New pulpit

This is the original pulpit for the building, now 14 years old.  It is actually a wall shelf turned on its end with finishing wood attached.  Teresa hand made the quilted front:  A white shield with gold crown, cross and open bible.

Henry has wanted a bigger pulpit for several years so finally got the materials, designed and cut it out and put it together in a couple of days. It has two shelves and was finished with four coats of clear varnish. This photo was taken in the church room facing the front door.  You can see the Bible and hymn book shelf in the background. 

 The lectern piece on top is moveable with felt attached to the edges.  Henry can move it far to the left or right side and put his computer on top when he gives video presentations.

Henry is preaching behind his new pulpit on 2/21/16.  He put Teresa's quilted piece on the front.  I did the floating 3-D cross in 2011.

Mrs. Miura goes to Heaven

Hideko Miura was 87 and passed away on 2/7/16.  She was a faithful member of Bread of Life Baptist Church since her salvation in 2007.  

This is a Japanese funeral, only Christian in nature.   The casket is placed in front of a photo of the deceased and surrounded by flowers.  This is a small amount compared to others we have attended. 

The youngest family member and only great-grand child Ichita-kun, nearly 2 years old. 

The top of the casket opens to reveal the face of the deceased.  The body is packed in dry ice as Japanese do not embalm and funerals are held within two days of death.

Henry put together a presentation of the life of Mrs. Miura.  It was well received with comments and tears.  The music was especially good.  This photo was taken at a Christmas Ladies' Meeting in 2010 where they made ornaments. 

After Henry delivered a salvation message, everyone then placed the flowers in the casket of the deceased.  This is another Japanese tradition and I don't know its origin.  The lady to the right is Mrs. Akamatsu, 90, a church member and good friend of Hideko-san.

Pall Bearers then took the closed casket out to the hearse, followed by Midori Miura holding her MIL's photo, another tradition. 

After the casket was in the hearse, everyone paid last respects by bowing.  The body was then taken to the crematorium. 

Christmas Teen Pizza Party

This game one member of the team had a ping pong ball and blew it with a straw around a course on the table.  Not as easy as it may look. 

Two teams.  One member was wrapped in toilet paper.  Then he had to walk a few feet and touch the table and return.  The TP kept breaking.  It was funny.

Balloon Popping.  Two pins were inserted into a baseball cap.  One guy was blindfolded. The other told him where to move to stand under a balloon.  He then jumped trying to pop it.  The noise was very loud!  They got to jumping so vigorously, the floor shook!  

In this game 30 pieces of M&M type candy were on a plate.  They had to suck up one at a time with a straw and place into a bowl.  The first one done won.

In this game several soft candies were put on a plate and whipped cream sprayed on top to cover them.  The guys had to find each candy with their mouth and spit it into the bowl.  

The Spoon card game.  Each is dealt four cards.  Sara picked the top card from the pile and if she needed it, she kept it and passed one of her cards to the next person.  The first one to get a matching set of four cards grabbed a chopstick in the middle of the table. The last one lost. 

We made three pizzas and each team put their own toppings on.  We then feasted.  

Christmas Events 2015

December 19th we had five people come to the Christmas Cookie Party, all boys and two moms.  We made cut-out cookies, then Henry told the Christmas story while they baked in the oven.  We had passed out about 500 flyers at three local elementary schools and the family on the left above were the ones that came.  They had a good time.  

 

On Sunday the 20th we had the annual Christmas turkey dinner --there were 19 in the morning service.  Above I'm holding little Aito dressed in his bear cape.  He is so cute!

The cyclamen plant was a gift; the painting on the wall Teresa did in about 2008.  

Christmas Wreath Making 2015

 There was a group of eight ladies that came to the annual Wreath Making Party.  This time we simply tied cut fabric around a wire frame.  The ladies were creative in color choices and ribbons and every one turned out really pretty.  It took about 70 minutes for everyone to finish their wreath.  Afterwards we had a delicious corn-flavored soup for lunch.

                Little Aito will be a year old on Christmas Day.

Pray we will be able to follow-up with the new ladies and present the gospel to them.

Christmas Concert

 We had passed out 20,000 flyers for a Christmas Concert on Dec. 8th.  Micah Gillespie, 16, and Peter Holloway, 17, and missionary Ron White  played violins and piano.  There were 19 in attendance with seven first-time visitors to the church.

Micah plays a medley at the end of the program.  It was wonderful watching his fingers jump across the keys making beautiful Christmas music.

November 2015

 We decorated for Christmas after the morning service on 11/29. Church folks helped decorate the tree while I later put up decor around the room.

                   The front door sports two pine cone wreaths.

                   These bushes got trimmed about mid-November.

 The front entrance to the building with wreaths and ribbons on the poles.

This Emperor Dahlia finally bloomed December 1st--rather late this year.  Shortly after there was a hard frost so they are not going to last long. 

 This is little Aito at nearly a year old, playing with us.  He would not give up his candy.  :-)

Catch-up Post

This is Riku-kun and his very tall clown puzzle two weeks ago. He comes with his family to church on Sundays. 

There are some 40 bushes lining the parking lot area.  Henry took the hedge trimmers to them last Monday and finished the group right in front of the building.  These are now about half the size and have mostly dead stuff exposed now.  Lots of needles for winter mulching around the property now.  

This is the same group as below directly opposite the ones trimmed. 

On Culture Day 11/3 here in Japan we participated in a Swap Meet--aka Flea Market.  Sara made several thread bracelets and sold some (see bottom left of photo below).  Mainly tried to sell things that we did not use.  We did go home with much less stuff than when we came and made some extra yen in the process.