Sports Festivals are a big thing here. . .

. . .held in the fall at every kindergarten and elementary schools (as well as some jr. highs), the kids prepare and perform songs, chants, dance routines, and various athletic feats (well, I watched the kindergarten level. . . ;-)
The "kiiro-gumi" (yellow class) is the one Hikaru, my little host brother is in, along with 5 of my English students, so it was pretty fun to see all of them out there having a great time!


Let the race begin. . . the kids ran from one end of the field to the other (mind you, a little scaled down ;-) and into their teacher's open arms. The boy on the left and 2 girls are come to my English class! I even got to participate in one race (putting together a giant puzzle of Chip and Dale) with Hikaru.


This was an activity for the oldest group of kids (ages 3 to 6 attend this kindergarten, since kids here can go for up to 3 years -- 2 is pretty much standard. Kindergartens are completely separate from elementary schools.) Grandparents and kids from 2 "teams" competed in throwing these "bean bags" into the bucket on top of a pole. They also had a "tug-of-war" for the parents to participate in.


My (host) sister and I watching the action. . . well, you never really know with Moe. When she wasn't trying to get in on the action with the "big kids", she spent time exploring the grounds. Her face really says everything. . .

Little Hikaru on the far left with some of his buddies at school, celebrating with their medals after the festival was over. :-)

Progressive supper anyone?

So, basically no-one here has ever heard of a "progressive supper" minus the pastor and his wife (fellow Canadians). Ok, maybe nobody at home has any idea either, except those of us who went to "youth" at church when we were younger (basically all the "cool" people. . . :-b) Yeah, I decided to ask people from church if they'd host part of the supper IN PERSON, and was pretty glad about that, considering some of the confused looks I got. "Kekkyoku" (in the end), it turned out to be great -- all I have to say is "praise God"! We had 11 kids, which is double how many usually come, and it was so exciting to see people from the church open up their homes (that isn't a very common practice here), kids bonding with one another and connections made from both sides. It's so easy, even in a small church, for programs to get disconnected from people who aren't directly involved. . . and this seemed to bridge that distance. We spent some time talking about food, and how there is more to life than just basic physical survival. Some of the most thoughtful comments came from the non-Christians in the group. Continue to pray we would all thirst after the Water that can truly satisfy us. :-)