Happy Birthday America!!!

Phyllis and I pray you and your families will have a Happy July 4th Holiday together as we remember our country`s beginning. Phyllis pulled off an excellent (early......actually had the party June 28th due to other plans from the church this coming Saturday the 5th) celebration between our readers and the church members. We had an abundance of food ( chips, sandwiches (p/b, tuna, and egg salad), cookies, and of course mugicha tea. The games and laughter were wonderful! In the picture above, the party ended with most everyone going outside to shoot off fireworks. What fun! The kids just squealed with delight to use the sparklers. They love fire-works here and have some the kids at WW would really want, but we can`t bring those items back.....sorry kiddos! Ha! God gave us perfect weather for this event.


Before the party actually got started, some of kids and grownups got busy playing with the balloons Phyllis and Elyssa blew up while I was with my readers. There were notes inside each balloon. When the balloon pops, each person had to perform the task on the note. The party goers had to sit on their balloons to pop them! You should have seen the expressions on some of the older members faces....priceless...didn`t catch them on film as I had walked away from my camera.


Here`s Phyllis playing Jengo with some folks before the real party started. Our new friends really liked this game as some are engineers themselves. I think I`ll add another picture on another post showing how the men really got into this game. I`m so proud of Phyllis. She worked really hard on her planning. And thank you Tammy (Phyllis` daughter) for all your help with the game ideas too. Your mom has been a great teammate.
And here`s the food table. These people love mayonnaise! I heard Phyllis and Elyssa talking about the egg salad and Elyssa suggested adding a little more mayo.........never would have thought mayonnaise would be so popular here! Everything was delicious. Can you see the napkins? Good old America! Jeanne also let us use some patriotic cups to drink from during the party. Everything was grand. I think I mentioned before about a young woman named Ayia helping us decorate. Well....she helped us again Saturday. She has an eye for details. We have readers on Saturdays too so it`s so nice to have that extra help feeling in on details while we`re reading and then doing our party chores.

This is Ayia and her daughter Lisa (being helped by Marlin) playing pin the star on the flag. I`m sure you`ve played pin the tail on the donkey before, so this gamed followed the same rules. The readers and church members had a great time celebrating the birth of our nation. Our July 4th party was a great success of bringing everyone together.

This coming Saturday and Sunday will be our last days with our readers. We will miss them, but know we`ve done what we came to do....plant seeds for Christ through English classes. Phyllis and I have seen some growth in a few of our readers. I think we`ve given out four Japanese bibles to those really ready to study more on their own. You might not think that`s great, but remember it takes years of study and trust building for the average person here. It isn`t to push the bible down anyone`s throat and think that will win them over. It`s love, patience, compassion, and time that will allow the readers (anyone actually) to see Jesus through our actions. Rushed baptisms don`t necessarily mean a thing!

I will add a few other blogs behind this one containing random pictures.

Pray for us as we end our work/stay here. Pray for the readers that they will continue seeking after the Oregon team leaves. Marlin and Jeanne will place as many of them as they can into followup group sessions with Mark and Elissa.

See you soon,
Tom Cat