rare request as we live so close). It was drizzly and he had all his gear in a large plastic bag, which was awkward to carry. I ended up arriving there minutes before my husband drove the school bus in with a bunch of 10th graders and I took his small suitcase home too (he walked home a bit later).

So everyone is home now. There's been lots of chatter about the week. The sorts of things mothers of (most) sons don't often hear. I used to hop in my mum's car every day and chat her ear off about what had happened that day. That really doesn't happen much here. First I don't pick up the boys, but they really don't tell me a lot about their days, and I doubt that would happen even if I picked them up in a car. I'm glad that my schedule was flexible enough that I could be around this afternoon, even if it has meant that my work has suffered. The good thing is that with cross country cancelled, and the likelihood of a long and wet weekend with nowhere to go, there'll be time to catch up on a bit of work later (if the electricity remains on).

The upshot of it: it seems like it was a good week for all. I'm relieved, especially when I consider how one of my boys was not coping so well with life this time last year and yet he's had a great week and done well. That is great cause for thanksgiving.

First day of school again

Yes, it's the first day of school . . . again. It's our third in 18 months. First last July in Australia, then when we returned here in January, and now, actually in sync with everyone else around us, going into a new grade at the same school the boys finished at in June. It's a small thing, but also a big thing!

I think that we're pretty much recovered from our six-months in Australia. You might be thinking: Wow, that took a long time! Well, it did. Longer than I subconsciously expected. I've said it many times—international moves are a big deal. Especially when that involves children, schooling, and jobs. It is not like taking a holiday.

I have not been able to share on this public blog some of the private struggles we had during our home assignment, but believe me when I say that some of them have had a long-term impact on us. I think that now we are in a much better place as a family now than we have been for some years. It is good and we are thankful. God has helped us persevere through some tough stuff, I'm teary now even thinking about it. But all praise goes to him, not us.

However, I started this post with the intention of writing about the start of school and something about the challenges of our holidays.

I have no first-day-of-school photo. Our boys are very much of the opinion at the moment that photos of them, particularly posed family photos, are a ridiculous idea. I've tried a couple of times to get family photos this summer and it simply hasn't produced anything that any of us would want to share with anyone.

You can guess, therefore, that the battle of the wills in our house is quite strong. It always has been. Perseverance (or stubbornness) runs strongly through all five of us. And as you might know or guess, stubborn teenagers are sometimes not fun to be around.

This summer the boys have not been shy in letting me know their true opinion of just about everything: my cooking, my habits, how I talk, move, breathe, eat. I think my driving has been relatively critique-free, and probably something else that I can't think of now. But sometimes my growing-thicker-by-the-day skin has worn thin. I've taken myself into "time out" in my room more than a couple of times.

The boys have been out of school since June 11. That's a long time! However, it hasn't really dragged.

Our youngest did two weeks of "Summer school", keeping him busy for five mornings and five afternoons. He's also had a maths booklet to complete, fairly sizable, but a good review of all of the maths done in grade eight (helpful as he missed half a year while in Australia and studied different topics in maths there).

Our middle son has had a part-time job mowing lawns at school and a missionary property. He has also spent time catching up on on-line school work that didn't get finished in Australia as well as doing an extra maths subject so that he can do five subjects of maths during his high school career, instead of four. The latter has taken hours almost every day in the last month, but also David's, as both a teacher and parent (i.e. physical presence helps with focus). There was procrastination involved, but speeding through a year's worth of maths in just five weeks is no small feat, even if you are good at the subject.

We had our eldest son here for about two weeks and then we went away for two weeks. Plus two camping trips either side of that holiday.

David was acting head of school for a few weeks while the HOS was overseas visiting family, so he only really had a short break from being at school.

My holidays pretty much only contained those days and weeks we were out of Tokyo. In fact, our holidays made the weeks surrounding them quite busy as I prepared to leave and then caught up when I got back.

I think I had somewhat grand ideas about the "summer holidays". Many half-formed ideas that didn't get any further. We did have a couple of movie nights with friends, one BBQ, and a couple of other social gatherings. While we were away we made a concerted effort to leave work behind. I didn't check email for two weeks straight! I did get a good start on my new cross-stitch project and did a lot of reading too.

But now it is over for another year. We head into the last four years of having boys at school. I'm looking forward to the predictability and stability of that because I know that there are big changes coming up. Four or so years until everyone leaves. That doesn't seem so far away.

For now, I'm enjoying the peace and quiet of having no one here. Not even so much the quiet, as my boys are often quite quiet. But the peace of mind in knowing that there are no critics watching me. No one I have to check with if I want to go out or urge onwards with their work. No one who will be upset with my choice of music. I can have lunch whenever I want, without stepping on anyone's toes. (Of course, homework is coming . . . but not during my daytime.) Ah, the freedom. And of course they are happy too: they get to be free of hanging out with the annoying "olds" day after day.

Over the post-end-of-year hump

We've now made it over the end-of-year hump and are staring down the barrel at just over 10 weeks of holidays. 

Actually, we're still on the downward slope towards complete non-school involvement. Our youngest is doing a couple of summer-school activities over the coming fortnight, so he'll be out of the house for about three hours a day. David has bits and pieces of work over the coming weeks, nothing regular except that he teaches a summer hands-on science course for a week in the first week of July.

My work doesn't stop for the summer break, except when I make it stop (by handing it to other people or planning around a holiday) when we go away for a break. In the coming couple of months we've got two separate camping trips planned (total of five nights) and two-weeks in an OMF holiday house. So while everyone else's schedule slows down I'm puttering along at my desk in our dining room. Now the boys are older, that's easier to do, but occasionally it gets tricky, especially when they interrupt me when I need to concentrate on a longer task. A friend brainstormed with me about this, and I've decided on a red bandana (I haven't actually told them about this yet). If I particularly don't want to be interrupted, I'll put on the red bandana as a "closed door" symbol. We'll see how that goes.

We've also put together Summer Guidelines very similar to what we did two years ago. It will be interesting to see how we go now they're 14 and 16. I've changed it up by adding a periodic survey to help them self-check their use of time. It's easy to start summer holidays with good intentions, I'll report back later about how we're doing with it all. Tonight I'm waiting for our first boy-made dinner (Chicken Fajitas). I'm a little bit concerned that we might be eating at 8pm, though...

Another exciting event that's coming our way is our eldest son is visiting from next Monday for two and a half weeks between semesters. This time we'll be free-er to enjoy his company (when he came in January we were in the throes of adjusting back to Japan and in the midst of the school year). 

Here are a couple of photos giving you a glimpse of our last week.

This was another little bit of craziness added to last week. We had a boy go over on his big toe (as in, it was bent under his sole and he came down on it) as he played a ball game with friends. Thankfully not a big break, but the ligament pulled some bone fragments off. Plenty of pain and swelling, but he's recovering very quickly. Quite able to ride a bike, so this is how we got the crutches to church yesterday (though he's crutches-free from today).

The "Welcome" sign at CAJ standing stolidly in the rain as we celebrated the end of middle school for our youngest. Now we only have four years of kids left at "grade school"!

Re-entry thoughts

These last weeks have been so busy! Our youngest son started at his old Australian school last Thursday. A lot of the busyness since we landed in Australia was focused on getting key things done before he started school. 

This is an old photo from just before we left to return to Japan last
time, when our youngest son (middle) was representing the school in a
cross-country meet. Consistency, like the same school, has
helped us all in these big adjustments. 

Now we're left doing the less urgent, but still important things. For example, me getting to an optometrist, which I did this morning and ended up spending two hours there. 

It was a good experience, actually. Like the school our son is attending, the optometrist is the same one we've been using for years now. She remembered my face, which is a huge help, and has our records. The other big help is that she was born in Asia and came to Australia as a kid, so the idea that we're living in Asia most of the time isn't a big deal for her. The other lady in the shop who I dealt with had an accent too, and I asked her about it (we spent quite a long time together sorting out new frames etc.). She was grew up in Scotland, born to Canadian and English parents. She met her German-Australian husband on a Kontiki tour and now lives here with her two boys. So I wasn't weird to her either.

One things I've really struggled with in these last weeks is explaining. How much backstory is appropriate? At the optometrist it was very appropriate, because they were dealing with lenses that had been made in Japan and that I was less than satisfied with (another story here, about Asian optometrists and how my fears have been confirmed: they do tend to under-prescribe and it's bad for your eyes).

Conversational struggles
So here are some examples of other conversations where I've struggled to know how much backstory to tell:

Last week we visited the Ipswich Athletics club with our boys. Our middle son is doing online schooling and the deal was that he'd join a sports club as well. It's been a tricky experience: joining a club that you know very little about and that is outside on a field with no obvious "office" for enquiries or application. This was all made more complicated by what seems to be wrong start time on the website! 

I ended up talking to several coaches. The president gave me the spiel about the club and showed me where to sign up, but I struggled to explain our circumstances. Did I need to tell him that we'd been in Japan and that our boys had been in an American school there? (School sport is very different and has an impact on what we're doing now, rather than just rolling with the Australia school sports seasons.) Probably not, but it came out of my mouth, to my son's dismay (I could feel the eye rolling). I should have said just that we'd recently moved to the area and our boys were interested in joining the club...then waited to see if he wanted more information. But once you start down the road of giving too much information, it can be hard to stop.

Later in the week I took one of the boys back to the library to see if we could get them to get in a book that was missing from their collection and that he really wanted to read. I also wanted to change to passcodes on our library cards so that we could use the online catalogue, because we could no longer remember what they'd been from three years ago. The librarian had trouble understanding why I couldn't remember the passcode, because they routinely use the last four digits of the member's phone number. I guess we could have looked up our old phone numbers . . . but we just wanted to change the numbers to something more easily remembered for the future. So of course, to my son's mortification, I had to explain that we'd been away overseas for three years and couldn't remember the last four digits of our previous phones. I thought I did a better job of containing the oversharing, though.

But it's hard work every time: how much information do they need?

This afternoon I had to take a boy to the doctor due to an infection. We, of course, needed to update our details with them and it was almost like she was testing me. What was my former address . . . mind blank. I came up with the suburb, and then she prompted me on the street and I came up with the first of two digits for the street number. I lamely said, "We've been away for three years..." But didn't overshare and she was too busy to enquire about where we'd been. I probably redeemed myself by being able to tell her my new mobile number from heart (I've had to do this so many times in the last three weeks, it's almost tattooed on my head).

Benefitting from consistency
Earlier, our son had been shocked to hear that it would be a 20 min drive to the doctor. Why so far? Same principle as the school and optometrist—this is the clinic we've attended ever since our first home assignment in 2004. This was the place that told me I was expecting our youngest. They've got our records and our trust (though not all the doctors are fabulous, generally we've been satisfied, and the huge thing is that we're not new patients, which can be a barrier for getting an appointment). It's given us consistency, in a strange way, to use these same services over the years, even with the big gaps in the middle. The other one is the dentist, who also was born in Asia and loves that we live there, which makes the matter of getting dental work done much sweeter!

This has become quite a long post, but I hope it gives you a glimpse into the daily, probably invisible challenges that we're facing at the moment and tend to sap my strength.

Celebrating 19 years of parenting

Today we're celebrating 19 years of being parents. 

Might sound a bit weird to you, but here's my reasoning. The other day I was feeling a bit sad that this is the first birthday that we won't be with our eldest son. So, I decided instead to have our own little celebration: that of becoming parents and surviving this long. It's not an insignificant achievement and worthy of a cake! We won't go as far as having candles, party food, or presents, just a simple cake.

Even if my boys think it is a little odd (only guessing, it hasn't been said), no one is about to refuse cake—special birthday-cake recipe, no less.

Nameless grief

I'm sitting at Narita Airport typing this. I'm just a little early for checking in and our son hasn't arrived yet, so I thought I'd sit down and process today a little in words. It's been a big day so far, and I won't see a bed for more than 12 more hours! Though I hope I'll be exhausted enough to sleep on the overnight flight.

This morning was really hard. Much harder than I'd anticipated. Watching our younger sons try to say goodbye to their big brother for five months was gut wrenching and tear-inducing. I know this is the right thing for our son, but it is harder to see how it is the right thing for his brothers. I don't want to invade their privacy by telling you about their relationships with one another, suffice to say that our eldest is deeply embedded in both of their hearts.

Missionary families tend to be tight. There are no other people in this world who come close to sharing all the experiences that we've had together. Splitting that up is super difficult.

Then I had my own dramas. I've had a medical issue that saw me at the doctor three times in the last month. Last time he said I didn't need to come back because things were fine, but if things changed, I should go back as soon as possible. Yesterday and this morning I thought I saw a symptom that warranted another visit, so I had to make the difficult decision to change my plans. Today was supposed to go like this:
8.30am Wendy leave to go to our monthly mission prayer and fellowship meeting, which is about halfway to the airport.
2.30pm Wendy to proceed onwards to the airport and meet our son who would make his own way there.
7.30pm we fly out of Japan

But getting in to see the doctor proved challenging and by the time I was done there was almost nothing left of the fellowship time at the meeting. Just a policy planning meeting, that isn't my forte, not to mention that I was already emotionally exhausted and physically not a lot better (sleep's been difficult lately), not in great shape to contribute to such a meeting.

And so I grabbed some lunch at home and headed off straight to the airport. Oh, by the way, the doctor was very reassuring and I've been told not to worry, there is no problem that he can see. Phew!

But back to before 8.30. I had to figure out how to deal with a distraught son. I tried to reassure him that tears were fine and normal. That our grief at this parting was a sign of how much we love his big brother. But of course I was weeping too.

Later, while waiting for to see the doctor I went for a little ride down the river. [There are no appointments, you simply line up and put your name on the list, the earlier you arrive, the earlier you get on the list...I was there 20 minutes before the office opened, but still had to wait two hours and since their waiting room holds barely a dozen, you are told when to come back, so it becomes like an appointment.] 

The small amount of exercise was good, but even better was hopping off my bike at a small weir. There were some gorgeous cranes that I watched for a while and then I realised that the weir held a metaphor for this stage in our lives. The water was calm, you could see the bottom (it's not deep). But then it hit the weir and it became chaotic and white and you couldn't see the bottom. It rushed over the edge and smashed into the water below and some of it hit a big rock. Further down the river the water gradually became calm again, though there were small waves and ripples for quite a distance.

It's a simple metaphor: We've hit a weir in our family. Things are bound to be chaotic and unpleasant for a time. But they will settle down again. 

I told our eldest about this when I got back to the house and his immediate response was to say, "Thank you Holy Spirit for that insight."

Naming the grief
Last week I saw a good article about the importance of recognising grief, even when it doesn't fit into what other people consider as significant or you don't feel able to tell others that you feel sad about it.

There are some griefs that are more easily admitted to, more "socially acceptable". Our grief right now fits into the more acceptable types, though that may not be so for our younger boys who probably don't feel comfortable talking to their peers about it. I hope that they can feel safe to grieve at home.

But much of the grief that missionaries struggle with isn't talked about and it probably just as little understood by those outside of the missionary community. 

I remember struggling to have joy about coming back to Japan last time and finding when I told someone I thought would understand, she didn't. She thought that my call to Japan would enable me to be joyful about going back to Japan. I was feeling the grief of once again letting go of Australia and especially all the new, precious relationships I'd made during my year there. That didn't allow me to feel particularly happy about returning to Japan at the time, though my emotions followed later.

Today's parting brings back many memories of people we've said goodbye to over the years. That probably makes it all a little bit harder for us all to deal with, even though we know it's the right thing and we wouldn't want to hold our son back from moving on to the next stage in his life.

So there are today's ramblings. I will rendezvous with our son soon and we'll go about all the details we need to take care of to get onto the aeroplane. In a sense I'm glad that we're done with the farewells for now (it was getting to feel like a funeral) and we can do some practical stuff then get into some hellos.