Mom's story; children

When I was born, a trip to Kobe by plane was made.  They flew up 1 week before the due date.  Both my brother and I were born at the Canadian hospital there.  We had David Avery, Douglas Brent and now they needed a D.C. - Debra Corinne.

 The flight home to Nichinan when I was 1 week old.

 In 1956, our family went on furlough and during that time, another son was born.  The 4^th and final “D” – Daniel Dwight.

  

 We went back to Japan in 1957.  How I enjoyed all our Japanese friends.  (although we look rather sober in this picture)

 Mom enjoyed being a mother.  She was always so creative and made the attic into a playland for us.  I wish I had a picture of the attic rooms (we had 4 - on the slanted eaves of the house).  One attic was turned into a play house and in the 2^nd attic, Mom hung up sheets and painted a barber shop, jail and fire station on them.  The other 2 attics were for storage.

But missionary moms have many good-byes to say.  When we were be old enough for school, we were sent to a boarding school, a 3 hour train ride away.  We'd go for the week and come home for weekends.  For high school, we went to Tokyo, which was 1000 miles away and came home only 3 x a year.

  

                       

 Miyazaki Christian School

The grade school and dormitory was for the English speaking missionaries on the Kyushu Island.  This included Canadians, a South African and American students from different mission agencies.

  Virginia Claassen, from Elbing, KS and Agnes Dueck, from Canada, were the 2 teachers who taught at this school over the years.

 There were several dorm parents over the years and they all took very good care of us.

Mom made weekends extra special for us.  They would take us to the beach often, or to one of the many vacation spots around the area. 

This area of Japan had many places of interest to visit.  Monkey island, cactus gardens, waterfalls, gorges,volcanoes, and kodomonokuni or children’s land.

to be continued.... one more post