A New Adventure
So, for the upcoming academic year, I am host mom to Saho, a wonderful student from Japan. She is sixteen and from Osaka, which is where my first mission trip to Japan was located. She's been here almost three weeks, and has completed her first week of high school.
It was a rough road getting here. They didn't give her enough time in customs, so she missed her connecting flight to Chicago (her luggage didn't, but she did). She caught the next one, but it arrived too late for her to catch her flight up here. So she spent the night in O'Hare, and I went down to Green Bay to get her the next morning, only to have her flight repeatedly delayed. She finally arrived four hours later (in the interim, I scooted over to Appleton to visit Ruthie and the kids).
Saho comes from a city of three million, so the U.P. is a whole new world for her. She's had many firsts already, from eating corn on the cob (and other new foods, like wild rice), to seeing a hummingbird (there aren't any in Japan), to releasing my final Monarch, to driving the tractor and picking apples. She loves horses, and we're bonding over Heartland.
She'd never ridden a school bus (kids take trains to school in Japan), so that was another new experience. It hit a snag the first day, but it all worked out and now she's a pro at it.
We've been to the top of Pine Mountain, where she saw Dad's memorial stone, and helped jump start a stranded motorist, a new experience for everyone involved (girl power!*). We also took a trip to the top of the U.P. in the Keweenaw, and she got to see the GLOAT (greatest lake of all time), Superior. She told me she couldn't believe it was a lake and not an ocean. We also visited the llamas alpacas, where she took some great pictures (she's an artist and photographer).
She's already made friends at school! Her first week completely wiped her out, so she stayed home on Friday (no school that day) and napped. She went out for coffee today with a friend, and has other events planned with friends for the coming week. We're kicking into high gear. I think it will be a good year for her, though she is a little stunned at the concept of a U.P. winter. The coldest it gets in Osaka is about 40F. Yeah. We'll be hitting up the thrift stores for sweaters. One of our Memory Café attendees found a new winter coat at a yard sale and brought it to church for her only a few days after she arrived, which was so generous.
Her family is delightful. I got to speak to her dad on the phone, and see her mom and twin sister on zoom. Her mom doesn't speak English at all, but her dad and sister do, and I'm hoping they all come for a visit next semester.
That’s all for now!
*with help from my brother in TX.