A look back at 2014: a year of transition and blessings

For those of you who have been following our blog of adventures (maybe you didn't read our last post from Japan) and have been keeping tabs on us via Facebook, you'll know that our term in Japan has finished and we are currently living back in the USA.  Our move from Japan in April marked a long period of silence on our blog as we transitioned to life back in America.  Needless to say we haven't been as dormant as our blog site!  In lieu of mailing out a Christmas letter, we thought we would post this blog entry as a summary of our year and an update on our lives here in the States.

Sakura trees in Fukushima

Eric finished teaching English at ECC in March, and Haidee finished at Izumi Lutheran Church shortly thereafter.  We were able to enjoy one more beautiful sakura season (cherry tree blossoms) in Fukushima and were further blessed to celebrate Easter with our friends and family in Japan.

Haidee demonstrating how to dye an Easter egg

Izumi Lutheran Church, Fukushima

Upon leaving Japan, we took the long way home over Europe, scheduling a 10-day layover in Paris, France.  We hit the tourist spots in Paris for a few days before taking the train down south to a small village called Taizé, the location of an ecumenical Christian prayer community that serves as a pilgrimage site of sorts for thousands of youth and adults from all over Europe and the world.  Here we were blessed with time to rest, worship, and process life.  We were struck by both the unembellished simplicity of life at Taizé, and by the genuine kindness and compassion of un-looked-for friends.  We also made one more layover in southern California before completing our journey back to Minnesota.

the Eiffel Tower

Taize

a quiet walk

friends from our small group at Taize

time spent on the beach in southern CA

We took a breather in Minnesota for about a month, enjoying the company of Haidee's parents, before hopping on a plane once more to make the three-segment 24+ hour journey to Burundi, Africa to spend time with Eric's sister and family.

reading to our nephew and niece in Burundi

Eric playing with the boys

Selle/McLaughlin family photo

We returned to Minnesota and took a week to recover from jet-lag before traveling to Michigan to make a long overdue visit to see family and friends.

Aunt Karen

Grandpa Ugo

Eric's friend, Kristin

The rest of the summer was marked by moving into our apartment in St. Paul, enjoying a few more visits with family, and preparing for the school year.

Eric and Nathan

Sue's birthday party

Haidee with Isa and Koda

In August Haidee started working as an AmeriCorps volunteer at Four Seasons Elementary School, serving as the Reading corps specialist with two pre-school classes.  This is in preparation for earning a Minnesota Teaching License and a Master's Degree in ESL, which will begin next Spring.  Eric started graduate school at the University of Minnesota, studying Music Therapy (and playing euphonium with the Symphonic Band in his free time).  We're both very grateful for these God-given opportunities to learn and grow.

Eric and his euphonium

Eric's Music Therapy cohort at the U of MN (along with Goldy, the mascot)

We're just winding down an exciting Christmas season, visiting family, decorating the house, and baking (multiple!) batches of cookies.

cookies (take two)

cookies (part three!)

Sunny and Jeremiah on Christmas Eve

Haidee watching a movie with her dad and the girls

Now we're enjoying a few quiet nights alone together before New Year's to reflect on the past year and celebrate the rich blessing of three years of marriage!  This reading from the Bible, a promise from God which we chose for our wedding, sums up the Truth that we have experienced through the joys and struggles of the past year of transition:

"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."  Romans 8:38-39


Merry Christmas!
Happy New Year!
God's blessings and peace.

wine and sushi for our 3rd anniversary

Eric and Haidee Selle <><

The Beginning of the Good-bye's

Counting down to the end of the school year is a pretty normal thing, but this year is a bit different in that our weeks really are numbered, and the finality of leaving at the end of the school year settles in a bit more with each week crossed off the calendar. While those in the USA still have quite a few weeks to chug through, my count is quite a bit different: one week and a day.

Now, after that one week and day are several weeks of packing and events, a couple more weeks of introducing the new teacher and showing him the quirks found in this specific English school program, Easter celebrations, farewell parties, and more...so I keep telling myself that I don't have to get out the tissues yet. :) But this last week and the coming week and a day have already had some of the bitter-sweetness of goodbyes and thank yous and attempts to express relationships that are so hard to express.

I've done this before--said goodbye in Japan--and so I know a few things about myself in this situation:
1). It's good to prepare something to say in both languages--healthy for me and good for others.
2). It will be tempting for me to sink into the depressing mire of thinking that goes something like, "I can't possibly say anything meaningful like I want to say...this student probably doesn't feel so close to me anyway...I should really just give a hug or a handshake and let it go...better yet, just kind of slide out of his or her life unawares..."

I'm not sure why that's tempting for me, but it is...and though I know it's not a good way to go, sometimes I just can't shake off a sadness that seems to choke all of my words outside of my regular teaching. In the midst of this, though, God gave me a gift this week...this second-to-last week, before the goodbyes start to be in earnest.

Because of various schedules, I knew that one of my classes this week would only be myself and one other older lady who speaks very little English, but is a faithful student who tries to communicate very boldly. I've known her for maybe a couple of years now, and we've shared enough for me to know that she has been taking care of her mother for the last few years. This last year especially has been more of a struggle, and some times we've talked about things like losing sleep at night because her mother gets up a lot, setting good guidelines in the house, preparing food and laundry, etc. For a few weeks my student was feeling ill herself, but still grimly attended English class, saying, "This is my only time in the week. I have to come here."

She walked into class this week with her daughter, which surprised me, but I invited them both in and we chatted pleasantly for almost the whole class time. Her daughter's English was fantastic, and my student would use her daughter to say a few things and ask me some questions that she couldn't have asked me by herself. At the end of class they asked if they could take some pictures with me and leave a few minutes early to get lunch together, and we laughed through the pictures. My student was gathering up her coat and bag when her daughter turned to me with a serious face and said, "I just wanted to get the chance to talk to you and say thank you. You know how our situation with my mother and grandmother has really been difficult this year. This class has meant so much to my mother, and I really want to thank you for that."

Her words caught me by surprise, and then both of us had tears in our eyes--tears because we are both daughters, even if she is Japanese and I'm American.

I'm still surprised by the whole exchange, even though it's a few days later. Her words were spoken with such purpose--I knew that her whole reason for coming with her mother was caught up in those final few sentences and a thank you. The fact that she took the time to come and speak them is something that I appreciate immensely--and a good reminder for me to speak to my students and friends about goodbyes. To say thank you. To remember together. To speak about the future.

So...into the next "last" week and day. :)

Snow!

Last week was a pretty a quiet day on Valentine's Day, just me and one Japanese staff (every Friday I'm the only native teacher at work), and a handful of adult students taking one-on-one lessons.  My last student left at 6:50pm.  I looked out the window and it had just started to snow.  "Take care driving home!" I told her.  Shelly, my co-worker said that schools in Tokyo were cancelling due to the snow.  "And it's coming our direction!"  Sure, whatever.  It can't be all that bad.  I'm from Minnesota - I've seen snow.

I was wrong.  I woke up Saturday morning to a winter wonderland outside my window, and the snow had just started!  I trudged to work and all three of us English teachers taught our first class, but the snow kept coming, and our Japanese co-workers were frantically using all the office phone lines (and their personal cell phones) to call students and tell them to stay home.  We were closing the school for the day (Saturday is our busiest day, with 27 classes and over 150 students).

A view from our apartment window on Sat. morning
(the height of the snow would eventually come up to that car's window)

I went home and shoveled out the stairs leading up to our second floor apartment (for the second time that morning).  Haidee and Cindy spent over four hours on Saturday shoveling the church parking lot twice, and helping to push cars out of the road. Snow in Japan is very unlike snow in Minnesota.  Occasionally we'll have good packing snow in Minnesota, but usually it's just powder.  Either way, a good snow-blower can handle it no problem.  The snow here in Fukushima is wet and heavy.  So when I say it snowed almost 60 centimeters (just shy of 2 feet) over the course of Friday night to Sunday morning, I'm talking about HEAVY snow.

Sunday morning work was cancelled again.  We arrived at church in time to help shovel out a few more cars that had gotten stuck in the road.  Our friends Natsuko and Jaquup were walking up and down the street, shovels in hand, digging out cars that (for some crazy reason) had decided to try to drive that day.  All told I think they pushed out over 20 cars that day.  Only the major streets in Fukushima get plowed.  The vast majority of side streets don't get any help.  The residents are on their own when it comes to digging out their streets.

After church Haidee, Joel, and I, shovels in hand, walked to an elderly church member's house to dig out his car.  It was trapped under the car-port which had collapsed due to the weight of the snow on top of it.  Along the way we passed several groups of people walking up and down the streets, pushing out cars, digging paths to their homes, and scooping heavy snow off the roofs of their houses.  Even on Monday (the snow had stopped falling for 24 hours) cars were getting stuck.  The snow was still deep, but it was a wet, slushy mix.  Cars would just sink down until the the snow was up to their bellies.  Their tires would spin, but the snow held on tight to the underbelly of the car.

Yamanashi (circled in red) is about 360 km (or 220 miles) SW of Fukushima (circled in blue)

The worst place hit was Yamanashi Prefecture, just to the west of Tokyo.  It didn't show up in any major newspapers, but people reported stories and posted pictures via Twitter.  They received between 110 to 140 cm of snow (that's four feet of wet, heavy snow)!!  People were snowed in, literally!  They couldn't open their front doors.  Cars were stuck on the roads and eventually buried completely under the snow.  Roofs over parking spaces collapsed.  Power lines were damaged and people went without electricity for over a day.  I'm not sure how many people were injured, but there were some casualties reported.  The following pictures are all from Yamanashi, posted via Twitter:

These people won't be driving anywhere anytime soon.

Covered parking was a little hazardous. 

This is a road.  The bumps at the top are cars that are buried!

someone's kitchen . . .

After some searching, I did find Yamanashi mentioned in this newspaper article by The Japan News, dated February 18th: (link)

All of this comes after a very mild, and unusually snow-free winter here in Fukushima.  I made this post just one week too early . . .

As an aside note, we also got a bunch of snow a week ago (on Saturday, February 8th).  I was going to post something about it, but then it was totally overshadowed by the snow we got a week later on Valentine's Day weekend.  Anyway, the Monday after our first snowfall, Haidee and I called up Pamela and Joel and invited them to come out to play with Nathan.  We built a little homemade sled out of a box, some plastic, and a scarf.  It turned out to be a little too small for Nathan, and he wasn't so impressed in the end.  It made for a cute picture, though!

Our homemade sled hitched up to the stuffed animals

Nathan had a stand up to fit inside our sled, which was too small.

あけましておめでとうございます: Happy New Year!

At the beginning of the new year here in Japan, it is common to greet one another with bows and special phrases that can be roughly translated, "Happy New Year! This new year also, please think well of me and let's have a good relationship." I always receive some kind of perverse pleasure watching my students' faces as they come in for the first English lesson of the new year, try to think of the translation of the Japanese phrase, panic for a moment, give up, and hurriedly rush through the phrase in Japanese. After which, I console them by saying that truly, there is no good English equivalent for the Japanese New Year's greeting, and we share a laugh and a simple "Happy New Year!" all around before settling into the lesson.

Eric enjoying Japanese New Year's food

For Eric and I, the winter break between 2013 and 2014 was a pretty special time. Eric's mother, aunt, cousin, and cousin's wife all came to visit for about a week, and we so enjoyed the time together. Our four travelers braved sickness, late planes, trains, pay phones with no connection, sleeping on futon, strange and unusual foods, bathing in public, and sharing one toilet and one sink for a whole week...to spend time with us! :) And we were very blessed by it. Here are some highlights from the time together:

Together in Tokyo, finally (after hours of flying and trains)!

Practicing kneeling/sitting on tatami floors

Celebrating Christmas!

A second Christmas celebration with friends in a mountain onsen (bath) village

In the bath
(We have laughed and laughed at this picture, taken by our Japanese pastor. It's illegal to have cameras in the baths.)

Bilingual carol-singing

Playing games

Visiting a nearby castle and history museum

Enjoying the flavor of green tea and sweets in a relaxed "tea ceremony"

Thank you for a great visit! 

Eric and I are anticipating that 2014 is also going to be a special time for us, for a big reason: we're both finishing our work here in Japan and planning to return to the States in the spring/summer of this year. The decision to move was a tough one to make--there are so many people and things we love here in Japan and so many reasons we'd love to be stateside as well--but we are thankful for the time that God has given us here and confident of His continuing love in our future. Right now, we are praying for smooth transitions at our jobs here and "good" goodbyes...and guidance and blessing on the many details of our next steps, such as schools, jobs, housing, etc. We welcome the prayers of others as well!

We're excited to share more with you guys as plans and details become more concrete! And we've already starting putting together "Top 10" lists of things we'll miss dearly about Japan, things we're looking forward to, and more...blogs coming soon!