BBQ: Take One

I'm sitting in front of my fan in front of my window, trying to catch any small breeze or cool air that might be around me...Fukushima is WARM! Confession: I get incredibly grouchy and whiny when I'm hot and sticky all the time. Cindy can attest to such things...the poor girl! Seriously, whenever I have to remind myself that I have a sinful nature (which is seldom forget-able anyway! :)), I just need to sit in our very-warm apartment for awhile...sigh. Cindy laughs at me, because I talk about winter and Christmas and cold air a lot.

Even though summer is ridiculously warm, it also brings great opportunities that don't come at other times of the year. It's fairly customary to have summer BBQs in Japan (which do NOT include hamburgers, hotdog buns, or s'mores...), and each English school I've worked at in Japan has celebrated the beginning of summer vacation with some sort of BBQ party. Today we had our first such gathering at Koriyama church, which is in a city a little over an hour from where I live. First gatherings are kind of difficult, because you never know who or what to expect, but here were some highlights:

- Momo-chan, a chubby, friendly, little girl under two years old still, toddled around in the midst of everything. She is comfortable enough with me to grab hold of my legs and then lift up her arms, indicating that she wants to be picked up, and she bravely mingled with people and played with us throughout the evening.

- Two boys who had never come to the school before came as friends of some other students. They were only 5 years old, and at first they wouldn't come into the church building or talk to anyone because they were so shy. We brought the food to them in the parking lot area, talked a little, and played some games, and by the end of the night they were playing a running game that somehow included whirling full-speed into my arms. They ran in and out of the church as they needed and grabbed whatever food they wanted, with the former fears forgotten.

- Two of the five mothers present had just moved into the area, and it was fun to see the mothers talking to each other. Everybody (it seems to me, at least) wants a safe place or a place to belong (in some capacity), and it was cool to see the mothers chatting and looking for that friendship amongst each other and us.

Having just come off of the kid's ministry seminar earlier in the week, my brain is full of ideas and thoughts for the future...but for now, I just want to sit and think about the people for awhile and pray for them. Each person is dear, is loved, is known by a heavenly Father...and He knows way better than I do what they need.

Tomorrow is a BBQ in Fukushima! Craziness...more updates and pictures later (once I learn how to correctly upload pics and organize them within the blog :))...