Refreshed!

Ok so Saturday was the high school graduation. Carly and I went to school at around 8:30 to do some little things in the office. The graduation ceremony went from 10:00 to a little after 12:00. There were 450 students graduating. They were split into thirteen different homerooms, in which they have the same homeroom teacher for all three years of high school (grades 10-12). To begin the ceremony each of the homeroom teachers came up and said the name of each of their students. This alone took like 25 minutes. Then there was about an hour and a half of speakers and presentation of awards to various students. There was also A LOT of standing up and bowing. Sometimes only the students stood, sometimes only the audience, sometimes both. I just followed along with everyone else since I didn't know what was being said! haha

Sunday (today) was absolutely amazing. Carly and I went to the International Bible Fellowship Church this morning. It was only about 15 minutes away by train. I forgot to take a picture of the outside of the building, but here are just a couple of the inside.


It was a very small church. I would say there were around 30 people there total. Everyone was SO welcoming though. People kept coming up to us and introducing themselves. There were mostly Japanese people there, but also quite a few Americans and an African American family. They made us stand up at the front and introduce ourselves. I'm getting used to doing that though, so it wasn't hard!

We started out the service with singing. They had a powerpoint with the Japanese characters and the English translation. We sang a lot of songs I recognized, so that was really nice! Everyone just sang in whichever language they wanted. Sometimes everyone joined in for just the English. It was so encouraging to be around other believers and praising God together. After a few songs the pastor came up and did a short "children's lesson." All the kids (about 7 or 8) went to the front of the room and listened while the pastor talked about God's love. After that the kids all went upstairs. The regular sermon was very good. It was a bit awkward because after every few sentences the Japanese pastor stopped while the translator said everything in English, but it was very nice. It didn't get over until around after noon and I was getting hungry, so I was very excited when they brought out lunch for everyone! We had some sushi and rice. YUM! It was pretty cool after the service because 2 or 3 girls came up to us and they knew a lot of English. They introduced themselves and we found out they were around our age! We all sat and chatted while eating lunch. We didn't leave the church until nearly 1:15! It was such a wonderful morning though. I am really excited to go back next week!