Thrift Shop Friday

Even tireder tonight but let's see how I go. Friday is my favourite day in the 4 1/2 days of Thrift Shop (including set-up and take-down, we actually only open for sales for 10 hours over two days unless you volunteer for more than four hours than you get to shop during the set-up days). But Friday has a pleasant community feel. Only PTA members can shop and it has a delightful carnival flavour. 

I took these two photos at 2pm, after the lunch rush. It was a perfect sunny spring day. The courtyard area provided mottled sunlight under a mixture of Sakura blossoms and vibrant green leaves.

 It was wonderful to stand to one side of the busyness for a short while while I ate some cherry pie and ice cream (fundraiser for our son's senior class ministry trip to Thailand next year). You can see there are various groups of people chatting, this is the hallmark of Thrift Shop Friday. It's a great opportunity for many missionaries who rarely get the opportunity to see one another to spend time together. I was very much on the business end of running the event inside the gym for most of the day, but the pace was mostly gentle and there were many conversations. 

School only goes till 12 on Thrift Shop Friday, then the kids come in to shop too. Many of them really look forward to this. 

Here we have some high schoolers who lead a middle school youth group trying on gear for their traditional post-Thrift Shop dress-up youth group on Sunday. You can see how much this event is part of the fabric of the lives of so many in the international community here, it's not just about raising money. 

One of our high school son's best friends. It took me a few moments to recognise him!

This is an interesting Japan-Western hybrid. Is there anywhere else in the world that Taco Rice is a dish? It has all the fixings for a taco plus crumbled taco shells or corn chips on top of rice. My lunch. Yum!  

Our eldest son unsuccessfully hiding from the camera. He, along with many of his classmates, were hard at work manning food stalls to raise money for their class ministry trip to Thailand next year. And no, his nose wasn't touching the sausages. 

Tomorrow is the business end of Thrift Shop as the local community invades our gym. It can be very intense. I'm a checkout chick for the whole four hours we're open and usually speak a lot of Japanese during that time. Then we get some free shopping on what's left (those who are staying for cleanup). After that we clear out the gym and put all the hardware away until we do it all over again in October!

Too tired

I am too tired to blog properly (with lots of words in coherent sentences). Thousands of decisions will do that to you. And that's basically what volunteering at CAJ's Thrift Shop involves, be it decisions about what price to give the shirt in your hand to where to put the Malaysian kilt you've found. From how many signs to put up about needing a membership card to be able to shop to where to put them. In the middle of all that decision making I was answering questions from other people like about whether we sell underwear and where they can pay their PTA membership (not in the same breath).

But wow, that's already a lot of sentences. Here are some photos. 

This is a bit difficult to see. It was a pile about five metres long and one metre  wide of women's tops. At one point it was high enough to come up to the shoulders of one of the grade six girls I was supervising (while she was sitting on the floor). Actually there are about 10 girls plus a few mums working on that one pile in this photo. 

And then some fun. We always get some unusual and even amusing donations. These PJ pants are fun. 

This ankle-length skirt was unexpected. Very warm, it's made out of the fleece you'd use for a baby blanket. Strangely I'm tempted to buy it to wear around the house in the depths of winter, it would be like wearing a blanket. 

Here's one of my friends having fun with a wig and beanie. He wore the wig all day yesterday but the hat changed several times. His real hair is short and dark with some grey. It took a while to get used to this new look. As I told a student today, you have to have fun while doing this humungous job, otherwise you'd cry or lose the plot (or your temper, which I've seen happen).

And I'll leave you pondering these Australian carrots (gloves, I think). 

Are aprons a Japanese thing?

It's CAJ's Thrift Shop week again. One of two weeks in the school year that we turn the school gym into a second-hand shop for just two days (set-up takes 2 ½ days before that and take-down just a few hours). I'm just sneaking a blog post into my lunch break.

I've been in Japan too long to know now, but is wearing an apron while doing work like this (not kitchen work) a Japanese thing? You frequently see kindergarten teachers wearing them all the time, and various other employees, like reception staff at the doctor's clinic.

We have PTA aprons identifying us as volunteers. Most are blue, mine is red because I have a couple of specific jobs associated with Thrift Shop (which means I must work the whole four and a half days). Here I am walking home from school in my apron, I couldn't be bothered taking it off for that short 300m walk.

It's a gorgeous day today, and a real a pity to be stuck inside a gym. Look at these amazing cherry blossoms. Not the most popular ones and blooming a couple of weeks later, but absolutely gorgeous at the kindergarten just down the road from our house. 

Can you see me? I'm in that road-mirror. I finally got a sakura-selfie this season.

It helps to know why you do what you do

I'm on a train, again. This is my 15th train in four days. 

Ikebukuro Station, one of the largest stations in the world
and I passed through it twice today, no worries.

On Friday I travelled into the city to meet some people from Singapore who'd read my blog (I'm planning to write more about that soon)—four trains. 

On Saturday I went to a Track and Field meet to support two of my boys (and wrote about it here)—seven trains. 

And then today I went over to our mission's Japan Headquarters for a prayer meeting, fellowship, and a working bee—six or seven trains (depending on whether I get a semi-express that stops at our station or an express that doesn't so I have to change one before to a local). 

I'm so glad that I've grown used to Tokyo trains. They're a convenient and reliable  way to get around. For a long time they were a mystery to me and very stressful. But I've gradually figured them out. Definitely a part of learning to live happily where I am. 

This morning before the prayer meeting I met an Australian OMF missionary for chat over coffee and hot cocoa. She's still in language school and has been here less than two years. She asked about how I came to be doing what I do (as in writing and editing). So I got to tell some of story, of how God has gone before me and guided me into what I'm doing. No, it wasn't planned. I was reminded of how I never planned to come to Tokyo and how this place was overwhelming for many years.

Then I read this article soon after hopping on the train to go home.

It's about the different challenges of staying. As opposed to leaving your home country and adjusting to your country of service or the opposite, leaving the place you've been serving and going somewhere else, perhaps your passport country. 

I've written about staying before. It can be hard. Some of the challenges are:

• It lacks the adrenaline rush of changing countries or making big changes. That might sound strange, but those changes are not just challenging they have an element of "new" and "exciting" to them. 
• Staying in an expat situation generally means lots of hellos and goodbyes as other expats around you make those big moves. It's easy to get jaded, to wonder if it's worth investing in new relationships. It's easy to get immune to goodbyes and not really feel them anymore. 
• After a while it's easy to stay bound by what's familiar and not venture beyond that. You can get tired of the extra effort it takes to venture outside what is comfortable. 

I'm now on my 17th train. Mobile blogging at its best!

Today we were challenged to keep our eyes on our goal, like Jesus did. He "did ministry" for only three years, but those three years were very focused on the end goal: to die for our sins and defeat death by rising again. Along the way he taught his disciples who would continue his church after he'd left this earth. 

The article I've linked to above gives us eight ways to do a good job of remaining in our country of service. (The article used the phrase "stay well" obviously play on the phrase "leave well", except it doesn't work wonderfully because the phrase "stay well" usually means "stay healthy", but it does gave the advantage of being more succinct than anything else I can think of.) The article says a lot of good things, but it doesn't mention keeping your eye on the goal. 

So ask why are you doing this hard thing. It's a question that you probably answered before you came, but sometimes in the midst of life the answer gets forgotten. Or perhaps the answer has changed since you've left. In order to flourish in your country of service past the time of the adrenaline rush of arriving, you need to remember why you're doing what you're doing.


Here is another post about "Staying well" that I didn't write.

Saying no in Japanese

It's hard to say no clearly in Japanese without offending. I still remember a Dutch mum in a playground when she was still new in the country who was incensed that her son was being (mildly) teased by some other kids. She demanded I tell her how to say no to them. It was hard to give her a good answer, I was only a couple of years ahead of her. Now I would say "Da-mei, with your forearms crossed in front of your chest."

This post explains some of the ways to say no in Japanese.

I commonly come across this problem at the grocery store when they offer me a bag and I have my own or if they try to get me to sign up for a store points card.

 I often use yoroshi desu in these cases. Which, I'm pretty sure means "I'm okay thanks", please correct my Japanese if you know better. Of course you can use it in a positive sense too, in that "Is this okay?" So there is still potential for confusion, but it usually works. 

Today's athletics meet

We spent today at another inter-school track and field day. It's done differently here to Australia. More like a sport like football or basketball. Athletes are given several opportunities over a season of a couple of months to compete, and especially (for the high schoolers) to qualify for the next level of competition. 

We travelled by train across the city to a Japanese venue and watched our athletes compete all day.

Below is our middle schooler finishing off the 4x100m relay. Unfortunately my reaction time was a little slow and I only just caught him. 

Watching shot put (we weren't allowed in the middle of the track) I was bemused at this unattended pile of stuff at the side of the track. Only in Japan could you leave an iPhone like this?

This athletics venue is out on a created island near Tokyo Bay. It's right next to the stables for the nearby horse racetrack. Smells like it too. (Can you see the hay on the street?)

If we'd stayed on the train a few more stops we'd have ended up at the old Tokyo international airport: Haneda. There were plenty of planes taking off in the background.

On the four-train journey home I spotted this wonderful English. Anyone want to buy a ticket machine?

This is a vending machine we saw on a train platform. You may be aware that vending machines are very common in Japan, especially in cities. There are more than 5 1/2 million in a country which is less than half the size of NSW. Apparently the greatest saturation per kilometre square of any country in the world. (See more about Japan and vending machines here). This one was a bit high-tech, the sort of thing people imagine our lives in Japan is full of. It was a giant touch screen, no actual buttons at all. 

Once again it was super to pass the time with friends. Fewer CAJ parents there than last week, but some of the same families that we did cross-country and wrestling with. Great fun! Renee and I inadvertently twinned up in purple today. 

Japanese is probably the most difficult language

I know that this kind of thing can be the source of discouragement or pride for someone, but in a small way it is an encouragement for me. Many times I feel a failure because I've not managed to become competent in this language. God has graciously given me other roles that don't need Japanese competency, but I still live here and wish every day that more Japanese language would stick in my head.

The Foreign Service Institute (FSI) says Japanese is the most difficult of the most difficult languages for English speakers to learn. FSI is where the US trains their diplomats as well as other professionals who are engaged in foreign affairs.