A very encouraging week

Last week was very full. I was looking forward to it, as well as wondering how I would fare. I'm thankful to be past it, but also see that I managed to make it through without falling in a heap, which is really encouraging.

On Monday we had our monthly regional gathering for our mission. Around 50 people joined together to sing, pray, fellowship, and eat together. We heard, and prayed thoroughly, about some business matters. 

After a short break mid afternoon, five of us (plus a facilitator) jumped into our social media team retreat in the same location. We had a formal time of getting to know you, and then went out to dinner together. I was pretty "whacked". I struggled with a headache all afternoon and by dinner time it was making me feel woozy, but I managed to do all that I needed to do. I did head to bed at 8.30, though.

The next day we gathered after breakfast and spent the whole day thinking about things like decision making, team characteristics, some big picture questions about what we do and how we do it, and spent time growing in creativity. It was a big day that we followed with dinner out together, and an evening of creativity.

I knew this team was much younger than me, but it was confronting to spend significant time together and feel very middle-aged (the next youngest person is 13 years younger than me and three of our team are in their 20s or early 30s)! However it was a really good time. We are a remote team and most of us don't know one another well. I've learned over the 14 years I've worked in remote teams that trust is a huge component. If you don't trust one another, it makes your job far more difficult. This was a great time for building trust.

It's also a team that has undergone much change recently, and there is more change and uncertainty in the upcoming months. This level of team change is very challenging. I'm so thankful we had an experienced "team builder" help us as I'm certain I wouldn't have had the knowledge to do what he did, and certainly having someone outside the team to run it was a good move too. This retreat is something we've been talking about doing for a few years now, but the pandemic put a stop to a lot of that kind of initiative (and how often have I heard "but the pandemic..." uttered recently when people are reflecting on the last five years!?).

I got home from the retreat on Wednesday, in time for my usual mid-afternoon coffee. I unpacked, did a couple of "time sensitive" work things, and then collapsed on the lounge for the rest of the evening.

Thursday was a day I had carefully kept clear of other responsibilities. I didn't have high hopes for my capacity for work that day, but surprised myself and others by ticking off (US Eng: checking off) quite a number of editing jobs.

Our table

Friday was entirely taken up by an event we've been anticipating for over 12 months. Last year as we finalised our packing and moving, we realised we had a number of things that others could find useful. So we didn't throw them all out, we kept a few boxes of stuff and stored them, planning to try to sell them at Friday's school bazaar. At the bazaar we rented a table and filled it with stuff we were trying to get rid of. Between 10am and 4pm we sold quite a few things! We also sold all 200 pieces of fudge that I'd made. But it was also a great ruse for having our own "quiet" spot in the school gym where we could sit and greet friends who wandered past. I had so many conversations with friends, many of whom I've known for a number of years. It was a great encouragement to my soul.

It was fantastic to see the school community coming to life again "post pandemic" (yep, that word again). In October 2019, for various reasons, CAJ ended its long tradition of "Thrift Shop". That tradition had, twice a year, filled the gym with donated goods and provided us with not only many cheap household goods, toys, clothes, camping gear, and other miscellaneous items, but many hours of volunteering there over the years provided me with community and friends. That October was supposed to be the start of a new tradition, but any forward momentum got interrupted just six months later by a pandemic, and no more school bazaars happened until October 2022. It's taken a while to get back to a sense of wider community at the school, at least from my outsider position as a mum and teacher's spouse. So Friday was wonderful to behold.

These brand new size 28 slides didn't sell, would you like them?

We also are looking for a runner to sell these "spikes" to.
They've been used a couple of times (also a pandemic casualty).

Friends catching up! Such joy.

A little bit against what I thought was wise, social interaction continued through the weekend. On Friday night we watched a movie with our camping friends at their house. On Saturday, David helped rearrange one of our mission's storage places and had lunch with his two co-workers. I had a haircut and finally did some grocery shopping. That evening we met a couple visiting from the US, a couple who have listened to us and helped us through some tough times in the last few years.

On Sunday we visited another new church and to our surprise knew many people there. It was an English-speaking service and our various English-speaking networks in Japan all were represented. We also ran into an OMF colleague and gave her a lift back to ours for coffee before her next appointment. Straight after that we chatted with our sons for over an hour. 

Phew! I am really surprised that I am not more exhausted than I am today (Monday). Perhaps I'm getting back to some kind of new normal level of energy?

Whenever the topic of leaving Japan comes up, I'm reminded of this wide group of people I only know because I've lived my life here. When the time comes to move on, it will be a sad day, though I know that this is a mobile group of people who I will probably gradually say goodbye to as they move on over the coming years anyway. 

But for now I'm just thankful for a full heart from all this wonderful interaction over the last week.

It's been a month since we moved in

Moving day, four weeks ago!

It's hard to believe that it's been a month since we moved into this apartment, but the calendar doesn't lie. This is a simple, photo-heavy blog post with some before and after photos from the last couple of weeks.

It took a while to refine our new
household rubbish sorting system.
We have no outside storage, so it's all here.

This is how it looks today. We're pretty pleased. Two little plastic trays for paper and bottles/cans under the microwave. On the floor is a tiny "dirty" rubbish bin and plastic recyclables. We’ve also got

some extra (non-rubbish) storage in that little cupboard near the floor.

This was 10 days ago. We got rid of almost all our boxes: 
to a fellow missionary who’ll be moving in a few months
and in the “paper” recycling last week.

Looking tidy now!

More boxes.

All gone. Only thing left in this picture to deal with

is hiding behind the plant: wall pictures to hang.

I’d hoped to get this area of my office sorted before Christmas, but my
 amazing husband sorted it just after 
I last included this photo in a blog post!

Doesn’t it look great? And if anyone local
wants some metal cricket wickets…

Our new slow cooker arrived last week too.
We sold our large one last year and have bought 
this, which is more appropriate for two people.
I cooked 700g of pork in this last night and it was
so tender!

School started for the students today too, so hopefully we’ll get into more of a daily/weekly routine (and start remembering what day of the week it is again). It’s been over a year since we had the routine of David working at school, so it is a bit of an adjustment, but good. David’s been struggling to get over a cold, which to me shows this transition hasn’t been nothing. It’s taken a toll and we have to take time to recover, but that’s hard to remember some days.

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!

Culminating events

Before we came to the Christian Academy in Japan in 2005 I'm pretty certain I'd never heard the phrase "culminating events". I'm not even sure if we had a phrase when I was growing up that collectively described the various events that happen at the end of a school year.

In any case, last week we were in the middle of culminating events at school, and, of our last son graduating from high school. The week looked like:

Monday—last day of classes

Tuesday—final assessment in the form of a formal presentation about his year-long project about mental health and exercise in adolescents. The audience was a panel of two teachers, plus around 10 middle and high school students. We, his parents, were also invited.

Wednesday—parent-organised banquet for seniors and their parents (plus siblings in some cases).

Thursday—graduation rehearsal and farewell parade through the school in graduation gowns and caps.

Friday—graduation before a gathering of about 400 people in the school gym. 

Tuesday was full of emotion as we watched our youngest child finish his last assessment. It was all over by 9.30 a.m. and I came home, not quite ready to start work, so I made a cake. Emotional cooking? It was very satisfying to do, and we've all enjoyed the fruits of it.

Photo by Megumi Nakazawa

Wednesday night was the school's traditional banquet, organised by a small group of mums. We got dressed up and took the trains downtown to a Brazilian BBQ restaurant. The meal was spectacular: all-you-can-eat meat cooked in a rotisserie, plus an amazing salad and dessert buffet, plus soft drinks and juice. Of note for some were the whole pineapples, also cooked in the rotisserie. It was a late night, however. We travelled home on crowded trains between 10 and 11 (yes, Tokyo trains at that hour, mid-week, is a sight to be seen). I only got five hours sleep that night.

Thursday was quiet for parents, but the students spent the afternoon at school, rehearsing for graduation and doing a final walk-through of the school (dressed in graduation gowns and hats). Parents were left to their own devices, which for me meant making final decisions on the Summer issue of the magazine before it went to the printer, as well as editing work on the next one, the Autumn issue, plus work on social media posts for the upcoming weeks.

Friday was an emotional day. I tried to fill in the morning with tasks that needed doing but didn't need too much brain. We had significant rain all day and through the night, maybe as much as 200mm, so there were no lovely photo opportunities in the school's lovely courtyard. Also, because there is only a small car park, we walked to school (as usual). I'd already thrown away my rain boots, so I wore sneakers and socks, changing into my black flats when I got there. It was an emotional afternoon as we watched our last child walk across the stage, finishing high school.

The emotions are mixed, mostly happy, but also sad as our son says goodbye to good friends and a place that's been like a home-away-from-home all his life. 

I also think back to the last time we did this, two years ago. The differences are stark: last time was in the middle of the pandemic, so we were masked and sitting in little "islands" apart from one another, and the only people there were the graduating students and their parents, staff who didn't have a specific job stayed home. It had also been many many months since I'd been in a room with that many people, so it felt very odd. This time anyone could come (though the weather held back many, we suspect), so all the staff were there, as well as a number of other students and parents and community members. Though I felt there is another subtle difference that's resulted from the pandemic: there weren't actually many people I knew. I think that's a hole that's partly come from not having community events for a couple of years.

The other difference is much more personal and harder to write about in a public place like this. Our sons are very different in personalities and their journey through high school has been markedly different. Some of that is related to mental health and neurodivergence. Last time significant social anxiety was a very big unseen presence that came along to graduation with us and made just getting through the ceremony a big deal, and one that didn't garner any medals or plaques.

But now we're all quite tired, socially and emotionally. I've come down with a miserable cold and am struggling to get through the brain fog to continue working on my to-do list for this week.

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?

Little exchanges add up to a lot

Have you ever thought about the little exchanges that make up the bulk of connection with others? Our lives aren’t generally full of D&Ms (deep and meaningful conversations). Though often I long for that deep connection with people, there is, actually, a limit on how much of that I can handle in any one day.

On Friday the school held the biggest school-community event it’s had in three years. It’s a descendent of the ginormous garage sale known as Thrift Shop. I’ve blogged about that event many times over the last 12 years (see some of those posts here). Now it is called the Fall Festival and Bazaar. The “bazaar” side of things is a scaled-down version of Thrift Shop, designed to cost less in terms of time-commitment for staff and volunteers. It also includes something new: a place where individuals or groups can rent a table to peddle their own wares. Because, of the last three years, we've been saving up stuff we want to get rid of (that isn't rubbish), we decided to rent a table.

Our table as it looked at the start of the day.

There were a few great things about having our own table: 

• I had a place to "be" all day. I didn't feel like I was loitering or wasting time. It was also a starting place for conversations that weren't uncomfortable, a here-and-present kind of thing that helped me stay away from topics that aren't so easy to talk about in a light way.
• We had a bucket of "free stuff" that the younger kids loved. It's such fun giving things away.
• I got to make and sell fudge (but I was disappointed with the packaging we managed, which made the fudge look decidedly dodgy).
• We did actually get rid of a fair bit of stuff to places that it will be used (rather than just sent to the rubbish). We were able to give two boxes of stuff to the Salvation Army who came at the end for stuff that hadn't been sold.

I went into Friday expecting lots of more conversations, and came away feeling a little dissatisfied with how insubstantial most of the exchanges were. But, as I've seen as I reflected over the weekend is that on Thursday and Friday I was part of the gentle web of connection that has begun forming again in the community that centres around the school. Looking back, I had short conversations about all the following things:

A future camping trip

Why I had a nearly 100-year-old hymn book for sale (yes, I sold it)

A recent 500 pound, 8-foot bear attack in the US (yes, there was)

How much my youngest son has grown and changed

How to say “poached egg” in Japanese (no, I can't remember now)

How to use a baccarat espresso maker

What Thrift Shop used to look like (for someone new in the community)

Where Kuranda is (inland from Cairns)

How much CAJ pays substitute teachers

The difference between chocolate and fudge (yes, we were confused by the question)

What it was like growing up a few blocks from the US on the Canadian side of the border and how I’ve never lived in a country that has international land borders (only sea borders, hence “going overseas” is synonymous with going to another country). 

Shopping habits: I prefer to be left alone to consider the option and very much dislike shopkeepers in my face.

How exhausting parenting is emotionally, and how ready I am to be moving on out of being the parent of a school-aged child (7 ½ months…but I’m not counting :D).

Fudge and how we’ve given this to our boys’ teachers for years. This is the last year that will happen.

How I got rejected by the blood bank on Friday at the school because my haemoglobin was a little bit low.

Plans for the next couple of years (moving out, home assignment from July 2023, moving back to Japan).

The big gaps that the pandemic has left us with in community: those whose kids started at the school during the pandemic don’t know the parents of their kids’ friends. I don’t know the faces of a bunch of new teachers (and their kids). That's something that rarely happened before the pandemic, due to staff-family gatherings that have usually been held through the year.

I met a lady who works for the same organisation that publishes the magazine. I’ve only really interacted with her over email, though perhaps we’ve met once, I can’t remember.

I got some hugs and got to see some people I haven’t seen in months or years.

And a thank you for my recent blog posts from someone who says she reads everything I write!

I'll stop there. When you add all that up, that's a lot of networking. And the sorts of stuff that doesn’t happen when you aren’t face-to-face with people. I was exhausted on Friday night (and Saturday). But also thankful. 

Trying to feel fully settled again

A cross-cultural friend I know in Japan asked me this week: "Do you feel fully settled back in at home?"

The last "nature" I soaked up in Australia 
before we flew back earlier this month.

My answer: Yes, and no. 

Yes, I'm doing all the things I usually do when I'm here, and it feels fairly normal. I'm even baking!

But no, my head still feels a little like it hasn't quite turned the page. Being in Australia was good, but it was unsettling. It stirred up longings to be with friends there, and for things that are so easy to do there, but a little bit harder here. That is, I'm a little bit homesick. I'm also still processing the various things that happened there, which is also a bit unsettling. But I'm continuing to go through the motions and hopefully my mind will catch up soon.

Also "no" because I've arrived in the middle of things. The school year has already started for my husband, and youngest son. 

Plus it's our son's last school year. Therefore our last year with a child at school! I'm terrible at not thinking ahead on these things (I spent a long time anticipating him starting school, kicking off my "all the kids at school" phase after ten years of having little kids at home all day, every day.) 

This is even more momentous because this is not just the end of being school-parents, but also the end of life in Japan with kids in our home. We're going on home assignment in late July next year for twelve months. Prior to that we will move out of the house we've lived in since our youngest started school in 2010. We will be downsizing significantly because when/if we come back to Japan, it will be without offspring. We will be empty nesters and will move into a smaller apartment.

That's a lot of big change, and it's on my mind, and unlikely to completely disappear out of my consciousness as we walk through a lot of "lasts" in the next year. So, I may not completely settle down for many months, even though my suitcase is completely unpacked and put away.

But again, what can I do? I will walk through the daily and weekly routines, trying to ground myself in the now and be as settled and present as I can.

How can God help me with this? Here are some thoughts from this blog post.

1. Take time to focus on God. "Fix your eyes on Jesus" (Heb. 3:1) and "set our minds on things above" (Col. 3:2).

2. Be content. Paul tells us he learned to be content (Phil. 4:11). I'm still learning this, but I think part of it is taking the time to be thankful, and telling God (1 Thess. 5:18).

3. Continuing to be prayerful. Starting every day with prayer, and turning to God in prayer more regularly through the day (Col. 4:2).

4. Remember God's exhortations to be strong and courageous (e.g. Joshua 1:9).

5. Think about others, don't get wrapped up in myself. Love others! (1 Cor. 16:14)

6. Trust God with the future (Psalm 25:1).

I'm preaching to myself!

What do you struggle with when you're facing big change that you know is coming?

Tidbits from recent weeks

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

School

New building and field (before it was completely finished)

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

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

COVID-19

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

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

Weather

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

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

Olympics and Paralympics

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

Lily pads

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

My work

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

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

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

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

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

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

On the edge of ordinary on the medical scene

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

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

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

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

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

Skin cancer isn't common here

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

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

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

And life continues on...

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

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

Thoughts from Tokyo

So, things are a-changing. And rather rapidly. We've been watching this Corona virus for weeks now. Our mission has been sending us updates since January (our mission works in many Asian countries, so makes sense). We've seen colleagues in other countries have schools shut down, have borders closed, and other measures. Now it's happening in our backyard.

Meanwhile, Spring is on its way in!

Japan's Prime Minister made a surprise announcement yesterday, recommending that schools shut down until the end of the school year in a couple of weeks.

Of course, that's a red flag to society: if the top political leader thinks schools should be shut, then things seem very serious. So lots of other things are shutting or being cancelled too. And people are stocking up in the shops. 

I usually shop on Fridays, and today sought out the toilet-paper aisle to test my theory: that toilet paper is the litmus test in Japan for "panic buying". People in Australia might stock up on bread and milk but in Japan it's toilet paper! We saw the same in 2011. I learnt from that time, though, and keep a stock of the stuff in our house. I also learnt from previous flu epidemics here to keep a stock of masks in our house. I've also got other staple supplies—we live in the land of earthquakes, it makes sense to be prepared!

Comparison with March 2011

Which brings me to what my brain was doing at 5am this morning: comparing this event with the aftermath of the triple disaster in March 2011.

This event brings that experience to mind, not just because of the shopping and school shutting—yes, our school is shutting. We're looking down the barrel of three weeks of distance education. I know the teachers will try hard . . . but I'm not so sure about the students. I'm prepared to be surprised. Thankfully they've had today to lay out their expectations for the students. I've just received an email suggesting students start work at 8.30, not sleep in. That's helpful!

But 2011 comes to mind for deeper reasons. I think it's the fear. The disaster, if you don't recall, went like this: earthquake which caused several giant tsunamis that inundated a nuclear power plant north of Tokyo. There was a lot of fear at that time. Lots of people struggled with overwhelming anxiety and stress. Lots of foreigners evacuated Japan. It got to be that every time I looked at social media or checked email, another of our friends or colleagues had left (and the kicker was—without saying goodbye).

So instantly we see how this virus situation is very different, but also similar. There has been warning—today they've had time at school to prepare—and evacuation isn't a great option at this point. We aren't getting constant aftershocks that disturb our sleep and rock our emotions. We aren't wondering if there's going to be another one soon. We aren't labouring under the realisation that many thousands have already lost their lives suddenly.

However, the fear is there and the misinformation (or merely exaggeration) is being freely shared. 

This is what I created yesterday to go with the basic update
on OMF Japan's social media

Another similar factor is that it can be stressful to talk to other people. Everyone, I've discovered, has a different threshold in this sort of situation. Some immediately go into "panic" mode, others are more laid back; some research every morsel they can find, some like to speculate about what the politicians aren't telling us. In some ways it's easier just to stay at home and stay off social media.

But I'm a social media manager, so the latter is hard! Yesterday I had to do what I've been avoiding, and face this straight on, researching facts and putting together an update post for our mission. It didn't come out as scary as I thought it would (although the conspiracy theorists will be quick to tell me that we aren't being told everything).

How I'm doing

I've found it hard to concentrate today, that's another common feature with 2011. With such turmoil, it is hard to focus, and focus is what I need to do to keep up with the deadlines that keep marching across my desk. That's going to be challenging in the coming weeks too with the rest of my family at home, in "my" office.

I also must say that I'm relieved that, at this point, the two big events next week that I've been looking forward to are still going ahead: a two-day women's retreat and a writer's retreat next weekend. The latter I've put quite a bit of work into organising and it made me feel very uncomfortable earlier this week to consider that that might not be possible.

It was also reassuring to go out this morning and do a simple thing like get a hair cut. That simple act, seeing real people doing ordinary things, was very grounding and encouraging. 

But ultimately I need to ground myself in the eternal reality. That our times are in God's hands. That he is not surprised by anything that's going on here. And that ultimately, whatever changes come our way, he never changes.

5 

5 Yes, my soul, find rest in God;

    my hope comes from him.

6 Truly he is my rock and my salvation;

    he is my fortress, I will not be shaken.

7 My salvation and my honor depend on God[c];

    he is my mighty rock, my refuge.

8 Trust in him at all times, you people;

    pour out your hearts to him,

    for God is our refuge. (Psalm 62 NIV)

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"!