Laughter

This has been a good week. It was a long week, but full of so many good things. Most of all it has been full of laughter.

So here are my laughter stories from the week...

I got to help coach the middle school girls a couple times this week. It was so fun to be able to work with them, they are such a great group and always make me laugh! I especially enjoy the 6th graders, they are so young and full of energy. It has been amazing to see how much they have improved this season!

I finally went and got my bike tire fixed. It has been flat for over a month now. I don't need to ride my bike that often, so I kept forgetting it was flat and I would have to borrow a bike last minute from someone. JuShin took me to go get it fixed and it was so fun to be able to hang out with her. When we got back to school I went with her to her classroom and we talked for over an hour and had some great laughs! We had a great time sharing stories from our classrooms, talking about life and laughing about random things.

I realized this week that one of my students must have the same sense of humor as I do. He laughs at everything I say that is even remotely funny, even if I'm not really trying to get the students to laugh. Its so cute too because he doesn't really laugh, but more does this short little chuckle thing, which always makes me smile. I think its awesome, especially because he is one of my lowest ESL students. Its so fun to see that he at least understands my humor, even when some of the other kids don't.

I went to dinner with some of the other young single teacher's to celebrate one of their birthdays and I think I spent most of the time laughing. It was so great to get to spend time with them. I don't know if I was just in an extra good mood or what, but everything seemed more funny than usual. We also had a young married couple and their 6 year old daughter join us, which just added to the fun. Their daughter was hilarious and she has a great laugh, one that makes you want to laugh along with her. She had us all playing telephone and was bossing us around, telling us not to laugh or smile and just tell each other the message. It was great.

I went to mamasan volleyball practice, the team I practiced with last year sometimes, which always gives me some good laughs. These ladies just love playing volleyball and will laugh at anything kind of funny that happens in practice. Also, since I am at least 10 years younger than most of them they like to tease me. Sometimes I cannot understand what they are saying, but I usually get the gist of it and laugh along with them. It is such a privilege to get to practice with them, they are amazing volleyball players and they play with so much joy.

I almost forgot this one... We started a new unit in school this week, we are now studying Global Issues. One of my students thought I said Global Tissues and was very confused for a little while. Then of course that quickly became a favorite joke in the class. Which I thought was pretty funny too, but it got to the point where any time I said Global Issues, somebody said Global Tissues and everyone started laughing. So, I had to tell them that Global Issues is a serious thing and that we cannot laugh this much about it otherwise we won't learn anything about Global Issues. After that we were able to have a great conversation about what Global Issues are and why we are studying them.

It has been good to have so much laughter this past week. Laughter keeps things from being too serious, makes me happy, and I really believe that it makes God smile and hopefully laugh along too! I know that he cares about all the people suffering because of Global Issues, but I think he would have laughed along with my class about the Global Tissues and then smiled down at them when they asked great questions about it later.

I am so thankful for laughter, especially the laughter of children.

sunrise on sunrise mountain

We awoke before the sun on the last morning and had a great view of the city and the stars. It was amazing! Then we sat and waited for the sun to rise. While we were waiting Nate and I were able to see a flying squirrel. It was one of the coolest things. We watched it climb a tree and then this black shape slowly glided down to the ground.

After that we watched the sun slowly rise over Tokyo. I love sunrises (although I don't usually get up that early) and so it was amazing to watch this sunrise while sitting on Sunrise Mountain. The view was stunning. It takes a lot of patience to watch a sunrise, it comes up so slowly, but it is worth the wait. The colors of sunrise are always so amazing and the way they come on gently at first, then seem to pierce the sky, then permeate the whole sky, and finally bring light and warmth to everything around fills me with awe and wonder.


I love that God decided to create sunrises and sunsets. He could have just made it get light or dark all of a sudden instead of the slow lighting or darkening of sunrise or sunset. Of course if he had we wouldn't be able to enjoy the wonderful colors of sunrise and sunset. But, I also think that sunrise and sunset speak of Gods promise to always be with us. The way the sun sets, instead of instantly disappearing, seems to promise its rising again. And the way that it rises seems to be a slow reassurance of its presence saying, "I am here, I haven't left, I was only out of your view." No matter how dark it is at night, we know that it is only a matter of time until the sun rises again and sheds its light on the world and we just have to wait.

The sunrise is a reminder to me that God never leaves us, sometimes I feel like he is far away, or hard to reach or hear from, but he is always here. Even when he seems far, soon he will seem close again and I just have to wait for the sunrise. Sometimes the night can be scary, its dark, hard to see, and definitely hard to know which way to go. If I am patient and I trust God, then in his timing he will bring light to the dark and scary, the hard to see and he will definitely light my path and show me the way to go. The problem is patience. So many times I want God to work now, to tell me what I should do, or show me which way I should go. But he tells us to be patient. So I look for the ways that God is at work now, and keep my eyes open for the way he will lead me, the doors he will open, the ones he will close. Its like watching the sun rise. I need to patiently wait and watch the sunrise, enjoy it, then I will be able to see where to go.

After we watched the sunrise the students took some pictures and set off. We followed closely behind, but let them lead the way on their own. We could tell that the students were eager to get back to OBC (a Christian Bible camp that was our destination) where they could take a shower and we would have a big curry lunch together with the other junior groups and leaders. They made great time down the mountain. At one point we heard them debating about what to do, then the sound of their packs being thrown down somewhere, and their voices encouraging each other to jump. When we came to where they had been we understood. There was about a 10 foot drop from the trail down to a road and it didn't look like there was any other way down but to jump, so we dropped our packs down and half jumped half slid down the embankment. It was actually quite fun. The best part was that about 20 feet down the road we looked up to our right (where we had just been on the trail) and there was a ladder! It lead right down to the road, all we could do was laugh :)

We made it to OBC in about 2 hours, which was great time. The students got right to work unpacking and as soon as they were done they went off to shower. Then we had our final debriefing time. It was great to hear what the students had learned, what they were going to take away from this experience and how they felt after completing it. Overall they had a very positive attitude about Stress camp and really seemed to value the experience.

Now I have gone on this trip 3 times, once as a junior at CAJ and twice as an adult leader for a group. Each time I come away from the experience feeling very empowered. Its such an amazing thing to survive for 4 days out in the wilderness, with 9 other people, carrying all that we will need (food, clothes, sleeping bag, etc), hiking for hours each day, braving the weather, and trying to make the most of it. What always astonishes me is how somehow I come away at the end enjoying the trip and thinking I could do it again next year. There were definitely points during the trip where I thought to myself "why am I doing this again?" but somehow there must have been enough good times since I had a good feeling at the end of the trip.
I get a smile just thinking about Stress camp.

sun, stars and city lights

The third day we awoke to the sound of dripping, but thankfully it was just water dripping off the trees. The rain had stopped sometime in the early morning and although it was still slightly foggy the sun was coming out and it was a beautiful morning. It took us a while to pack up because everything was still wet from the day before, but we eventually got off and the leaders set a pretty good pace. The sun filled us with new hope and I could sense renewed energy in the group.

There have been many times this year where I have prayed and prayed that certain days would go well, or certain students would behave better. And it is so reassuring when I go to school the next day and the day goes well and the student behaves well. I know that God must be at work and he fills me with new energy and hope to do this job.

We had to back track a little bit since we had gone a little bit out of our way to get to a shelter to stay in the night before. As we were retracing our steps we came around a corner to a stunning view of the mountains and valleys before us. We all stopped to enjoy the view and one of the girls commented that if it hadn't been raining the day before we probably would have seen the view, but not taken much notice that day and it wouldn't have been as stunning today. As we continued our hike that day I was continually blown away by the beautiful wilderness we were in. It had been so hard to see it the day before, especially the amazing views, but this sunny day was so different. It felt like around every corner there was a new beautiful view to enjoy.

I love the days (today was one of them) where I am just amazed at my students. Throughout the day I just kept thinking things like: these students are working so quietly, they are listening so well, I know this lesson is probably kind of boring, but they are doing so well with it, they are so creative, and these students are amazing. It is so rewarding to have days like this: days were everything seems to go well, where the students just make me smile and I feel like teaching is what I am supposed to be doing. Its awesome!

As we continued our hike down the mountain we came to a section where we could chose the safe gently sloping path down or the steep more dangerous path (that didn't really look like a path). The students opted for the steep more dangerous path, so we spent the next half hour or carefully picking our way down the steep mountain slope. Basically what it turned in to was navigating our way from tree to tree, sometimes walking, sometimes running, but most of the time sliding on the loose tree debris on the slope. Thankfully everyone made it safely down and it ended up being really fun and quite the adventure!



Sometimes with students (especially one this year) it is the same way. I don't know whether to challenge them or let them take the easier route. I know that sometimes they need the "safe gently sloping path" because they aren't ready, they get frustrated easily or they just need something to feel super successful in. Other times they need the "steep more dangerous path" because I know they will rise to the challenge, they will learn more or I cannot let them settle for the easy way. I love seeing how they meet these challenges and how sometimes they even make them into something fun.

We made it down to the valley where the river runs around lunch time. So, we had a wonderfully warm and relaxing lunch by the river. It was so nice to just sit in the sun and enjoy the beautiful weather and area around us. After that we crossed over the river and had to go through the city on the other side to get back to area where we could hike again. It was a long hike up a paved road to the cable car that we were going to take. As we took the cable car up the mountain we had a wonderful view of the area around us. Then at the top there was a viewing area where there was a beautiful view of the area and you could even see some of Tokyo.


After that we hiked up our last mountain for the trip Hinodeyama (sunrise mountain). This is the same mountain that I spent my last night on during Stress camp when I was a junior. It is a wonderful place. The view from the top is spectacular. You can see all of Tokyo and a lot more. As the sun set it just became more spectacular. We could see all the lights of Tokyo and it all looked almost magical. It was breathtaking and humbling at the same time. It was so humbling to think that on a normal night we would be somewhere down in that city, one of those millions of little lights, or more likely not even one of those little lights.










Its amazing to me that even though we are just one tiny little light among the millions God still sees each of us as unique, valuable, lovely and people that he wants to use as part of his grand story. I think about my class, the 25 children I have the privilege of teaching and they are each so different, so unique, and yet there are a million other 3rd graders in the world. But this year, God has me here, teaching these specific 25, and that is a part of his grad story, how amazing!

While the students did their activity for the day, Nate and I set up fly sheets around the gazebo at the top of the mountain and made dinner for the group. When the students came back from their activity it was so neat to see their responses to the transformed view that darkness brought. They were in awe and it made my heart glad. We decided to eat dinner out where we could look at the city. While we were eating Nate pointed out that if you looked carefully you could see the traffic lights changing!












It was a night of awe and wonder for me. I loved looking at the city lights and marveling at how beautiful they could be. It was awesome to think about how we were sitting in God's wonderful creation on this awesome mountain, and it was beautiful and we were looking at this modern city full of lights, and it was also beautiful.
In the middle of the night I heard a few of the students talking. I listened in and I could hear that they were talking about the stars, marveling at how beautiful they were. When I got up I could see what they were talking about... in one direction you could look out over the beautiful lit up city of Tokyo, but then if you looked up you could see the beautiful lit up sky full of stars.

rain, rain, rain

We awoke the second day to a persistent drizzle on our fly sheets (which thankfully everyone had put up). It was pretty dreary and no one really wanted to get up, take down camp and get started hiking, but we had to. It took a while to get everything packed up, especially since everything was slightly wet but we finally got on our way. We had to backtrack from the night before, but after about an hour we were on the mountain where we were supposed to spend the previous night.

There have been some mornings at school this year that I have felt like it is drizzling; days when it is hard to get going, when things start off slowly. Sometimes I have even had to back track, I didn't teach a lesson very well, so I had to go over the material again or try to think of a new way to teach it so the students will understand better. Its hard to be motivated on those days, and even harder to get the kids motivated.


The mountain that we were supposed to have spent the night on was covered in fog and didn't look all that inviting. In the end it was probably best that we spent the night on the mountain that we did, there were more trees to set up our fly sheets and more protection from the wind and rain. At this point in the day it was drizzling and foggy, but not raining too hard. The world had a beauty all to itself, shrouded in mystery and gently covered in droplets of water. It was beautiful to see.

There is a quote that I love from Cold Tangerines by Shauna Niequist (if you haven't read it, I highly recommend it). She says "When what you see in front of you is so far outside of what you dreamed, but you have the belief, the boldness, the courage to call it beautiful instead of calling it wrong, that's celebration." When I first read this I didn't understand it, but standing on that mountain top thinking about how beautiful the land was, even though I wished it wasn't raining, I was celebrating. I need to do this more with my students.

As the day continued on things got worse and worse. The rain just got steadily heavier and heavier throughout the day and by about lunch we were pretty soaked. The worst part about hiking in the rain is that whenever you stop you are freezing cold since you are all wet, but of course since you are hiking with a heavy pack you get tired and need breaks. It becomes deciding between the lesser of 2 pains: getting tired while hiking, or freezing while taking a break. Also, at this point during the day I had a range of emotions going through me, everything from questioning why I had even come and wishing I were home to a feeling that I could so just about anything (since I was climbing mountains in the freezing rain). The best thing for me to do was to distract myself by thinking of other things. At one point I was thinking about food (probably not the best thing to be thinking about on Stress Camp) and all of a sudden I got whacked in the face by a branch full of wet leaves. I was more stunned than hurt, but it got me thinking about other things (besides food). Besides distracting myself by thinking of other things I just focused on putting one foot in front of the other and not slipping.

I have definitely had some "rainy days" this school year. There have been some days where I have been so tired, I just needed to keep focused on one thing at a time, just getting through each activity to make it to the end of the day. And there have been days where the amount of work that needs to get done feels like a tall mountain. And there have been times with students where I have had to pick my battles. During all of these times it has been so hard to find the celebration, to see past the half hour lesson, but sometimes its just a matter of making it through.

Finally at about 4, after climbing several mountains and descending several slippery trails, we came to the shelter we had planned as an option to stay in. It was a tiny shack with no door, nothing in the window and piles of leaves and trash in the corners. Thankfully there was a small gazebo like structure not far off that at least had a roof and the boys agreed to set up fly sheets around its edges and spend the night there, so the girls could sleep in the hut. When everyone had changed into dry clothes we were much warmer, but it was still pretty cold. The boys came over to the hut to eat dinner with us and most of the students were huddled up in sleeping bags looking pretty miserable. But I was really proud of a few of the students who helped make dinner. It was impressive that they could keep going even though I knew they must be pretty wiped out, I know I was. After we had our hot dinner, which did a lot to improve our moods we had hot drinks which helped even more and discussed our day. By about 6:30 the boys went back to their gazebo. The warmest place to be was in our sleeping bags and everyone was tired from the day, so everyone was pretty much asleep by 7 that night.

When I have the "rainy days" that are so hard to get through, often the hardest part is that I am in charge of students. No matter how "tired, wet, cold, sore, sick or discouraged" I am, there are also students who are "tired, wet, cold, sore, sick, or discouraged." In some ways that is the best part though. When I stop thinking about myself and how "tired, wet, cold, sore, sick or discouraged" I am and instead try to help my students, the "rainy day" loses some of its power.

When I went to bed that second night I was so sick I couldn't breath out of my nose and pretty sure I had a fever, but I felt a great sense of accomplishment at having made it through that day. I felt empowered, and marveled that we had made it through the day. Hiking in the rain is no easy thing, and that our group was able to do it with hardly any complaining really impressed me. Regardless, each of us went to bed that night fervently praying that the rain would stop before morning.

The last 2 days of the trip and my reflections will be in the next chapters...

waterfalls and wrong turns

So, its been a while since I have posted. And, of course a lot has happened. I don't want to make this the longest post ever, so I will try breaking it into smaller parts (shorter chapters were always easier for me to read).

This past week I had the privilege of going on Stress camp (or Wilderness camp) with the juniors at CAJ, a four day backpacking trip in the mountains of Okutama (about 2 hours from CAJ). If you read my posts last year maybe you remember I went on it last year too, I guess it must have been a good experience since I went again. Well, this year I wasn't sure if I should go since I would have to prepare for a sub (unlike last year where I just left Julie in charge) and I was feeling pretty overwhelmed. In the end I decided it would be good for me to get out of the classroom for a while and I got kind of excited to go. Then I found out that since I had 1 year of experience as a leader I could be the experienced leader in a pair of adult leaders for a group. I was really hoping that wouldn't happen. There ended up being a lot of unexperienced adult leaders this year, so I got paired with a guy who also had only gone once before as an adult leader (better than someone totally new I guess).

As I have been reflecting on this past week of hiking the mountains of Okutama I have realized it has had a lot of similarities to the beginning of this year teaching. When the 3rd grade teaching position was offered to me I wasn't sure if I should take it. If I did I would have my own classroom and be teaching mostly on my own. I felt so inexperienced and not ready to step out on my own. I decided to take the step of faith and take the 3rd grade job and trust that I was ready and God had prepared me.

Back to Stress camp... even though I was very nervous about being paired with someone who also has had very little experience, we were able to get help planning a very good route and our first meeting with our group of students went pretty well. My main concern about the trip was that the student leaders one of the days would get us lost and I wouldn't know where we were or how to get us back on track. I knew if we stuck to the route we would be fine, but it would be so easy to get off track.

One of my main concerns about teaching 3rd grade this year was that I had never taught 3rd grade before, or taught on my own. I was very nervous at the beginning of the school year that I wouldn't start the school year out well and I wouldn't be able to teach on my own. In my head I knew it would be ok and I had lots of support and encouragement, but I was still worried.

Well, the first day of Stress camp got off to a slow but pretty good start. We missed the train that we wanted to catch and therefore the bus we wanted to take to the dam where we would start our hiking. We eventually made it to our starting point at the dam (about 2 hours behind schedule). Thankfully it was a beautiful sunny day and we were able to find the right trail pretty quickly. It was a challenging hike up a gorgeous waterfall, crossing back and forth over stepping stones all the way up. But it was definitely worth it, especially on such a beautiful day, it was one of my favorite hikes.

The school year started off pretty well too. I was surprised how well the students responded to me and the behavior plan I had set up. It was fun to see the kids again after the summer and to try my hand at teaching them on my own. I discovered that I really loved having a classroom of my own and being able to be in the classroom with just the kids was actually freeing in a way. I found myself more willing to be myself with the students than I am when other adults are in the room. Not everything was perfect, but we made small adjustments the first few days and things got going pretty well.

When we got to the top of the waterfall there was a nice place to rest with benches and even a small gazebo like structure. But this is where things went wrong. We took the gravel road instead of the trail. The road wound its way around and up the mountain and went on way longer than I thought it should. I was getting worried that we were lost and started to pray that we would find our way since I pretty much had no idea where we were (my biggest fear about the trip was coming true). As the sun was setting, we finally took a trail that lead off the road and up into the mountains. The compass said the place we wanted to camp for the night was to the right, so we hiked along the ridge to the next mountain only to discover it was the wrong one. We decided to make camp there anyway, after looking at the name of the mountain and carefully matching it to my map I was able to discover (to my immense relief) where we were and that we were only a little more than an hours hike from where we should have been, so I sent up a prayer of thanks and marveled at God's provision.

My biggest concerns about teaching 3rd grade are still there, but I have seen God's hand at work in all I do. I know that I would not be a very good teacher without his help. I have prayed for guidance over and over again, and prayed for wisdom in dealing with the students, and he has answered my prayers with affirmation and a growing sense of confidence. Of course we have had our rough days as a class, days when I don't know what I am doing, or the students aren't as focused or don't get along as well as usual. But these have been kept to a minimum and I have been able to grow and learn from them. I am so thankful for the way God provides.

That first night out in the woods ended up being pretty perfect, even though we were not where we should have been. The students got a fire started and cooked dinner. We also decided it might be the only night we would have a fire, so we cooked our apples. Nate (the other adult leader) and I de-cored the apples, put butter and cinnamon-sugar inside them, cover them with foil and put them in the fire. They were delicious. The students also got the experience of setting up ground sheets (to keep the sleeping bag clean) and fly sheets (to protect from the rain). It was a great night to sleep out.





There have been times this school year where things have not gone as I have planned. I get stressed and worried because things aren't going the way I planned them to. Then I realized that even though not everything is working out as I planned it is all working and sometimes even better than I planned it would. We serve an amazing God who works all things for our good and I am so glad that he is in control and not me, he makes things work out so much better than I ever could. I worry way too much especially when things don't happen according to plan. I need to trust God's ultimate plan and stop worrying so much about my small plans.

I did not take any of the pictures from the trip, they are all borrowed from other people in my group.
The rest of the trip and my reflections will be in the next chapters...