Getting close to leaving for our 6th home assignment

Three years ago I wrote a six-article series for OMF US about home assignments, particularly about all the preparation that goes into one.* When I was finished with that project, I realised I'd written 4,500 words! I didn't realise I had so much to say on the topic, but clearly I did.

I think this is the actual plane that took
us back to Australia for our first home 
assignment, the first and last time we travelled
with just our eldest two kids between Japan
and Australia (our youngest was born during
our first home assignment).

We're now two weeks out from our sixth home assignment and I have to acknowledge that this is something I know a fair bit about. We've spent 4 ½ years of the last 25 ½ years actually "doing" home assignment. We've spent at least that much time again "planning for" home assignments. That's about a third of our missionary service and a good chunk of our adult lives!

We're now staring down the barrel of 13 more sleeps before we fly to Australia for an intense nine weeks of speaking at gatherings and meeting people (plus two weeks of holidays in the middle). 

Back in February, I wrote about why we've decided to do a much short home assignment this time.The preparation phase certainly been a lot less intense and also shorter, a good portion of that is due to not having any kids at home anymore, but it's also due to the shorter length of our absence from Japan—because we won't be away all that long, we've not really had to hand our jobs over to anyone and we're not having to move out of our house or organise a rental in Australia. As a result, it feels a lot more like a short visit to Australia, than a home assignment like we've known in the past. 

In the past, as we've crept closer to leaving for home assignment, my body has shown indications: especially infections, poor sleep, and headaches. Not to mention a skittishness that comes with having to split one's attention between two different locations—finishing here and thinking about landing there. Up until this week I've had none of that. Because it still feels like a "short visit" rather than a "home assignment" I've been a little surprised this week at how my body is giving me small hints that a change is coming. I've been struggling a little with sleep and also the ability to concentrate on harder tasks. Hopefully it won't become a major issue and I'll be able to continue with working through next week because there's plenty to do at the moment.

Today I had meetings pertaining to the two main ministries I'm involved in (Japan Harvest magazine and OMF Japan social media) and both involved planning for the coming months. Naturally I want to get as much as I can done before we pack our bags and leave for Australia on the 20th. I'll still have work on both of these ministries to do while we're in Australia, but I'm hoping it will not be too much. Most of the 20+ "events" that we will be present at will be on weekends or evenings, so we're planning for downtime during the week. 

It's going to be another home assignment like we've never done before (just like our last one). I called it an experiment in our most recent news/prayer letter...one that we will reflect on when we get back in August and decide what we'll do next time!

* You can find links to them all here: https://omf.org/us/what-home-assignment-means-for-a-missionary-part-6/

Transplant shock

A close friend has watched me struggle this week. Struggle with work not going as expected, with criticism, with ups and downs; struggle with expectations of our kids, of ourselves, and “the system”, with impatience and frustration, and with a poor sense of time passing. She’s watched and prayed as my emotions soured and bottomed out. And she’s pondered the analogy of “transplant shock”.

Transplant shock is something that can happen when a plant is transplanted from one pot to another, or from one “in ground” location to another. My limited research tells me it can last a couple of weeks, or, in the case of larger plants like trees, a couple of years. It’s got to do with how well the roots are able to absorb water and nutrients from the soil. There are various things you can do to prevent it, or to help a plant recover from it, but patience is also needed.

We finally put up some pictures on the wall
this week, I was longing to see this old
favourite: my preserved wedding bouquet!
But I commented to a couple of friends
that my bedroom looked more settled than

I felt!

Now I don’t want to take the analogy too far. But it’s helpful to think about, especially as we get impatient with ourselves and those around us. We’ve had a very large transition and it’s going to take time, probably more time than we (and others) realise, to recover. Of course we want to feel settled as fast as possible, especially because this isn’t a once only transition, we anticipate we’ll be here only a year and then another transition will happen. Somehow we humans are programmed to try to avoid pain. But being impatient and frustrated with it all will probably only make things worse.

How do I know if a plant is suffering from transplant shock? Withered or drooping leaves, fruit or leaves abruptly dropping, dying branches, easily bruised.

How do I know that I am still suffering from transplant shock? Quickly wearied, easily knocked “off balance”. A poor sense of time passing (it seems like a long time since last Friday, for example). Memory issues, poor concentration. I’m sometimes homesick for familiar routines and a familiar environment, sometimes dominating a conversation with memories from Japan. Emotional, tears are falling more easily at the moment.

That’s enough of a list, I think.

The cure? Lots of common sense stuff: eat well, exercise, rest, and sleep. Being patient. And keeping a good longer-term perspective. As a Christian, keeping my eyes on Jesus, on my rock. Plus, being thankful for all that we’ve achieved with God’s help so far in this transition (which actually is quite a lot). And perhaps taking the ups and downs a little less seriously?

Do you have any other suggestions?

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.

Where have you been?

Phew. I've been so busy! I predicted in my first blog post of the year that it would be a crazy year, but I don't think I expected so much crazy so fast. Looking back at the last two and a half months, there's been little let-up. It's been three weeks since I felt I could take time to write here. During those weeks I've been to a retreat, a full-day workshop, an annual general meeting, a full day of OMF meetings on the other side of the city, a meeting strategising how to hand all my work over for home assignment, and two long Saturdays at athletics (AmEng = track and field) meets. 

Ironically, the workshop and nearly 3-day retreat were each ways to help me be more resilient, but both increased pressure on me as I took time away from my regular work to attend them. And all the while, waiting at my desk were two magazine issues both requiring my attention, as well as the usual social media work for OMF, and a variety of people who had to be patient and wait for me to be available to them, or to simply get something done for them. On top of all that, it's like a bunch of people have woken up to the fact that we're going on home assignment in just over 100 days and the amount of work I've been doing related to that has been steadily increasing.

This cross is part of the back wall
of the room we had meetings in at
the retreat. A good reminder to keep
my eyes fixed on Jesus.

Today I've struggled to focus on the work in front of me—I think I simply need a quiet weekend to rest. Thankfully that's pretty much looking like what tomorrow and Sunday are. Our athlete has flown to Thailand today with his class, so we won't spend all day tomorrow watching him throw stuff (he does shot put and discus). We do, however, have to spend some time nailing down dates so that we can buy plane tickets for that aforementioned home assignment. Though I really don't want to think about flying again . . . I'm still feeling scarred by our experiences last year!

The reality is: I'm smack-bang in the midst of transition. Another irony is that one of the things put on the back burner in recent weeks has been a writing project of a series of short articles about the experience of going on home assignment! Though I simply haven't had time to write about it, I'm increasingly "doing" it: talking about how to hand my job onto others, talking about HA plans, slotting dates in the calendar, talking to people about handing over our house and car on this end and getting a house and car on that end, etc. 

It's a lot and looks a bit like a big muddle because I'm basically taking on more work before I can give any away. I commented to a couple of friends earlier this week that it felt like people kept lobbing balls at me that I had to juggle on top of the usual fairly large number of balls-to-juggle that are part of my everyday job.

For the first time in decades, I joined a choir
(just for a day). We rehearsed and sang a
gospel song at the retreat.

Thankfully I have learned not to carry this all with me 24-7. At least I try. I'm still sleeping well and mostly am able to relax after work in the evenings without too much difficulty (although that is also the only time that I can talk with my husband about various decisions and plans). At the retreat I was able to leave most of these
responsibilities at my desk. I really enjoyed the worship, time to connect deeply with friends, and reflect on God's Word. It was the first time in three years that I've been able to fellowship within a group and sing without a mask on (in Japan). Many times in these last three years I've stuffed emotion deep and gotten on with the job at hand. But a retreat like this has a way of taking the lid off and there was plenty of emotion (from me at least).

Here's a great quote one of the speakers gave us:

On a daily basis we're faced with two simple choices. We can either listen to ourselves and our constantly changing feelings about our circumstances, or we can talk to ourselves about the unchanging truth of who God is and what He's accomplished for us at the cross through His Son Jesus. (C.J. Mahaney in The Christ Centered Life: Keeping the Gospel the Main Thing")

This song made a deep impression on me at the retreat and I've been listening to it often (which is one way of "talking to myself", another way is writing this blog post):

The chorus is special:

"From everlasting, you are God

And all our days are held within your hands

Your perfect love and favor have no end

We rest within the wisdom of your plan

Everlasting God

We rest within your plan."

My prayer is that as we continue through this messy and stressful time of transition, that I would be able to remember to rest in the wisdom of God's plan. And to truly trust him with all things!

Families: microcosms of cultures

During our time in Australia we stayed in a variety of different places. Twice we stayed with family members, twice (three times for me and our middle son) we stayed in a self-contained apartment attached to someone else’s house. Only once did we stay on our own in a detached house.

This humble house is the only place where
we lived in a detached building as a family
while we were in Australia.

Then, at the start of August, David and our youngest son left for Japan and our middle son and I moved into live with a family as guests. We were like boarders, we provided our own lunch and breakfasts and did our own washing, they provided us with dinner. We each had our own small room. This is where I quarantined with COVID. After nearly three weeks here we separated. He went to stay with his brother in his share house for ten days, and I went to stay as a guest of the family of a close friend. 

Each of these locations had their own culture.  On reflection, we were “free-est” when we rented a (holiday) house for a week.

I’m guessing that most people haven’t stayed for as long as ten days or three weeks with another unrelated family (we've done it a few times, when we visited Perth for deputation). Generally, in our Western culture, we live with our own immediate family, and only visit other families for short periods. For four years I lived in a residential college (dorm) when I was at uni. Then, after I graduated, I lived in three different situations before I got married: on my own, with part-time housemate, and with a full-time housemate. But it’s been almost 25 years since I stayed with someone other than my family for a long period.

As I reflect on what we’ve experienced since June, I’ve realised how some of the things that stressed me most was living with my family with the other family cultures we experienced. I call them cultures deliberately, because they each have rules. They each have unwritten expectations and codes of behaviour that aren’t easily decoded by outsiders.

Family cultures are influenced by so many factors, here are a some:

• Personalities
• Ages of family members
• Life experience
• Location
• Environment
• Pets
• Habits
• Work
• Busyness
• Expectations
• Health
• Division of labour
• Housing: layout, resources (e.g. hot water), cleanliness, age etc.
• Tone of voice often used
• Toleration of conflict
• Parenting styles
• Values
• Goals

For example, a family with school-aged kids who have two parents working outside the home looks very different to a family with older, fairly independent teens and parents who often work from home. Factors that vary enormously include different expectations about what meal times should look like, how recreational time is spent, what expectations the family has about security, showering, feeding and exercise of pets, whether they are introverts or extroverts, and messy or slightly obsessive about cleanliness. 

When you encounter someone outside their home (including on social media), you know very little about their home life and how things work there. When you are a houseguest, you have to be fairly alert to figure some of these things out. Depending on the family, some expectations are overtly stated, but other expectations aren't even conscious. This is complicated by the fact that we guests each bring our own expectations, needs, and values into the situation!

All of this is also affected by our role as a guest in the household. Hosts are being generous, so in reality they hold more power than you do in the situation. Not that I'm saying our hosts abused this power they held (although they may not have realised how much of a power imbalance existed), but it's worthwhile acknowledging that as a guest you are somewhat powerless. Most guests feel the pressure to not to cause any unnecessary inconvenience to their hosts. That can be a stressful tension to live with, especially over a long period.

So, how did I survive all these different living situations, especially when sharing a kitchen/bathroom/living area?

My strategies as a guest this time

If I could avoid the early-morning breakfast-bathroom rush, I did. Most of the time I didn’t need to be up as early as my hosts, so I just waited until they’d finished using the kitchen and bathroom. I tried to ask questions about important things like the laundry, shower use, dishwasher, and security. And I took my own coffee-making equipment (a very portable AeroPress Go)! 

I don’t have food allergies or sensitivities and can eat most things, so that makes being a guest easier. But I can’t use regular soap, it dries my skin out and causes rashes, so I provided my own body soap and my own dishwashing gloves. I also used my own pillow most of the time. 

In each location I tried to unpack as best I could, which included putting clothes on hangers or in drawers, so I didn’t feel so much like I was living out of a suitcase. If I needed space, I retreated to my bedroom for solitary time. 

On a couple of occasions, when something was bugging me about the house that I could influence, I dealt with it myself, rather than expecting that the host would meet my expectations. 

And, I wore comfortable slip-on shoes inside! We’re very used to Japanese houses, where the floor is fairly free of debris, I find walking around in bare feet or socks in most Australian house difficult. I also find it's "unrelaxing" to always be wearing outside shoes inside.

Reflecting

As I write all this down, I realise why I'm struggling to regain my full strength, other than still recovering from two respiratory infections in the last six weeks. It's exhausting being a guest. It's exhausting moving around from place to place. You are outside your own family culture, or as a parent, you've brought your family culture with you and you're trying to do your best to make sure your family are good guests. When you're at home with your usual family in your usual accommodation, you are most relaxed. Most of the unwritten rules are understood. Daily life happens relatively smoothly, because you have routines that work for you. (I know of course that that is the ideal, that there is always some level of friction when people live together, and probably even more so when you add children into the mix.)

However, I am very grateful to all those who generously hosted us. We're not a neat, easy-to-host family. We're a cross cultural family and some of our foibles are born of that. Other foibles are born of difficulty "reading the room" and mental illness. And some of our hosts caught us at the tail end of the nearly three months we spent as guests, and therefore did not catch us at our best.

I'm also grateful to finally be back in my own house, where the unwritten expectations are understood. Where I can choose what mountains to battle over. And where I can sleep on my own bed, with all my stuff in the places where I can find them.

Blogging from quarantine

Yep, I caught the dreaded COVID. That's not all that's been going on. It's been a huge 10 days since I last posted.

The lovely view out my bedroom window.

Sunday

We all went to the same church and the same service for the first time in several years. After morning tea at a local coffee shop, the rest of the day was spent hanging about at home, enjoying our proximity for what we thought would be the last time for perhaps a year. 

But after dinner we got an email saying that David and our youngest son's flight the next morning was cancelled and things got all topsy turvy (these stresses go straight to my gut). So, we hung about, trying to be calm and watching the Commonwealth Games, while David worked to sort out an alternative flight, which turned out to be just 26 hrs later. Then we needed to tidy up all the dominoes: accommodation, transport to the airport, PCR tests (yes, still required for entry into Japan), transport from the airport in Tokyo, notifying OMF etc.

Monday

David and and our son travelled in the morning to get a new PCR test because Japan's rule is it needs to be done 72 hrs prior to flying. But while they were on their way our Japan line manager let us know that there is a loophole for cancelled flights: 96 hrs. So, they got there, cancelled the test David had booked, applied for a refund, and came home.

We got a few more hours as a "five-some" as we ate dinner together again that evening.

My plans for the day had been: drive the guys to the airport at "crazy o-clock" then go "home" to clean and move to our next accommodation. None of that happened. It was also supposed to be my first day telecommuting to Japan for work. I hadn't anticipated being able to get much done if things had gone to plan. But instead of sitting around in limbo, I pulled out my computer and tried to get a sense of where things were at with my two teams, and answered some urgent emails. I'm glad I did, because the rest of the week didn't pan out as planned either!

Tuesday

The change of flights meant a change of airport. I had a shorter drive at "crazy o-clock" to get them to a local train station. However, the farewell left me quite distressed, it was hard to drive "home" alone when part of my heart was heading back to the place that really feels like home at the moment.

A couple of hours later, though, I had responsibilities. I took our middle son to the psychologist and together we received the results of her assessment over the previous three weeks. This has been an important part of our time in Brisbane and will hopefully help guide us as we move forward in the next 24 months. But it wasn't easy to do this without David to talk to (he was in the air by then).

Then we went back to our "home" of three weeks and finished packing up and cleaning. Never my favourite tasks!

We drove to our next lodging (just 10 minutes away), which is the home where our eldest son boarded for over three years. He came over and helped us settle in and was a good ice breaker.

Wednesday

I tried to get up and get some work done, but really struggled to focus. Getting back into my work after six weeks away is hard, but with so much disruption going on around me, it was even harder. But then I started to feel my chest tightening up.

After lunch we went to buy groceries for our breakfasts and lunches. My throat was sore and I started coughing. I also had a nasty headache. Not unusual, I've had headaches most days in the last few months, but I think this one was extra nasty.

I got a little more computer work done, and had a Zoom meeting with my Line manager.

Thursday and Friday and onwards

I woke up on Thursday knowing that my first stop after breakfast would be obtaining a rapid antigen test for COVID. And, you know the end of the story: it was positive.

While I haven't been desperately ill, I really didn't get much else done in terms of work on Thursday or Friday. Just a little bit of urgent chasing up of people, or delegating. Some of which was typed on my phone while lying in bed.

My experience of COVID infection has been indistinguishable from the way my body usually reacts to a bad cold. I know that is not true for everyone, but that is how it's been for me. Because I have chronic asthma it's hit my breathing hard, but I have meds that I've been able to use to keep that in check. I know it's going to take a while to get back to a normal level of energy and breathing.

It's been a bit strange doing this in someone else's home with very few responsibilities of my own. I've mostly kept to my own room, but have had to use the kitchen and shared bathroom. We've been eating joint dinners outside on the verandah at separate tables!

I'm thankful that this has come at a time when I had few plans that needed changing or cancelling. This hasn't disrupted travel plans either! And also that there were few things that others were relying on me to do. But also that I've been sufficiently well enough to take care of my own basic needs. I've had a clean, cosy, and private room to quarantine in. And a family living in the house with their own schedule that has given some structure to the day, even though I couldn't participate in much of it. They are also providing our dinners (and we'd shopped for food for other meals just before I went into quarantine). I'm even thankful for the government rules that tell me to stay put and recover in isolation. I can't ever remember feeling so guilt-free about staying in my room and "being lazy" for such a long period!

I'm also thankful for friendship that I've developed that haven't depended on physical proximity. And technology. Though I've been alone in my room, I've not been lonely. Indeed, for example, I had a fantastic 2 ½ hr video call with two close friends yesterday afternoon that was life-giving.

I'm in quarantine through to Thursday morning and hopefully will only have a lingering occasional asthmatic cough by then. I have typed this sitting up at a desk, and had a sufficiently clear head to do some editing work too! Indeed, I have spent a lot less time horizontal today, so it seems like this infection is on its way out.

I hope the next ten days are less dramatic!

An unexpected outing to inner city Tokyo

Earlier this year I worked on a magazine issue themed "Rest". You can check out most of the articles we published in that issue here. When we asked the missionary community in Japan for article proposals, we were overwhelmed with people wanting to write on this topic, so it's obviously something that missionaries in Japan (among others) have thought about quite a bit. 

However, when we talk to people back home, it's not often that people ask us about how we get rest on the mission field. I wonder if this isn't something that people think about until they have actually left their home country and are desperately tired? I know that when we first landed in Japan we were quite exhausted from what had gone before and I can't remember if anyone ever talked to us about pacing ourselves.

I was quite encouraged to see an article in the latest magazine that we've completed (last Saturday) that talked about mentoring people interested in long-term mission. It was an internship program that their organisation runs and one of the five main areas that this couple focus on with their interns is Staying Healthy, which includes incorporating rest into your life.

Well, I've been in Japan for over 21 years now and I've had to learn about rest. I still have lots to learn, but I've learned a few things along the way. Like: How to rest when you've got three lively young boys. How to rest when your to-do list seems enormous and overwhelming. How to rest when no one else in Japan seems to, and how to manage when just making it through a short Japanese-language church service is exhausting. How do you rest when you're very aware of the urgency of reaching Japan for Christ? And when going anywhere away from home just takes so much out of you.

I still remember our first holiday in Japan. Just following the paper map (in Japanese and pre-Navi) was exhausting. Then we needed to figure out buying groceries in a small rural town and a strange missionary holiday house (believe me, they are often stranger than the usual place you'd rent back home). On top of that, we had a lively 2 y.o. and no one but us to look after him.

Over the years we've learned different ways and means of resting and that it isn't an option, rest is essential, as is pacing ourselves. We've had to approach this missionary life more like a long-distance journey, than a sprint. But we still struggle, life and ministry have a way of being busy and both David and I are self-starters, which means that we can be quite driven. I've been trying to finish this blog post for several days. I've been wrestling with tiredness as well as drivenness. Tiredness won out yesterday morning and I rested all morning.

My busyness at work tends to ebb and flow. Thankfully I am not expected to fill out a time-card, so if work is a bit quiet, it's okay to take some time to rest. So last week many people in Japan were resting, or at least recreating, with several public holidays on the calendar. Our house, typically, looked different. Our school didn't take all the holidays, in fact only one. I had plenty of work on my to-do list, including a magazine I hoped we could finish by the end of the week to accomodate the schedule of one of our team members. So I didn't plan to take time off, merely held it as a possibility, if the opportunity arose.

Last Wednesday (a beautiful day, not unlike today), a colleague who lives over an hour away, met me halfway for the afternoon and we explored a little corner of Tokyo. I'm not really a city person, as you might know, but I do find Tokyo to be an intriguing place. Certainly a city where nature isn't completely sidelined. There's still lots of life-giving green to be found if you look.

The area we walked around is near the purple star at the top of the map.

We walked several kilometres, exploring an area around the Iidabashi station, an area just north of the Imperial Palace. That included walking along a portion of both sides of the Kanda River, a short foray along a street in the neighbourhood of Kagurazaka to find lunch, and a stroll around a famous walled garden.

I'm going to show you the afternoon through photos and captions.

Sloped street in Kagurazaka. Lots of quaint stores that beg to be explored.

It's appealing because it's not over-the-top "shiny" and commercial like some famous

areas of Tokyo. This webpage tells me some of the charm is because there's a large French 

expat community here, including a French international school.

This is one of six train lines that run through Iidabashi! Most of them are underground, thankfully. The river is the Kanda, which is only 24 km long and lies entirely within Tokyo borders. This is taken from the southern bank looking northwest away from the palace towards Shinjuku, one of several "city centres" within Tokyo. 

A bit to the left of the photo above, taking looking down the river. In the middle is a place you can fish! I'm not a fisherman, but this just seemed to be lacking any appealing atmosphere.

This is on the opposite side of the river, looking towards the Imperial Palace and the actual "city centre". Later we walked along under those trees behind the train.

More city views from the southern bank.

Who would have thought? Inner city Tokyo? Many of these trees are cherry blossoms and so would have been amazing in a different way a month ago.

Stunning huge tree.

Then we made our way to Koishikawa Korakuen Garden. I'm guessing that some of you have been to a Japanese garden overseas, but in my experience it's a little different in Japan, not that I've been to that many in either place. The biggest difference would be the age. Japanese gardens/parks in Japan, the sort you walk around and admire the ponds, etc., are old. The trees are mature and there's a lot of history embedded in the park. This one is nearly 400 years old.

The English brochure says it was originally built by the founder of the Mito branch of Tokugawa clan (a powerful clan in the Edo period, 1603 to 1868). It is a circuit style garden with ponds and manmade hills centering on the pond. Like many things from Japanese history, it has Chinese influences. It has two special designations: Special Historic Site and the Special Place of Scenic Beauty. Part of this status is the recognition that it is a valuable property that has survived the Great Kanto Earthquake and war damage as well as progressing urbanisation.

Luminescent new-spring leaves.

You can see a hill and winding path behind me in this picture. These small hills and circular paths make the garden seem larger than it actually is. There's no one spot where you can see all the garden.

There's no escaping that this is a garden surrounded by a high-density city. The ambience was tempered by the noise of a neighbouring amusement park rollercoaster and a concert in the adjacent Tokyo Dome. Not to mention it was hard to keep the buildings out of some photos, but here I really liked the reflection in the pond.

You've made it this far: well done! This day was not my typical idea of a rest day, but I did come away feeling filled up and refreshed. I got to hang out with a friend and talk about the various things going on in our lives, I got to see a tiny bit more of this amazing city, including some beautiful green and even amazing man-made structures (though a tree will usually trump a building for me).

Curve-ball kind of week

 After a slow week at work last week, the burners were turned up this week. (You can often tell by how many blog posts I’ve written...in a slow week I write more, busy week, I don’t often get to write at all).

My working week ended with a pretty
cool sunset. This was the best I could
get from my balcony.

Last weekend the first curve ball landed of my week landed when two siblings at school were diagnosed with COVID. None of our family had close contact with either student while not wearing a mask (the main thing they consider in Japan), however they did “shut down” the two grades those students were in for the week and that meant one of our boys was back to online schooling. As my husband is on the leadership team at school I also heard a few bits and pieces as the week went on, as various circles of contact were tested and eventually cleared (that’s right, no one at school caught the virus from these two students). I’m pretty impressed—Japanese contact testing is thorough and well organized.

I spent Monday on the other side of Tokyo with some of my Kanto OMF colleagues. David got to come too, which was a lovely treat (although we tried not to talk on the 2.5 hrs we spent on trains...that’s one of the COVID guidelines here). 

As usual, it was great to spend time with colleagues. We even got to stay an extra hour and play games. That was both challenging and fun. I ended up being drawn into a Japanese language game that’s a bit like Taboo and surprised myself by not doing too bad. Actually “guessing” is a big part of my survival strategy in Japanese language, so I suppose it shouldn’t be such a surprise that I did alright. But I still ended up the day with a bad headache, traveling on public transport and being with people all day while wearing masks is not as  easy as it used to be.

When I got back to my desk on Tuesday I found a pile of work bigger than I’d expected, that was the next cluster of curve-balls. We’re into the design-phase of the Winter issue of the magazine and I thought I’d finished the hard-lifting editing last Friday. However one article came back from an author with some major changes. I also had to do some fast writing to extend one article I’d written, to better fill the space we had available (we had less content than we’d needed to fill the 40-page magazine).

Managing a magazine has lots of behind-the-scenes stuff that I never imagined. The most surprising to me is how tricky it can be to get just the right amount of content. That involves juggling many things, from word count and images, to actually where articles are placed in the magazine, not to mention ads.

So Tuesday was a busy day at the office. 

On Wednesday the next curve ball arrived, and it was in the form of a request to create a PowerPoint presentation for the content I’d be helping present on Friday morning for an orientation for new missionaries. The pressure mounted as I’d already agreed to help out an expat friend all Wednesday afternoon, and Thursday was fully booked with parent-teacher conferences, at school and other errands that needed doing.

By Thursday morning I was feeling pretty exhausted. I ended up having to reschedule an appointment (not because I was tired), but that gave me some extra wriggle room for getting things done. After dinner on Thursday night David had to go back to school to see more parents for conferences and I nearly fell asleep at 7.30 in my chair!

Friday was more sane. We did the orientation session just before lunch and it seemed to go well, despite our lack of experience at delivering training via Zoom (they were all in one room, but my colleague and I were in our own homes). That gave me Friday afternoon to tidy up a lot of the loose ends from earlier in the week. I got to the end of yesterday feeling both exhausted and satisfied. And very thankful for a quiet weekend coming up and that no further curve balls arrived on Friday!

How was your week? I’m still learning to go with the flow—to enjoy the times when the demands of my job and time and energy available are about equal. The difficulty I have is to not get too stressed when the demands exceed the time and energy I have available and not to overthink when I’ve got more time and energy available than the job demands.

Seizing the day in the park

On Wednesday we finished the Autumn issue of Japan Harvest magazine, several days before September, the theoretical start of Autumn (according to some). I saw in my Facebook memories today that five years ago we were packing the Spring issue this week—wow, we've made progress in efficiency in those intervening years! (Five years ago we were still recovering from me taking a year off managing the magazine to go on home assignment, and had a designer who was trying to fit the magazine around a full-time job.)

Finishing each magazine is a milestone worth celebrating, and it frequently means I get a tiny bit of breathing space before the next thing begins. This week I really needed that. School started on-campus for our boys for the first time in nearly six-months last Thursday, but due to COVID-19, they've had a slow start (only half days till Sept 7). There have been sudden announcements and changes in what we expected of the school-start as we've progressed through the week, including more distance learning for one. So, I've been cooling my heels as I long to get my family-free office hours back.

That all came at the end of a stressful month. The first eight working days after coming back from holidays on August 3rd were frenetic as I caught up on the previous two weeks. 

It's been the usual August weather—crazy hot and humid—so our sleep hasn't been the best and for the first time in six months we've been getting up at 6am to get David to work on time, so we've been extra tired. 

Additionally, I've had interactions with several people I usually work with that have been more fraught than usual. I put it down to the stress of living in the midst of a slow-moving, and not-yet-ended disaster. 

Then I've had email problems that have come to a head on the weekend when my magazine email address stopped working. (The problem with email is that you don't know if it has arrived.)

So, on Wednesday afternoon, as I looked at what I needed to get done in the next few days, I realised that I had time to take a morning at the park. Unfortunately it didn't cool down as much this week as I'd hoped (we had a cooler day on Sunday and I hoped that would continue, but it hasn't). So instead of riding to the usual park, I took a couple of trains (only 15 mins on trains) to a different park for the morning.

I've never been to this park on my own, and I've not been there for a couple of years at least. We went there many times with the boys when they were younger, as well as with smaller and larger groups of people. There is a big playground that was great for getting rid of energy. It also has an aeroplane museum that was a great place to go when the boys were younger and we needed "out" on an inclement day. I even lost a child in this park one time...he's now at uni in Australia, so he was found, eventually!

It's called Kōkūkoen or Tokorozawa Aviation Memorial Park. Wikipedia says, "The park is built on the former site of Tokorozawa Airfield, Japan's first airfield, which was opened on April 1, 1911. Japan's first plane, the Kaishiki biplane No.1, made its first flight at Tokorozawa on October 13, 1911."

Though only 30/32C, the humidity was high (in the 70% range), so I quickly found a spot to sit. This was part of my view. Disconcertingly, it was close to a running track (you can see it in the photos). So I watched people actually running in the hot, humid conditions!

Below was my view from my seat above. Beautiful mowed lawns.

This small lake is quite pretty in spring and autumn, not so much in late summer.

The park has two or three long, straight roads like this (no external traffic on them). I'm guessing they are former runways.

No idea what this is, but they were pretty much the only flowers in the whole park.

Wisteria in the summer is a wonderful shade plant. These have amazing, twisted trunks, revealing they aren't youngsters. (In the background is part of the museum.)

One of the things I did while sitting, was read a recent book by Larry Crabb. It's given me much food for thought that will probably make its way into another blog post soon.

I'm thankful for a job that is flexible and with low accountability. I have no one closely looking over my shoulder. This suits me very well. It means I can run into difficulty if I'm slack, but generally it works out okay as I'm one of those people who repeatedly had "conscientious" on my report cards at school. I've learned to "seize the day" when slower periods like the latter half of this week happen along. If I don't they will slip away, and I might not get another chance for several weeks!

Do you get free-er moments sometimes in your week/month? How do you deal with them? Do you have a go-to activity?

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)