It's different to any home assignment we've done before

This is a different home assignment to any we've done before this. Mainly because we've got older kids who aren't in school anymore. We don't have school pickup or drop-off to take into consideration, we don't have to get them to after-school events or sport. They are pretty independent due to the location of our house and we are free to plan our schedule without them. 

When I'm able, I've been trying to come here to
write on Tuesday mornings. This library is a very 
short ride/walk from home. I love that this time
we're very close to a regional city centre,
 it makes it feel more like Japan than when 
we've had to drive everywhere.

September was a prime example: going to Perth for 18 days, and then six days after returning we went to a camp for four days. The camp would have worked when our kids were younger, because it was during the school holidays, but probably not when they were teens. None of our guys are very extroverted and as teens wouldn't have appreciated four days away from home with 100 unknown peers and leaders.

This Thursday we're leaving at around 7.30 a.m. to get to Toowoomba (my home town, about 1 ½ hrs west of here) for a 9.30 prayer meeting . . . and then we're staying the night, in fact three nights. In the past we would have taken the boys to school and then dashed up to Toowoomba and planned to be back by 3 the same day to pick them up from school.

This is a tiny glimpse of what last time looked like: It's a strange job

It's definitely easier in many ways this time. We only have to move the two of us around. And it's allowed a lot more freedom to what we choose to say yes to, in terms of opportunities to speak and serve. We did a lot more work in the evenings last month than we've done before.

The downside is that while school and our kids restricted our movements, they also provided some structure to our decisions too. In the past we've often taken school holiday times to do family-related things (for non-Aussies, we have four ten-week terms here, with three two-week vacation periods between terms, plus around six weeks at Christmas). 

Many people assume we spend our home assignment close to family, however that isn't the case. We both grew up in country towns and moved to Brisbane to study at university. The greater Brisbane area is where we have most of our support base as that's where we were located when we began this mission journey. So none of our immediate family is closer than Toowoomba, and all of David's family is a day's drive (eight hours) away. It's been harder this time to decide when to take a chunk of time to visit them. 

Part of the reason we haven't gone to see our families yet has been work-driven (the Perth trip was timed to get to a once-a-year church camp from a long-time supporting church). And partly it's because we've prioritised our sons. A number of the things we've done with them in the last 11 weeks (yes, it's 11 weeks today since we arrived in Australia) have been time sensitive. For example, getting a learners licence as early as possible was important because getting a licence here is fairly dependent on the volunteer labour of parents, as 100 hours of driving experience needs to be documented before a test can be taken!

But in October we're hoping to see most, if not all of our siblings and parents (although I won't get to see David's family until Christmas time, he's driving up there with our youngest son when I'm busy at a women's convention).

Of course each home assignment is different, especially when you have children. But when you only do this every five years, things change. Other things, aside from our children, that have changed this time around (big and small):

• some churches no longer exist or no longer want us to visit them and some of our supporters and friends are no longer with us on this earth
• we're in a different suburb (yet again . . . we're yet to stay in the same suburb twice!)
• we're now in our 50s, I think that makes a difference to energy levels
• deputising when you've been serving overseas for over 20 years seems different, and people are commenting on that length
• we've also got a lot more experience and confidence than we did when we started off in 1999, before we'd even set foot in Japan
• Australia has changed, in small ways and big ways. 
• There's been a pandemic, for example. Hint: if you want to stop people asking questions about you, change the subject to the pandemic and they'll talk for a long time about their experience!
• I'm pretty sure that there's been a change in what stores sell: some places that used to be more generalist (e.g. Big W, Target, KMart), are now more specialised? I've been more lost here than I am in Japan in finding some non-food things!
• Australia continues to get more and more expensive, it's vastly different to when we first left in 2000 (Japan and Australia have flipped in comparison to one another in 20 years)
• we get to take long service leave this time!!! (for non-Aussies and Kiwis this is paid leave that you get in our countries after a certain period of working for the same organisation and you'll hear more about it from me next year as we prepare to take off in late March)
• my parents no longer live in the house I knew from the age of 15, so visiting them feels just a little bit different
• I've got two friends in south-east Queensland who I've been communicating with almost daily for the last five years, that means I'm feeling less lonely and disconnected here than in the past

But it's time to go and pack my bag for yet another trip away. Thankfully this month we only will clock around five or six nights away, compared to September's 21!

On the edge of ordinary on the medical scene

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

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

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

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

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

Skin cancer isn't common here

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

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

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

And life continues on...

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

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

Personal seal

One of the first things we owned in Japan:
a family seal.

Did you know that we rarely sign things in Japan? In fact I usually have to practise my signature a couple of times when returning to Australia because I'm quite rusty. Part of the reason I don't use my signature much here is that I pay cash for pretty much everything on a day-to-day basis. I almost never pull out a card to pay for something unless I'm buying it online. The other reason is that signatures are a relatively new phenomenon in Japan. Most often official things are "signed" using a personal seal.

It says: Marshall (literally maasharu)

Last week our eldest son had to open a Japanese bank account for taxation purposes. He needed a personal seal to open the account. At first we thought that he needed his own, but it turns out that it was okay for him to use our family seal or inkan. It actually turns out that he probably didn't need a seal at all, a friend told me her Australian husband has never had one and he's employed in a firm here in Tokyo. He does it all, as he would in Australia, with a signature.

Come to think of it, now, when we take delivery of postal items, they usually ask for a signature, not a stamp. Ha, there's always things to learn when you're living in another country. It feels like you're forever playing catch-up.

We were pondering this "seal" culture when I was with my language exchange friends last week. It turns out that Japan isn't the only country that still uses them. To me it seems to be a throw-back to ancient times when important people sealed things with wax, but China, Taiwan, Korea, and Vietnam also still use seals to one degree or another (see here).

Anyway, I'd asked one of my language exchange friends about having an inkan made for our son as she owns a stationary store and customers can order inkans through them. She brought a catalogue to show us that you can see here. I had no idea there were so many choices, nor that most people own more than one. There are choices in size, style, and even the material they're made from (from cheap resin and box tree to expensive ivory). 

In the close-up picture below you can see differences in size and style (not sure why the abbreviation for millimetre is rendered m/m). The one on the right is for formal documents for something like a company and there is no up or down (which is important in the ones on the left).

There is a more informative article about this topic here.

Cross-cultural sporting experience

Here's a post I wrote in May 2011, yep, six years ago, when we first began attending inter-school track and field competitions in Tokyo with our eldest son:

Yesterday we spent all day at our 11 y.o.'s track meet. Throughout the day I couldn't help remember...those years when I was a participant, not a spectator at such events. And also on the differences between the way Americans seem to do school sport and the Australian way.

Australian schools, in my experience, generally have three different streams of sport going at school. 

1. They have PE classes during school time, the number of which varies from school to school. This is compulsory for much of one's school career, or it was for me.
2. Once a week they have an afternoon dedicated to sport or some other non-curricular activity. There is a mixture of interschool team sports as well as within-school options like Ten Pin bowling, cricket, netball, soccer etc. During that time I even participated in activities like chess, film appreciation (really - that is the first and last time I saw "Psycho"!) and Tai Chi. These options generally change every term, four times a year.
3. Our high school had four different annual events that directly related in interschool events. They were the swimming carnival, athletics carnival (which involved track and field), cross country and ball games (the latter comprising of team events like captain ball, tunnel ball etc.). Each of these were all-school events where classes were cancelled, the first two being all day or day-and-a-half events. They were conducted as competitions between school "houses". A great deal of school spirit was involved in each these events, though many fellow teenagers chose to just be physically present, rather than spirited! These events, especially the first three, were primarily concerned with choosing the best athletes to represent the school in later regional events.

Our experience here within the international school arena in Japan is quite different. I don't know about other schools, but this is my understanding of CAJ's system.

1. PE classes extend from Kindergarten through to Year 12. And more frequently than we (that is my husband and I) had in state schools in Australia.
2. The elementary school has an annual Field Day. This is relatively non-competitive and encouraging event. It has no long-term goal such as selecting the fastest or highest or strongest for inter-school competition. Middle and high school have no such event. No swimming carnivals or all-school cross country events.
3. The international schools have interschool competitions in various sports organised during out-of-school hours. These sports include basketball, volleyball, soccer, cross-country, track, field hockey and wrestling. They have three seasons - "fall", winter and spring. 

Here are some things I find strange about the system we find ourselves in:

• The number three (above) competitions are totally extra curricular. You only "go out" for them if you want. The teams are selected from those who try out. I find this particularly strange for athletics - how do you know that you have the best athletes representing your school? How do you even know if you have your athletes doing their best events. 
• No weekly sports afternoons. If you want to pursue a sport you do it in your own time. This makes it hard if you are struggling to achieve academically or struggling to get homework completed. Though I do remember that my high school inter school sports teams did sometimes have after school training.
• They train very hard. High school teams train five days a week for two to three hours each day during their season. Middle school teams at CAJ are limited to three times a week. Even that was a lot when it was basketball training and it started at 6.30am! Consider that a number of students travel for over half an hour or an hour to get to or from school and there is a lot expected of those who take on sport.
• It has taken a while, but early on terms like "Varsity" and "Junior varsity" were very confusing. For those who don't know. Varsity is the school's best team. Junior varsity is like the B team.
• There are no age levels in the cross-country and athletics events. So our 11 y.o. was competing against all middle schoolers - some of whom are 14 or 15 years old (and looked it). Same for high school.
• Finally on the comparison front, I don't ever remember driving for two and a half hours to go to a simple inter-school event. We did that yesterday to watch our son run and throw. It was only 36 km, but very orderly Tokyo traffic includes hundreds of traffic lights in that short distance.

Whoa, this is already a long post. My thoughts yesterday didn't just encompass the above. You see, I was a runner. I even was a part of Little Athletics club for a few years.

My thoughts yesterday roamed into sympathy for the longer distance runners (400m and above). Been there, done that. In sympathy for the hurdles runners who slammed into hurdles. I never did like that form of the sport. I flinched as people jumped over the high jump. I remembered how I used to "eat up" the track when I ran and how that feeling suddenly began to fade at around 14 years of age. That was a strange feeling. I remembered running in a school relay race against Cathy Freeman (famous Australian Olympian now). My claim to reflected fame!

At the end I remind myself that it is just different, not wrong. Another thing to get used to that is not particularly a Japanese cultural difference, but because we're in Japan and have our kids at an international school, that will be what we have to work with for the next X number of years.

Since that time we've gotten much more used to the way it's done here. But I still field questions like: "What sport did you go out for in high school?" Just yesterday I had a conversation with a Japanese man about how he did javelin, yes, just javelin, for about seven years during school and uni. That's how they do it in Japan. Each country has a different philosophy of education and it's good to remember, when we start to compare and contrast the systems, that no single system is the "right" system, there are good things to be found in them all.

Tardy?

Culture: we meet it everywhere. You do too, you probably just don't notice it so much. Every school and community have their own mini-culture even amidst the larger culture of your regional, state, and national context. It's a complex concept, here's one definition: 

Culture is the characteristics and knowledge of a particular group of people, defined by everything from language, religion, cuisine, social habits, music and arts. (From here.)

Every day we're reminded that this isn't the place we grew up. There are things that jar, or surprise, or just leave questions in our mind. As we've lived here now for most of the last 16 years, many of the more superficial things have become more automatic, like taking our shoes off at the door or the specific way that it's acceptable to line up and enter the train. But there are other things that don't come so naturally. And others that we don't feel comfortable with but do because it is acceptable and in this conformist culture we do our best not to stick out too much.

Here's a couple of cultural things I met yesterday:

Communal slippers One thing I don't feel particularly comfortable with is wearing communal vinyl slippers at a medical/dental clinic when I have bare feet. My feet are bare at this time of year because I wear sandals and no socks and I never remember to take socks. 

This was me for an hour and a half yesterday at the orthodontist. I'd rather just have bare feet, but it isn't the thing to do, apparently. But I can't help but wonder who else has worn these and what kind of feet-germs they were sharing with me!


Tardies
As probably know, we have more than one culture that we deal with. CAJ has a culture of its own, a mixture of American, Japanese, and smattering of other cultures (but not much Australian).

We got this in an email yesterday about the new middle schoolers (6th grade, the grade our youngest has just entered). I really like this aspect of CAJ middle and high school culture, even if it is slightly oddly named:

The first two weeks of school will be a grace period while the students adjust to switching classes and using lockers. Tardies for being late or unprepared (coming to class without the needed supplies, including completed homework) will be issued after that.

If a student accumulates a certain number of tardies in a semester (15 for 6th graders, 10 for 7th and 8th graders) they have to pay for and attend Saturday school. For sure it has added stress to our lives at times, but I'm glad that the school has consequences for poor behaviour. It certainly has our new middle schooler's attention!

Have you encountered a cultural difference recently? It's interesting to note that that's what they are, just differences. Even changing churches or schools or moving house in your passport country results in small cultural challenges. We'd love you to share if you've noticed one.

Wednesday in Bangkok

Conflict. It's not something I enjoy. But we talked about it today. 

These two little figures in the garden are presumably welcoming us to the
Bangkok guest home (I can't read their Thai signs, but the word in English
behind them on the seat is "Welcome").

There are many reasons for interpersonal conflict, but add the context missionaries are working in: multicultural, interdenominational, and international factors multiply the areas for conflict. Not to mention that this "profession" attracts strong-willed people. It's a wonder there aren't more conflicts than we already see. 

So we've spent a lot of time looking at the Bible and seeking God's wisdom on how to cope with challenging relationships. Here are some themes:

The dining room. This was morning tea, they'd just sung to a birthday
"girl" and were cutting the cake.

• Love
• Choosing to let some things (many things?) go
• Forgiving
• Bearing with others
• Remember we are battling, not flesh and blood, but unseen powers and authorities.

 And then there's times when working to resolve conflict is needed. Some brief Bible study shows themes such as:

• asking for a second opinion can be helpful (Prov. 18:17)
• reconciliation is recommended, not reconciling impedes our relationship with God (Matt 5:23-24)
• don't judge others, look inwards first (Matt. 7:1-5)



Coming from a bleak Tokyo winter, it has been a delight
to see vibrant flowers in bloom. No idea what this is,
anyone?



This is the room we've been spending our days in. I love that three out of four
walls are glass sliding doors, and that outside them you can see green
grass and garden. Again, a delight to the eyes of someone who's been
somewhat cloistered inside during a Tokyo winter.

• speak the truth in love, grow in Christlikeness (Eph. 4:15-16)

We've spent just a little bit of time looking at conflict styles at the Kraybill Conflict Style Inventory. I found this interesting, but it will take some time to process. Generally I try to avoid conflict, but what I do if I can't is quite dependent on context (eg. how I'd deal with a writer or a team member is quite different to how I deal with a family member or a child). My tendency is to compromise or cooperate in finding a solution. It's an interesting area to look into, but to absorb it I have to pull my head out of the shell and dare to think about conflict!

One of the workshop participants had her birthday today. To celebrate she
and her husband invited those who wanted to come to join them at a
Mexican restaurant. A real treat for missionaries working in much of Asia
where there aren't many such restaurants.

On a personal note, my father-in-law seems to be going downhill pretty quickly. He's in hospice care and on significant, continuous pain management now. It's a waiting game for us, whilst getting on with daily life, which is a different kind of waiting that my in-laws are doing. Sitting by his bedside must be really difficult.

Culture shock while driving

Look at this lovely road we drive on every time we
leave home in Australia! 

I've done so much more driving here than I ever do in Japan, mostly because things are just much further apart. One of the closest places to us that we go to regularly is the school, and it is 3.5km away (instead of 300m). 

Today I drove 20 minutes to take our son to the doctor, some of that drive was a 100km/hr as we're close to an expressway. We go that far because we have a medical centre we like and have used since our first home assignment in 2004/5 and have just stuck with it, even though it means a bit of a drive. 

View out of the front bedroom. The road
changes width just there.

As I was driving home, our ever observant son pointed out that the two lane road we were on was very wide. Indeed he was right. At that point the road could have been four lanes and still been more spacious than many roads in Tokyo.

Yes, driving here is much easier than in Tokyo. The traffic is less, the roads are wider and there are generally few pedestrians, cyclists, poles, road signs or rubbish bins on the roads to dodge! 

Can you see that power pole on the road?
That's outside our house.

I'm serious! On the two-way road we live on in Tokyo there are all of the above. Very often you have to give way to a car coming the other way because you can't get around one of the above obstacles on the road. Then when you get to the end of the road: a T-intersection, you often have to jiggle a bit to give way to cars turning into the road because there simply isn't room for them to get past you while you give way at the actual intersection. 

I could write a lot about driving differences, but I really need to get to bed, so I'll just give you one more: this is something I've been tempted to do in Australia, but somehow I don't think other drivers would understand my Japanese non-verbals.

Rich diversity

Some of our OMF colleagues. I can identify about nine
different countries represented here. I have no idea
how many different church backgrounds are represented.
It isn't something we generally talk about.

Theology is not something that I talk about a lot, here or elsewhere. That is, about the various theories that abound about God and our faith as Christians. It has occurred to me today, though, that I'm living in a slightly unusual situation. Most Christians hang out with other Christians who are of the same theological strain as them. That was true of me, mostly, before I became involved in missions. I'd attended Presbyterian churches all my life. I did go to a Lutheran Primary School (Gr.1-7). And hung out at various Scripture Union events (which is interdenominational).  But generally, I fellowshipped with people who had the same sorts of beliefs as me and same "habits" too.

But then I joined a mission organisation that is interdenominational. Mostly OMFers are not charismatic or ecclesiastical and certainly not Catholic; so there is less diversity than in the general Christian population. But for the most part, what theological differences there are are not spoken of in general fellowship. On Monday, it was a little shocking, therefore to hear a short-termer criticise another mission's theology. Especially when I have friends in that mission.

That same short-termer was amazed at OMF's internationalism. It was the first time he, an American, had been in a small group when there were no other American's present. We had a Singaporean couple, a Brazilian, and me, an Australian. Yet the rest of us "old-timers" were not fazed at all. We've grown used to the diversity, of race, but also theology.

Yesterday I participated in a Beth Moore Bible study. It is "driven" by a workbook and DVD sessions by Beth. This one is on Daniel and now she's teaching from the second half of Daniel about end-times events from a pre-millenialist perspective (granted, she's explained the other views also and recommended we learn about them all). That is totally new to me. It is not what I've been taught in my church background. The ladies who attend the Bible study have a variety of beliefs too.

This morning I prayed with some other parents over our school. There are a variety of prayer-habits and theologies there too. The man on my left was "Yes, Jesus" and "Amen" every second phrase. The man on my right was praying some sermons, including some weird theology that I won't even try to explain here. Often we have Japanese-speakers in the prayer meeting and they sometimes pray in their heart-language of Japanese. It ends up being a rich environment of fellowship. We don't argue, we don't agree, we just pray.

So, it is an interesting environment that we function in. It's not unique to mission: I know that when my husband worked in a Christian school in Australia he also experienced a good deal of theological diversity. But when you add in the cultural challenges, as well as the varied cultural backgrounds of those we meet. You have an interesting collection!

I think the general effect is of being more open minded and a little more relaxed about the differences that aren't central to the gospel. But I do know of people who will be shocked about this. I can only think it is a taste of heaven. Yes, in heaven, I believe, we'll all have the same theology, but we'll still bring with us an incredible diversity that we generally don't get to experience here on earth.

So, what sport did you play?

Me in Senior

This is often posed to me by Americans as we witness various school sports encounters. It was asked of me last week as we watched school alumni play the school's Varsity boys basketball team (varsity=top school team).


Whenever that happens there is usually a pause as I struggle to find the right answer. How much info do they want? Because the American system is much more intense and formulated than the Australian system I grew up in as I explained here. 


I wonder, What can I say to simply answer their innocent question? I usually start with 'track' or the one time I represented our school in cross country. If they hang around I might try to explain some of the differences in the systems or mention netball (which most have never heard of) and my rebound-volleyball-in-a-squash-court days. If they are still around after that I judge that they are genuinely interested in me and I might talk about how music kind-of took over my high school after school hours. Still it is a challenging conversation in the midst of a sports event. 


If they're up for an interesting cultural comparison conversation, I might bring up the fact that we don't have "concession stands". That usually provides confusion – where do you buy food then? I can concede that there is often a shop of some description, but it is never called a "concession stand".


Nonetheless, we enjoy going along to these meets. Especially when they are just down the road at the school and the "concession stand" provides us with an easy evening meal (Japanese curry rice or hot dogs usually) and free entertainment. At the same time we're supporting the seniors towards their ministry trip in Thailand next March (profits from concessions go towards their costs). There isn't much to lose, except your sanity as you answer tricky questions!