Tachikawa, Japan

Finally, Sunday! We sat in on the Sunday school classes, then finally, we got to see the church! They filled the sanctuary, and we even had some people sitting in the hallway. It was wonderful! We were able to sing along, because one of the ladies in the church wrote out the songs in Romanji (Japanese written with roman characters). So even though we didn't know the meaning, at least we could sing. During the teaching, we went up stairs and listened to Sensei Takahashi over the intercom and Yoshie translated. Then we went back down to the sanctuary and took communion with the church. After this time, we got into groups and discussed what we had learned. Fortunately, Yoshie made sure that we were in a group with someone who could translate for us. Before the service ended, the Team was introduced to the church, along with several other missionaries who were visiting the area. One of The Master's College's Professors was there too, Mr. Suzuki. He was in Japan with his family, visiting his parents in one of the northern prefectures. After the service, a luncheon was hosted by the church on the fourth floor. There we met many of the church members. Yoshie made a trivia game about us, so that the church body could learn more about the workers who had come to join them for the summer. Once lunch was cleaned up and people left, the college group, Seinen-Kai, hung out a played games. First we went on a treasure hunt for a newspaper and Hagan-Daas. Andrew's team won that. Then we competed to find various pictures and letters in the newspapers, then to play charades. Once charades were over, we played a Japanese version of Rock-Paper-Scissors. We Americans were not very good, but one of the Japanese guys, Shin, was very good. He was also quite a character, along with his crazy team.