Shirley: Day 1-No Rain...yet

It is almost 6AM now. The skies are blue and the sun is shining, but clouds are accumulating...looking a bit sketchy. We pray the Lord would post-pone any rain for today until after 3PM when our "PE in the Park" games are scheduled to end. God is great and God is good!
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End of Day 1 of VBS at NBF
Our God is an awesome God! It is beautiful, sunny and hot again! Thank you so much for praying and thank you, LORD, for answering our prayers for no rain! "PE in the Park" looked like it was a total success today thanks to Tom and the whole team for making it happen.

We had 10 students today, so many fewer than I had hoped for, but think more kids may come as the week progresses. As I mentioned before, we are competing with other "camps" right now. We may see more kids by Wednesday, since no one wants to miss the Costco pizza party. I think we had more adults than children today, a first for us! We had lots of helpers, ladies from NBF and other churches who graciously agreed to come help us translate for the kids and VBS members.

Opening games: "duck, duck goose" is still the favorite year after year.

Opening song: still learning the hand motions, but everyone is trying hard.

Story time: Sharon and Yurimi telling them what happened with Peter after our "cliff-hanger" ending at service on Sunday at NBF. The kids are so excited by the real fishing poles. Fishing is a very popular past-time in Japan, especially in our area since we live right on Tokyo Bay!

Craft time: making colorful fish for our "PE in the Park" activities later. All the kids loved this, both big and small. They all made very unique, very colorfully decorated fish.

Snack time: Rice cracker senbei with real, whole "aji" fish inside! Another God sighting for me...buying "fish" snacks not know the first day was on Peter the fisherman...still don't know how I missed that since I saw the stories in advance, but it was over a month ago.

Last activity: fishing on the colorful parachute waves. The adults commented they had never seen such a beautiful parachute before.

Closing: Tom gives his "homework" assignment: he asked the kids to write in their journals. At the end of the week, a few will be selected and may be eligible for a "grand prize". Even the little kids were excited by this assignment. I hope they do remember to write a little each day.

That was DAY ONE for NBF. Praise God for his many blessings and protection of the children and parents and team members. As far as I know, very few bug bites. Even the chirping cicadas in the park seemed quieter in the afternoon. We look forward to the 4 remaining days of VBS this week.