Exciting gloom

Today is gloomy. It's heavily overcast and when I went out earlier I wondered if I should take an umbrella just in case. It is rainy season. That doesn't, however, mean that it rains every day, in fact it doesn't. I gave this official definition in two years ago in this post:

The rainy season is caused by the collision of cold northerly and warm southerly air masses, which results in a relatively stable bad weather front over the 
Japanese archipelago for several weeks

My indoor garden is looking good in this light.

At that time I also listed several things I really like about rainy season. One of the best is the light, believe it or not. My parents rejoiced at rain (they both grew up on farms), and in dry Australia, gloomy rain-prone weather was not usual, but rejoiced at in our house. I still enjoy it. Even better if it is a day off when I can curl up on my bed with a book.

Something I've realised later in life is that the gloomy light brings out beautiful colours. The greens of leaves are greener and flowers just glow. The hydrangea photo at the top of this page was taken at this time of year. I love blues and greens and they look fabulous on a gloomy day.

The temperature at this time of year is wonderful too, in the high 20s, and pretty stable. The clouds keep the blistering heat at bay just a few weeks longer. Just perfect!

I'm in a good period right now. I'm feeling creative and stimulated, excited about possibilities and new projects. Frustrated that I don't have the time to pursue all the possibilities, but excited nonetheless. 

One of the possibilities is related to the photography course I attended last Saturday, and will continue this Saturday and the next. I felt frustrated on Saturday at the end of the day because I had to leave the camera at school. My slightly sophisticated point-and-shoot just doesn't have much that you can adjust, not like I was learning, and I longed to get my hands back on a fancy camera to take more shots. So I started looking at cameras online. How much could I get for how little?

Unrelated to that was an email sent round on a group email in our mission a couple of weeks ago, it was the offer of a free Nikon DSLR camera to the first respondent. I responded quickly but not quick enough. Then a couple of days ago I heard that the camera was available again as the first person wasn't able to collect it. Wow, all of a sudden I will have a fancy camera (a bit old with some oddities, but still functional). I'm excited and I guess that's shading everything else which seems a little rose-coloured.

So just like the gloomy day makes all the flowers and leaves glow, so my general mood of anticipate and excitement makes life at the moment seem full of possibilities.

Kids newsletter for June

Here is our quarterly Kids newsletter. Feel free to pass it on, copy it, or whatever. If you'd like to receive a better quality copy, please contact me.

Busy summers

When we first came to Japan it was a bit of a shock to realise that everyone seemed to holiday in the middle of the year. It shouldn't have been, because many Australians holiday during summer! However the Queensland climate and school calendar tends to spread things out a little more. So people also holiday at Easter, mid-winter, and in September when there are two or more weeks of school holidays. Northern hemisphere folk seem to be much more inclined to only take vacations in summer.

This is Yamanaka lake. We took a few days holiday there
last summer in the SEND compound. It's beautiful, with an
amazing view of Mt Fuji.

Of course that makes sense if you've got kids in school. The school calendars (both Japanese and international) are not conducive to taking holidays any other time. We're really spoiled in Australia.

We mostly figured that out after 3 ¾ years in Hokkaido. Actually it made a lot of sense up there, because snow is on the ground for about five months of the year, so there is a very short season of warmth. 

Even so, it took us a while to figure out the pattern for summer in this international school community when we moved here eleven years ago. Eleven weeks of holidays isn't just a void, there's lots of stuff happening. Here's are some of the types of things people do during the summer:

1. Summer School. During the first four weeks of the holidays the school holds summer school classes. This is optional for most, but I believe that ESL/EAL students are required to go to classes to boost their English levels. There's a large variety of classes running this year, including tennis, writing, robotics, algebra, Korean etc. My house emptied out this morning as all four guys went to "school". The boys are doing wrestling for two hours every morning this week and David's teaching Science labs especially for home schoolers, but he has a couple of other students from CAJ as well. The photography class that I did on Saturday was part of this programme. It's wonderful of the school to put these classes on, it's an opportunity to work on weaknesses, pursue your passions, or dip your toe into something new.
2. Camps. Two big camps that happen this week and next are like SU camps we have in Australia. Called Joy Bible Camps, there is primary/elementary school this week and middle school next week. Our boys have all experienced these wonderful camps out where I went with the Grade 5s last month. There are other English-speaking camps happening during the summer, but none are as well known at CAJ as these two. In July there is a high schooler camp run by a group called HiBA (high schoolers born again), this year our eldest is going to that for the first time.
3. Conferences. We're doing this next week: our mission has a national conference in Japan where almost all the missionaries in our mission will meet together for a week of fellowship, teaching, learning, discussing, and other matters. There are various events that the missionary community is a part of in various missions and countries. US has TCK gatherings too.
4. Overseas travel. A lot of families travel overseas, usually to visit extended family, but also some to do deputation, visiting supporters and churches. Some travel for study, or just for fun.
5. Domestic travel. This is common for those of us who stay around. There are several places that missionaries go. We frequently hear the names Takayama, Yamanaka, Karuizawa, and Nojiri. All four of these places have holiday cabins belonging to missionaries and/or missions. One is sea-side, two are lake-side and the fourth is in the mountains. For many long-term missionary families, this is where they holiday every summer, often with many other missionary families close by. Our family is doing the unusual in taking a camping trip to places where there aren't other missionaries.
6. Mission trips. This is something we hear about being done by high schoolers and uni students who still have connections with families at CAJ. Some of them are in-country, like the Gospel Teams that HiBA run, reaching out to Japanese high schoolers. Others are short term trips to other countries.
7. Summer jobs. This isn't something we hear about so often, but there are high schoolers who get summer jobs in Japan, some with missions here (like helping out at a campsite).
8. Staying in Tokyo, hanging out at home. Not so common either, but it does happen. Especially when one or both parents have to work through the summer. Sometimes families split up and one parent and the kids go to their home country. But most people have some time of hanging out at home during the 11 weeks.

Phew, that's a lot of stuff. But usually when you ask what people they're doing over the summer, these are the answers you hear.

Fences can make me scream

Here's a post I read several months ago that I wanted to share with you sometimes. It's called "Don't Fence Me In" and it strikes a chord with me, especially to this comment:

No one wants to feel like they’re being controlled, especially me. The moment I feel that someone is trying to master me, I check out of the relationship. If I’m unable to flee, I sit on the urge to scream, “I’m pretty sure I got up this morning and put on my big girl panties, so why are you always telling me what to do???”

The article begins from a parenting perspective where it talks about how we try to control our kids and how impossible a goal it is. It's a short article, more expressing a struggle in this area than anything, but finishes with some noteworthy thoughts.

Maybe you don’t have children and maybe you don’t feel the need to control others. However, you may be dealing with anger over the feeling of being controlled. In overseas living, we’re all asked to submit to something—whether it’s your organization that tells you which beverages you can and can’t sip or slurp, your host country that runs you through a medical test like an animal so you can get a residence permit, your supporters telling you how you can and can’t spend your money, or your husband who doesn’t think visiting your home country for Christmas is a good idea.

Issues like this can so easily creep up on us, and if we’re not careful we let bitterness surround us like barbed wire. It’s hard to get out . Even though submission to God-given authority is good and right, it can be painful at times. 

Yes, to serve God in Japan we have to submit to our organisation and their rules (for example home assignments that disrupt our lives considerably), submit to visa restrictions, submit to living in a country where we don't speak the language well or understand the culture, submit to living in a city that is way larger than we're comfortable with. 

I guess I haven't thought about it much in those terms, but sometimes it does irritate.  What helps is remembering the goal—why are we doing this "hard thing"?

Photography school

I didn't sign up with a friend, but found a friend was there anyway. This 

lady is one of the few southern-hemisphere mums around at CAJ, 

she's South African.

Today I did something fun, I started a photography course. It's part of the school's summer school and open to adults as well as students. It runs for three Saturdays and is mostly practical: learn by doing, my favourite mode of learning. 

All the numbers and terms are complicated! Though I'm 

reassured that once you've done it for a while it becomes

second nature!

I've been interested in photography for a long time but never found a way to learn much. It's not something easily learned from a book and I've been reluctant to buy an expensive camera to "play around with". We were able to use school cameras for this course and being a small group of seven students gave us premium access to a patient teacher.

Bonus was that we practised at my favourite big park (but I didn't ride my bike there). We went into a section of the park that I've never been into before: an Open Air Architecture museum. At least two of my sons have had school excursions there, but I've never gone. Almost every time I've ridden down there I've ridden past, though. Because it costs a little I haven't been persuaded to go inside until today. Ironically I've got practically no photos because it just didn't seem right to be pulling out my iPhone to snap shots when I had this big camera in my hands. And I had to leave "my" camera with its STD card full of photos at school at the end of the day. 

Now the only other problem is that I don't have much to practise with at home. Christmas present, anyone?

It hurts because it was good

I'm acutely aware of how good it is that we're not packing to leave the country this month. This is the first June in three years that we haven't been doing that. However the flip side of that coin is that we're saying goodbye to those who are packing. I've been to another farewell event today.

This was a farewell picnic in Australia last year. We weren't
speaking words of farewell, but we were enjoying time
 together. I'm feeling teary just thinking about how
precious that time was!

June two years ago I wrote a short post that linked to 41 tips for these times: for those who are moving, for those who are staying, and for those who are receiving the movers. Today I repost the link to the "staying" post because it is helpful to me now as I stay.

Here are some helpful points to remind myself:

• Grief is not just associated with death. Allow myself to grieve these losses too.

• It's important to mark the event, to say something (or write something, as I did here on Wednesday). Mind you, today the farewell event was wordless. The couple who are leaving served the staff and family community by making us lunch. No speeches, just service. I'm sure that they'll have said words in other venues, to close friends etc, but today it was just them serving us in a special way. Different love languages say farewells differently too? I'd personally rather write something or hug someone to say farewell than have to come up with meaningful words face-to-face. I remember saying farewell to our home church last year in June and the words we had to say in front of everyone. It was really hard. Harder still was all the one-on-one farewells afterwards. What I remember most from that day, though, was a little girl who has few words, but sat on my lap and hugged me for ages. It was a precious farewell, though I don't think she realised that that's what was going on.

• Friends aren't necessarily friends forever. It's okay to have friends just for a season.

• And stemming from the above two points, different levels of friendship should get different levels of farewells too. We're saying goodbye not just to close friends, but also to people who's names we know, but not a lot else about them, but we'll miss seeing them about. We're saying goodbye to people who we've enjoyed working with, but never shared an intimate conversation over coffee. We're saying goodbye to the cohort of 2015-2016, knowing that though much of it will be the same in 2016-2017 school year, there will be faces missing. Some of these levels of friendship require deep words, some don't. But taking the time to recognised the grief is worth it.

• Part of the grief is that there will be new faces in 2016-2017 who don't know the faces that we're missing.

• Go away and come back. I'm glad that though we don't have a big trip back to Australia this year, we've still got big plans—our trip to Hokkaido in 10 days and our camping tour in July. It will be good to go away, take a break from these farewells, and come back renewed and ready to re-engage.

One of the best pieces of advice from the author of the above post is to give grace: to others around you who are just trying to cope with the pain of parting/or staying and to give grace to myself as I walk through all these emotions and thoughts.

But lastly—it hurts because it's good. These people from whom we part have been God's gift to us during the last X number of months/years/decades. It hurts when a good thing ends. So the hurt has an element of good to it—because it was good to have known these people, it hurts to say goodbye.

Wow, that's a whole lot more than I'd thought I was going to write on this topic. I guess it's closer to my heart than I thought.  Just so that you know, I'm not a crippled mess. I'm not crying (well, maybe just a little, occasionally). I'm not immobolised at all. I'm just stopping to recognise that life will never be the same again, just like this year was like no other.

Summer holiday guidelines

Here are the guidelines for the summer. I read it out to the boys last night. They weren't super happy, but resigned (helped by the fact that they had full tummies).  I pointed out that we were looking for balance and if we saw them exercising 20 hours a day we'd pull them up too. That added a moment of humour and seemed to give perspective on this issue. It isn't just about electronics, it is about learning to get a balance in your life when you have a lot of freedom and few responsibilities.

I'll try to report back here on how this goes. You'll notice that there's no measurements here, I haven't said "every day" or "before you get to use your devices". Nor are there specific limits promised on internet time, that allows us to use discretion. We'll see how it goes and what revisions are necessary and how the guys rise up to meet the challenge.