Friday, July 26th - A Few More Thoughts

It's Friday morning, 6:15AM, and I have a little time before our prayer meeting.  One of the volunteers for the EEC program has been Shin-sensei - a pastor of a local church.  His congregation is similar to the Utsunomiya Kyokai - around 25 members who are mainly senior citizens.  At 42 years of age, they are the youngest members of their church.  His son, Tadashi has been one of the participants at our camp.  Shin-sensei leads the middle group, mostly 7-8 year olds, and is such a joy to have and great leader for that group.  He is full of energy and treats his group and everyone else in a very positive manner.  He is similar to Aaron Mori brought down a couple notches.  (Aaron was the Energizer bunny around our church for many, many years.)  It is heartwarming to see him interact with Tadashi and to witness the love they have for one another.  They have joined us for some meals since Wednesday when EEC started.  He brought us some goodies to the first dinner with us - mochi.  There was a variety of them with at least four different toppings.  He told me that the lady at the store found out they were for us, a mission team from the U.S., and she added extra mocha without cost.  Shin-sensei then brought manju  to last night's meal - there were many wonderful flavors I had never tasted before and again the woman added extra desserts for us.  Shin-sensei will have to always tell her his purchases are for a mission team even after we return home.  He shared with me some of the challenges of leading a church such as his - much like what Kawano-sensei must deal with.  I'm sure that is part of the bond they share with one another.  More importantly, they are both loving, joyful men with a heart for serving God and serving people.  It is easy to see why they are good friends.  Shin-sensei would easily fit in with our church family - plus he speaks English very well, having worked in Canada for a while.  Maybe I can smuggle him in one of our supply boxes when we return home.
     Most of the time I have not reread my posts before publishing them, and know there are many errors.  Some of them are self-inflicted, but others are made by the auto-correct tool on the computer - and those corrections make no sense at all.  I will attribute all the errors you read to that tool.  I have to go down to our prayer meeting now.  God bless you all.  With love, Don

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