Remembering God's compassion and grace

Early in the year, I wrote about focusing my thoughts on Psalm 103, particularly as we work our way through this crazy year. But almost immediately after I wrote that we galloped into three big wrestling tournaments over a period of just 18 days and the madness had begun. Now we're nearly into June, the sixth month of the year! 

This week a close friend reminded me of Psalm 103, so I want to lean into it today, just before we head deeper into the end-of-high-school-and-life-as-parents-of-school-aged-kids craziness that next week holds (and yes, I know that's a ridiculous phrase).

I have frequently felt frail in the last five months. Last week was a rough week for me physically and it took longer than a weekend to recover from it, and I'm still struggling with energy as we head into another weekend. It's been a comfort to remember that God doesn't expect me to be strong.

As a father has compassion on his children,
    so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him;
14 for he knows how we are formed,
    he remembers that we are dust.
15 The life of mortals is like grass,
    they flourish like a flower of the field;
16 the wind blows over it and it is gone,
    and its place remembers it no more. (Ps. 103:13–16, NIV)

This psalm is actually full of praise for God's compassion. It talks about his justice, forgiveness, healing, and redemption, that he's slow to anger and gracious. That he satisfies us and renews us. And most of all that he is "abounding in love." It's hard for us to grasp how much he loves us, so the psalmist writes "as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love" for us. In Ephesians, Paul prays that we might have the power "to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ." That’s a lot of love! Taking Paul's lead, I often pray this for people I know.

I was recently reminded of how quickly we humans jump to judgement, anger, and revenge. I was reminded of my tendency to be a law-keeper and how quickly I judge myself very harshly when I break rules (or get caught breaking rules), or even when I make mistakes that hurt others or don't measure up to my high standards. And how that grace-less attitude flows over into judging others. But God reminded me of Psalm 130, in particular vs. 3 and 4:

If you, Lord, kept a record of sins,
Lord, who could stand?
But with you there is forgiveness,
so that we can, with reverence, serve you.

Psalm 103 also reflects God's gracious heart. God:

• forgives all your sins (v. 3)
• is slow to anger (v. 8)
• will not always accuse (v. 9)
• will not harbour his anger forever (v. 9)
• does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities (v. 10) 
• has removed our transgressions from us, as far as the east is from the west (v. 12)

How comforting it is to know that I have a heavenly Father who is completely able to meet our needs and forgive our sins. Unlike an earthly king, the Lord God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and without limits in the love he has for me and all who he calls his.

As we move ever closer to leaving for our fifth home assignment my sleep is gradually getting more erratic. I find myself awake at random hours, with worry running through my head. My subconscious provides entertainment in the depths of the night: problems that need to be solved (but perhaps not by me and certainly not in bed at 2 a.m.) and even totally fictional problems that my subconscious has made up (like that exam I forgot to prepare for, or the plane that I nearly missed). This, in turn, is making my energy during the day more erratic. I hate this. But I can't escape who I am. All I can do is repeatedly turn my eyes to Jesus and remember his great compassion and love.

One night in the last week a problem that arose at work plagued my thoughts at an ugly hour, I couldn't let go of the circular thoughts running through my head. I just had to say to God: you need to solve this one, I can't do it now, I probably can't do it later either. In the days that followed that middle-of-the-night cry for help, the problem was solved. To God be the glory!

The other thing that can plague me at times of transition is seeking security in things that aren't really secure: like the promise of accommodation or a car to use in Australia. We've just given notice to our landlord on our house in Japan, after nearly 13 years! But we don't know where we'll next truly unpack our suitcases, nor what car we will drive. There are a lot of unknowns in the coming 12 months. But no amount of worry is going to solve those problems. Yesterday afternoon an email in my inbox from ThriveConnection.com reminded me of how easy it is at times of transition to put my hope in things that only provide a false sense of security. When I do that I forget the only true security is in God, who cannot be shaken.

And . . . I’m back to the lesson God’s been teaching me over these last few years: trust him. No matter what the present or future looks like, trust him.

This song grabbed my attention this morning, and drove me to tears. Maybe it’ll be a comfort to you today too: Desert Road by Casting Crowns

This week's travel story

Who can resist a good travel story? It's a common topic of conversation between those of us who live and work overseas. 

Like the time I got food poisoning in Manila and then the next day, on my way back to Brisbane got stuck for many hours on a plane on the tarmac, and then had to disembark and was stuck so long in the boarding lounge that we witnessed the crew go home! We ended up flying, but arriving in Hong Kong too late to catch the connecting flight to Brisbane, so got a free 24 hours in their fancy airport hotel. But still sick enough to not really enjoy the free food vouchers we also got.

Well, I've got myself a new travel story, in fact it's not over yet.

I find myself in a weird between-world just now. I feel a little bit transparent, in fact. It's a strange place. We were supposed to fly to Tokyo yesterday morning. But, like all the other flights we've booked on this trip, it was cancelled. Thankfully we were able to rebook pretty quickly. But the timing of discovering the flight was cancelled meant that we'd already said goodbye to everyone and were literally on our way to the airport. As we're flying from a nearby city, and we'd decided to minimise the pre-flight travel (and stress) by booking a hotel next to the airport. So Wednesday looked like this:

2 a.m. I woke up and my mind started roaming through all the logistics of the coming 30 hours. I think I drifted back to sleep sometime before the sun came up, but I'm not sure.

7 a.m. David and I had, what has become (during August) our regular morning video call and Bible reading/prayer time.

Sometime after 8 I had breakfast and chatted to my friend/host.

Sometime after that I spent an hour or so organising and packing my luggage, so that I'd had minimal unpacking at the hotel that night and had sorted my carry-on luggage for the next day.

Around 10.30 I lay down with a book and forced myself to be still for an hour.

11.30 I got up, packed the clothes that had been drying on the line in my luggage and went upstairs to make some lunch and chat with my friend and her daughter.

12.30 I put my two suitcases, backpack, and small travel shoulder bag in the car. Hugged my friend and her daughter goodbye. And left.

1.00 I pulled into where my middle son had been staying with his brother over the last 10 days. Sorted out final packing questions with them. Said goodbye to the house cat. Heard a few stories. And sadly said goodbye to our eldest son.

2.00 Drove to the other side of town to drop off our borrowed vehicle to its owners, who drove us to their nearest train station.

3.07 Hopped on the first of two trains (plus a bus) that would get us to the hotel.

3.30ish Hopped off the first train and struggled to figure out which platform the next train would be arriving on. Went up and down in the lift a couple of times! Finally got on the right train. I would not like to have mobility issues and be using Brisbane trains. We struggled to find easy ways to get our heavy suitcases up and over the train lines, and train platforms are, in many places, a big step down from the train.

3.49 These Brisbane trains don't have room for large suitcases. The seats are mostly facing towards the front or back of the train. I was squished into a seat beside a lady, with one of my suitcases where my knees should be and backpack balanced on top. I got a text from my husband: "Flight is cancelled"!!!!

Then ensued a lot of texting: back and forth with my husband as he sought to book another flight. Then quickly texted the lady in Wynnum who we'd only just said goodbye to (owner of car), asking if she could possibly host us again for three or four nights (she said yes). Checked to see if we could get from Wynnum to the Gold Coast airport by 7.30 a.m. via public transport on a Sunday morning (negative). Emailed the hotel to say we were cancelling that night's booking, but could we rebook for Saturday night.

Sometime after 4pm Changed trains and headed back up to Brisbane. Then changed trains again.

5.21 We arrived back where we'd first gotten on a train and were taken, a little shell-shocked, back to a lovely quiet home. This is where we had arrived in mid-June after our 36 hour journey from Tokyo. I can't say we were in much better shape when we arrived this time!

That evening, despite not being in a great way, I contacted the booking agent for the hotel and rebooked. Looks like the hotel has been very gracious and won't charge us for the late cancellation. I also figured out we needed a new PCR test, where to get that, and what we needed to do (print out a new pathology request). 

All afternoon my throat had been getting sorer and by the evening my head was starting to get clogged up too. The aftershock of it all made me shaky and I pretty much lost my appetite. I was slightly panicking about the possibility of COVID and the new PCR test I had to pass to fly again, but having only just recovered from COVID, it seemed unlikely. Nonetheless, the thought of going through another cold-like sickness wasn't appealing. It probably goes without saying that I didn't sleep well that night either, despite being exhausted. But the next morning (yesterday) I did feel a lot better about the whole affair.

On Thursday my main job was to get new PCR tests and also a few groceries to tide us over. Thankfully we were able to borrow the car for one more day. We're in a "granny flat" where there are some supplies in the cupboard and fridge, but not really enough for three days and nights. It was hard to plan for meals for just the two of us for those three days, and even more so once I realised (again) that portions sold in grocery stores are larger here, and often more expensive. For example, a small tub of yoghurt cost more than a large tub of yoghurt!

I also took some time to wander along the esplanade at Wynnum. Not the prettiest of beaches, but lovely to see the sea, and the sky, and trees, and to breath.

Today (Friday) has been a quiet at-home day. I'm thankful that once again we've jumped through the "negative COVID test hoop". I've managed to do a little bit of urgent editing, but mostly resting. Because I again didn't sleep well last night (read from 2 am to 4am!).

Tomorrow we begin the journey to the hotel airport again, though this time we're a little bit closer and we've got a lift to the hotel. This is a protracted journey that I hope will come to an end with my head on my pillow in my own home in Tokyo on Sunday night.

And why do I feel transparent? Well I've said goodbyes here and people have generally expected that I've left (unless they're on social media) and I was expected back in Tokyo yesterday, so people there are already saying "Welcome back". It's as if I'm in a time warp.

There's no knowing the "why" of this. But simply, it's good to recognise that we're not in control, and that times like these can grow our faith, when we continue to trust God amidst the uncertainty. We've had people praying for us. Our host sent us these verses:

So do not fear, for I am with you;
    do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you;
    I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

For I am the Lord your God
    who takes hold of your right hand
and says to you, Do not fear;
    I will help you. (Isaiah 41:10,13 NIV)

Comfort!

Weariness

Anyone else feeling tired? I feel like I'm doing a reasonable job of looking after myself, but I still feel like I'm weary.

Yesterday, when I began this post, I was feeling particularly exhausted. Is it the strain of the pandemic catching up to me? Is it the strain of our personal family struggles from the last year? Or perhaps it's just hormones? Or maybe it's a combination of all of the above? Last month I was putting it down to the struggle to sleep at night when the temps and humidity were so high, but that has eased in the last week. Maybe I just need to catch up?

Just remembering our August camping trip, which already
seems so long ago!

Sigh. 

So yesterday, when I was feeling particularly fatigued, I did two things, no three.  I started this blog post! I took a novel and lay down for a while. And I took a wander through the Bible looking for the word "strength". This is one of my favourite ways to search the Bible for a perspective on something I'm struggling with. I didn't spend long on it, but it was illuminating.

First, strength is something that God is described as having and giving. And second, it is something that humans struggle to have, something that people in the Bible go to God to ask for.

1 Chron. 16:11, 27, 28 (context, David singing after bringing the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem):

Seek the Lord and his strength;

seek his presence continually! . . .

Splendor and majesty are before him;

strength and joy are in his place.

Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the peoples,

ascribe to the Lord glory and strength!

Then a verse came up that was very precious to me the first time one of my kids was admitted to a Japanese hospital. Yes, I clearly remember being at the end of my strength that time, and that God helped me through.

Ps 46:1:
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

David wrote quite a lot about strength: God's strength, his own need of strengthening, and that God was his source and refuge: 

Ps 59:16: But I will sing of your strength; I will sing aloud of your steadfast love in the morning. For you have been to me a fortress and a refuge in the day of my distress. 

Ps 105:4: Seek the Lord and his strength; seek his presence continually!

God also is quoted many times as saying: don't be afraid, I'm with you.

Isaiah 41:10: 

Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

And a common benediction, that we don't necessarily pay attention to at the end of worship services:

Romans: 16:25: 

Now to him who is able to strengthen you

And the first, famous passage that came to my mind before I searched for anything: 

Isaiah 40: 28-31

Have you not known? Have you not heard?

The Lord is the everlasting God,

    the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He does not faint or grow weary; 

 his understanding is unsearchable.

29 

He gives power to the faint,

    and to him who has no might he increases strength.

30 

Even youths shall faint and be weary,

    and young men shall fall exhausted;

31 

but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;

    they shall mount up with wings like eagles;

they shall run and not be weary;

    they shall walk and not faint.

And then a key verse for us personally as we serve in mission:

1 Peter 4:11: Whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. 

So my conclusion: I need to continue to do my best to take care of things like resting and having appropriate boundaries, but I also need to keep asking God for strength and relying on him to give that at the right times. No magic cure, but it was a good moment to stop and refocus. 

Oh, and we're also planning another lily pad: a camping trip next month!

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?

Our July holidays

We went away for two weeks in the latter half of July and I jumped back into work on August 3, only to be swamped. I'm only just in the last couple of days starting to come up for some air! 

However, I want to tell you a little bit about our holidays before they get too far in the distant past. Because other prefectures are nervous about Tokyo-ites visiting them at the moment (many more cases of COVID-19 in Tokyo than in other places), we decided to have a very quiet holiday. We mostly stayed at the holiday home, or only went to places where there were virtually no other people close by.

We did lots of sleeping, reading, game-playing, and movie-watching. That probably sums up our fortnight away very well. It was at the same place as we went this time last year (and also at Christmas), a delightful Swiss-chalet house that OMF Japan owns and rents to its members at a low rate. We appreciate the views, the green-all-around, the peace, and a place without Wi-Fi.

As I did last year, I organised myself to not do any work during those two weeks, that included not looking at email at all. Our daily routine was simple and refreshing. To get even more sleep I also took time-out from caffeine. Not without a challenge (my body is very sensitive to caffeine), but in the end I manage to stay off caffeine totally for a week and have been on reduced caffeine in the two weeks since then (instead of 2 ½ cups of fully caffeinated coffee a day, I've had two half-strength cups a day, decaf coffee is a very handy thing, even if the coffee snobs turn their noses up at it). As I result I got 9 or 10 hours sleep every night for a couple of weeks, which was very nice indeed! During July I also stopped doing my daily Japanese review. The sum total of all that was lots of read and many books read. 

So, even though today I feel pretty blurry and am having difficulty thinking clearly, I know that I did have a good rest in July, so I'm hopeful that that will be a good thing for whatever lies ahead for the rest of the year. For starters, we've got our second son beginning year 12 next week. That in itself will potentially mean stress for the family, if it is anything like his big brother's senior year! Not to mention that we're by no means free of the wide-reaching consequences COVID-19 pandemic.

But back to our holidays in the mountains. Staying "home" made things very simple and we slipped into a gentle routine. Dinner and an evening movie we did together, sometimes late afternoon included games. Watching a movie each night was something we did last year also and it seems to be a helpful way to enjoy the holiday as a family, as well as provide fodder for conversation around the table. We watched The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings series, then several other older movies like Back to the Future, Forest Gump, and Jonny English. 

All these latter movies were borrowed from a local DVD rental store—yes, Japan still has them! But let me tell you that it's not easy to find movies in a Japanese store if you're an English speaker. Have you ever thought about learning "alphabetical order" in another language? Japanese has its own order! And even if that is fine, and your Japanese reading is up to scratch, many English movies have completely different titles to their original versions.

Things are ramping up again now in our house with both David and I have worked full-time this week and school starts (I say YAY) next Thursday. But we think back fondly to our July holiday with great thanks that we could take the time off and had a place to go, and look forward to next time we can recharge like this!

Here are some photos from from our time away:

We caught the last two weeks of the rainy season and everything was very
green. This was one of the trees in the local park where we played Park Golf.

Park Golf. I am appalling at it, but it's a fun activity (if you don't record your score).

This lily's flower was bigger than my hand!

A cute frog posing on our youngest son's hand.

We had many rainy days and only saw two sunsets. This is the view that we could see from the dining
room and lounge area.

David and I went on a couple of local walks. Beautiful!

Wild boar trap along one of the roads we walked on.

Reading my Kindle at the dining table...with a view.

We took one 1,000-piece puzzle loaned to us by friends, it was fiendishly difficult. An overall picture of Yoda,
but made up of 1,000s of micro pictures.

Wet = fungi. I had my eyes open for some photogenic mushrooms in the park.

One of the two sunsets we saw from our living area.

Inside our holiday apartment. Our middle son loves this loft. He set up
his bed and recreation area up there. Our bedroom door is on the right of the photo,
the other side of the ladder is the entrance to the bathroom and far left of photo
is the kitchen. It's pretty compact, but the lofty ceiling with exposed beams
makes it feel spacious.

In the last couple of days the volcano we were perched on showed its peak.
This is taken from the verandah.

The second half of December

So what have we been doing over here "on the edge of ordinary" in the last two weeks? A great big slow-down!

For the week before Christmas we went away to our usual holiday spot north-west of Tokyo. The difference this year was that we travelled to our holidays with some friends who stayed nearby for a few days. This family we've done a lot with over the last 2 ½ years, including three camping trips. 

We introduced them to two of our favourite things to do during this annual Christmas holiday: the Lego shop and the budget all-you-can-eat restaurant that has become a tradition for us. We also went together to see the new Star Wars movie (on cheap Tuesday, only AUD$12.50 or 1,100 yen, movie tickets here are usually at least AUD$20).

We also did a lot of sleeping-in, staying up late (at least some family members did), reading, and lazying around. In fact that probably characterises most of our days in the last two weeks, even after we returned to Tokyo.

A lot of what we did when we were away was the same as last year. I didn't feel like taking the same photos again (you can see some in my post from last year here). We did try to go to a beautiful small lake, but it was shut for construction work, so instead we went for a short walk around the area where we've stayed in a neighbouring town. There was unmelted snow on the top of this stream.

We've had a few social things since we came back: friends over for Christmas lunch and a Boxing Day morning tea, and some of us have spent time away from home with friends. But, there has been little regular on our schedule, aside from eating two or three meals a day. We've also watched a few movies (mostly superhero movies). One of our sons hired/rented movies for us as his Christmas present.

After Christmas Day I've spent some of each day "in the office". Mostly work to do with my social media job or answering questions from my editing team about the magazine proof we are checking in preparation for printing in January. But it really has been a go-slow mode. Especially getting up late in the morning (spending lots of time reading and doing relaxing games on my phone in my warm bed).

It seems that it was very much needed. I've had many nights that I've slept 10-12 hours! It's only these last couple of days that I'm naturally waking up after about eight or nine hours of sleep. Indeed it has been a rather busy year and we're very thankful for this time to decompress. Especially as we look towards 2018 and realise that it it also going to be a very busy year, but in some ways, perhaps, a more predictable fashion.

Another view of the above river, with my budding photographer sneaking into the photo.

I love Japan's moss! 

This part of town is characterised by these curious rock walls that
line properties. They are unusual in Japan.

This is the calendar that keeps me organised. It lives beside my desk. Without needing to know the details of what my scrawl represents, you can see that from the 16th onwards, there is little written. That's visual representation of how this month has gone. Neatly divided in half between the usual busyness and rest.

Adventures in Manila Pt 1

I'm blogging from the OMF guesthouse in Manila . . . and I shouldn't really be. But I do find that writing down what's been going on when things are a bit intense helps me process and unwind.

So here are a few highlights of the last three days.

I left for the airport straight after church, travelled the 1 ½ hrs on three trains, and went through all the procedures for catching an overseas flight. No real hitches! Phew!

In the midst of it all I realised that it really was only about the fifth time that I've flown overseas on my own. Usually I've been with family or at least one other person!

Where I'm spending my days.

My chief concern was the plan to link up with someone from the UK who landed at a different terminal and to catch a taxi together (for about an hour). Getting public transport in a country I'm unfamiliar with is not something I'm super confident about! But we eventually managed, not only to get our electronic communication to connect, but also to find a taxi that wasn't going to charge us an arm and a leg.

The workshop started Monday morning. It is about mobilising people for mission using social media and the web. I was surprised to find that I'm a bit further along in what I know than many of those at the workshop, but still I know (and continue to have found out) that there is much, much more I could potentially learn or do. I think that's the challenging part of it. What you can do seems almost unlimited. You could certainly spend far more hours of the day than I have, doing it.

View out our bedroom window. There's a not-so-quiet
10-lane road in front of that church!

My notes are full of action points and things to further investigate. I'm certainly not bored. After all, there aren't too many all-day meetings that you can go to when you can "fool around" on Facebook, while totally being on-task!

I had the yummiest fruit for lunch today: mango! Something that is a rarely enjoyed treat in Japan. These were just perfect.

Screen shot from my phone from early afternoon.

But sleep is something I've struggled with, as usual when I'm away. First night I tried to sleep in the muggy heat (long story about the aircon that I decided not to put on). 

Last night my roommate and I decided the air con was a good idea and I slept a lot better, but was woken at 5am with torrential rain. 

5am is my body clock's 6am, about when I'd usually get up on a Tuesday, so it isn't surprising to me. But I've been "going" with little break now for about 15 hours, so I really need to call it quits. Workshops like this are really stimulating. So many ideas, so much to learn. It is hard to switch off. And, of course, I've got other things going on too (I was proofreading between sessions today and answering emails also).

The rain continued to periodically pour down torrentially all day. Apparently there was flooding in various areas of Manila, but we are high and dry. I haven't even been outside since Sunday!

There's much more I could write, but really, really I need to go to bed.

Sleep deprived nation

Japan is a sleep deprived nation. If you live here and travel around on trains, there's no need to look at a study to know that. Morning or night, people fall asleep in all sorts of public places. I don't normally like to take photos of people sleeping in public, but in the last week I've had two opportunities to do so without embarrassing anyone.

People often stop their cars or trucks (especially work vehicles) and sleep in them, often with the engines running. This gentleman was in a work vehicle, stopped next to a local park with a cloth over his face. The time was 6pm.

This lady, I presume, was having a cat-nap. It was at a local food court at 10.30 on Monday morning.

Many people, especially men, come home very late from work (8 is early). School children also often are doing cram classes or sports training late into the evening. It isn't unusual to see kids on the trains after 9pm. Indeed it seems that many pre-school kids are kept up late too. Having a 7/7.30 bedtime for our young boys seemed extraordinarily early to my Japanese friends. So exhaustion seems pervasive in the whole lifestyle here. It's no surprise people are sleeping any time they get the chance.

Napping in public is actually a sign of diligence in Japan, this article says. Indeed it seems to be quite the acceptable thing, as long as you don't sprawl. It's not uncommon to see people asleep on the train falling to one side or other. That isn't so acceptable.

But apparently lost sleep is costing Japanese economy billions. I'm not sure how they figured this out. But this article says:

[the researchers] tapped into government and large company data sets on sleep duration to estimate defined costs. It also predicted the future economic effects if the trend continued. Absenteeism (people not showing up for work), employees not working (people taking breaks), and presenteeism (people being present but working at a sub-optimal level) were the reasons traced for the unproductivity.

It is a significant problem, obviously, and not just for economic reasons. This Japan Times article gives an example of someone who ended up with clinical depression due to overwork. Death by overwork is recognised by society and if it can be proven then employer is in trouble.

But why is this such an ingrained part of the culture, you may ask? Well, people have written whole books on this, so this little blog post is barely going to touch the surface. 

One theory is that the culture has been formed by the rice-growing past. Growing rice is not only requires constant attention, but it also requires collective work, hence we've got a hard-working culture where it's hard to change individual habits. It is frowned upon to leave many workplaces exactly when your shift is over, in fact, leaving before the boss is a no-no in an office environment. I've never worked in a Japanese office, but this is what I've heard and read. (One article about the "rice theory": rice paddies and culture).

In any case. It's difficult to change culture, and that seems especially the case in Japan. So, though the government is trying to make changes, I'm not sure that we'll be seeing less public sleeping any time soon.

Holidays

Some were concerned that we left Australia exhausted. It was a concern because we were very tired, but the bigger picture was better. 

We landed in Japan in the middle of the school's summer holidays. We were in our house for less than a week before my parents arrived and we whisked them off to a holiday next to Mt Fuji.

Below is the view that greeted us on our first morning. We were gobsmacked. We had no idea Mt Fuji was so close to where we were staying (the summit was only 14 km away).

This is a view out of the lounge window. The house is on a property with six other cabins/chalets owned by a mission. Missionaries frequently stay here for a break.

On the first day four of us rode around the lake the chalets face onto. It was about 13 km around, a very pleasant ride. The lake is about 900m above sea level and hence the temperature was moderate (Tokyo was hot and humid before we left).

What I love about this photo is the huge bike park. No cars could get in here, and they'd painted bike-sized parks.

A couple of days later we drove south to Hakone, renowned for amazing marquetry, inlaid wood designs on products. It is a place we've been hoping to visit for a few years now, after our eldest son discovered the clever Trick Boxes that they also create. 

This is the view out of our bedroom window. If the temperatures were mild, they were even better under the trees. I even wore my tracky dacks (US = sweat pants) for some of the time. We slept long and hard in the peace we found here. It was restorative and desperately needed. Last Sunday morning we went to church in Tokyo and I struggled. I came home with a pounding headache and exhausted. Clearly a holiday was necessary. I'm please to say I'm feeling much more stable now with fewer headaches.

This was on our trip home. The day after our road trip to Hakone it rained continually all day. We all stayed inside and played hours of board games. It was a restorative day too. The next day we headed home, amidst grey skies and some showers. We were thankful for the grey skies as they kept the temperatures down in Tokyo for a couple more days.

Our away-from-home holidays aren't quite over yet. Next Friday we head away for four nights on our first camping trip in Japan this term. We're going to another new destination, a completely different part of Japan. I'm looking forward to telling you about it. I'm also looking forward to getting out of Tokyo's oppressive heat for another few days before we knuckle down and bear with it for the rest of the summer.