International News

Over the weekend we learned various big international news, including the result from Australia's national election: a new ruling party and prime minister. How that all pans out, we'll just wait and see.

The moment of victory for our son earlier in the year.

Of more interest to our boys was the news that Tokyo would host the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics. Additionally, this morning we heard that the IOC has said that wrestling can remain an Olympic sport (for now). This is a reversal of what we'd heard several months ago. And there was great rejoicing in the wrestling circles! There's a short video of the announcement in this article that shows the excitement of the wrestling contingent when they announced the decision.

We're only new fans of the sport (and we haven't seen much of it really), but we're excited.

There is one negative point I hadn't considered about the Tokyo Olympic announcement, it was mentioned by a Facebook friend: that for the IOC to reject Istanbul was a missed opportunity:

I believe the Olympic movement just turned their back on a wonderful opportunity to build a bridge of trust to the Muslim world and the Middle East region. Confirmation that their ideals no longer embrace peace and brotherhood through sport, rather they embrace the filthy lucre.

Only God knows where we'll be in 2020. As I tried to explain in my halting Japanese this morning, God hasn't given us an end-date for serving in Japan. So, unless He gives us direction otherwise, we'll still be here in 2020, with two boys in high school. It's going to look a bit different to how our household looks now. I'll probably be the shortest in the family again. We'll probably also have a son in university. Wow!

Troubled

I've been naive. I didn't guess that being a magazine editor could stir up so much trouble. I had plenty in the early days: particularly from writers who didn't like the status quo being changed. But I believed that most of the worst trouble was behind me.

Wrong. Just this last week I've received several troubling emails from two missionaries. Both have taken my well meaning words and twisted them, getting themselves in knots about my apparent ill will towards them and the magazine. 

It occasionally makes me want to chuck the job in. I hate conflict. I particularly hate it when people get all insecure and spew out anger at me because they feel threatened or I don't give them enough adulation. I also hate it when people, who don't understand my job think they do, not just criticise but (try to) boss me around. 

Grrr. 

As I was pondering the latest of these attacks, I began to prepare dinner last night. Over my sink is a little collection of Bible verses that I rotate through the verse up at the moment is 

"Cast all your cares on Him [Christ] because he cares for you." 1 Peter 5:7 NIV

 Oh. You know what? When you're stewing over a problem, that is the hardest thing: to cast the anxiety away onto Christ! I've been trying. But it is hard.

Neither of these missionaries are going away any time soon. You'll be sure that, in addition to trying to cast my cares on Christ, I'll also be praying that these men's attitudes toward me changes.

Japan Photo #39 Answer

This is a hook, pretty obviously! Lesley came the closest with a "some sort of washing hook".

It is a hook for drying shoes.

 Usually closed in shoes, especially the shoes that Japanese children wear inside at school. They get sent home every Friday and are supposed to be scrubbed clean (being white they get very dirty, especially in kindergarten).

My heart is just walking around

Tomorrow morning begins the new year of school sport for us.

Our high school son competes in his first 3 mile cross country event (at least I think that is the distance, longer than middle school at least).

This morning I ran into another wrestling mum who said her son (a senior) has been looking

My son running up a steep hill in a race last year.

at the weights of the team and predicting who'll wrestle in which weight division (though that is really the coach's job). Several of the team this year have been wrestling since the start of middle school, so it's going to be a great year. I got goosebumps just thinking about it all.

I really still don't understand why I get so excited about watching my kids play competitive sport. I guess we put so much into parenting these kids that it is great to see them go out and do their best? Love is proud in a good way?

The opposite of the despair we feel when they make bad decisions and the angst we feel when they are disappointed or anger we feel then they are treated badly.

I guess as someone said, when you give birth (or adopt), you just have part of your heart out there walking around and there isn't much you can do about it. These emotions are part and parcel of the whole deal.

“Making the decision to have a child is momentous.  It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”  

Elizabeth Stone* 

Someone once said to me that the joy we feel at seeing our kid's accomplishments has a parallel in God. He must look down at us when we "do well" and be full of joy. That's a precious thought. I should write a meditation on that someday...

* I would add "be a parent" to this quote.

Japan Photo Question #39

What do you suppose this common Japanese item is?

Thriving

Yesterday I discovered two photos I took while in Hokkaido have been published online (aside from here).








Here:
http://thriveconnection.com/2013/08/28/blessed/
and
http://thriveconnection.com/2013/08/14/splendor/

I shouldn't be too surprised, because I submitted them myself, and wrote the blurbs associated with them. The group that published them is called Thrive, it used to be called Women of the Harvest. They are a North American based group committed to encouraging and empowering Global Women (women ministering overseas).

They've published me before, both articles, and in what they call "Picture Praise", which is what the above two photos are. Photos with a story, including a Bible verse.

If you're a Global Woman (especially if you're American), I recommend you check out their website: http://thriveministry.org/.

Connections

I rang Mum and Dad on Sunday for Father's Day (we have a different date in Australia to some other countries). It was good to connect with them both. They've got Skype working well now and we can use the video feed, which makes a conversation all that much easier, especially when I have three boys racing around here.

My recipe book.

One of the things I asked Mum about was a recipe. You see before I set up home on my own at age 21, I spent some summer hours typing up recipes of our family that were favourites and that I wanted to take with me. Nearly 20 years later I still have those pages. They've been incorporated into a different folder and many other recipes have been added to them, but the "oldies" are still there.

I get a lot of joy from this. It is amazing to cook food for my kids that was cooked for me as a child. To bake recipes that I cut my teeth on as a cook under my mum's tutelage is awesome.

Our conversation on Sunday was about a recipe that she has marked as "Wendy's favourite". I baked it on Saturday for the first time in a long time. There was a problem with not enough icing, so I wanted to check with Mum that I didn't have a typo there. She went and found her recipe and found she'd amended the recipe (just like I do, I know a recipe's well loved if I have writing all over it) to fix the icing problem.

The recipe in question:
Fruity Fudge Fingers (recipe below)

I believe she loved the connection too, going back to those days of working together in the kitchen, her teaching me all sorts of tricks and tips in the kitchen. I can see that parenting never ends, but the days when your children ask you for help or advice become thin on the ground. Me asking for her help on Sunday was a source of pleasure for us both.

Food is so much more than nutrition. It is a way of connecting. As a family, we've got a number of (pretty easy) recipes that I make often. They've become a part of our family culture and are part of what defines "home" for us. I love teaching my kids how to cook. I went one step further this summer and gave my eldest son Tuesday dinner to make. He wasn't up to choosing what he wanted to make, so in consultation with him, I added the one of our regular meals to the weekly schedule. Then I tried to keep out of the kitchen, but staying nearby on the computer to answer questions.

And so on, the chain continues. Creating a family culture and passing portions of it on. Our family is quite different to the family I grew up in. We eat different food in a different country. We have boys, not girls. Yet, there is that thread of connection. Every time I'm working in the kitchen, I have with my the skills and knowledge that was (at least partially) given to my by my Mum in her kitchen.

One of the sad things I realise as I've gotten to know missionaries better is that most of us don't have the closeness of relationship with our birth families that we wished for. There are various reasons and everyone has their own story, still the residual sadness is there. Perhaps if we'd stayed in our home countries it would have been different, but probably there would still be sadness at things not working out like the "fairytale" we dream of.

The fact of the matter is, we're not physically there. We're not there for the stuff of family culture building: like birthdays, Father's Day, wedding, funerals. We're not there for the ordinary and the extraordinary. And because we're not there, our relationships with our families develop along different lines, so that when we are there, we don't fit snuggly into family culture. Our visit is like a blip on the graph of normality.

I'm thankful, though, for good memories. I'm thankful for threads of connection like my cookbook and the recipes I make from it. I'm thankful for those good conversations, for technology like Skype that allows me to capture a time when they and I are almost in the same space. I'm thankful for a family who loves me, even though I'm not there. And most of all I'm thankful for a Heavenly Father who is always in the same space as me.


Fruit Fudge Fingers (non bake recipe, perfect for summer)
Base:
230g plain biscuits (like Marie)—crushed
115g margarine
1 cup/200g sultanas*
1/2 cup/115g sugar (can be less)
1 egg (slightly beaten)
1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Icing:
2/3 cup/150g icing sugar (powdered sugar)
2 tablespoons/40g butter
2 tablespoons/25g cocoa

1. Place margarine, sultanas, and sugar in a medium saucepan and bring to the boil slowly.
2. Take from the heat. Allow to cool a little.
3. Add egg and vanilla, blending well.
4. Add biscuit crumbs and mixture together.
5. Press into a greased tin (approximately 25x30cm) using a fork.
6. Cool in fridge.
7. Ice.
8. Cut into fingers and store in the fridge.

*As usual, my recipes are in Australian measurements, where cups equal 250ml and tablespoons equal 20ml.