Male Bonding?!?!

This past week, the guys in BEST club had a male bonding session to strengthen their relationships with each other...

Kyle and Masashi

Our friend Dan and Shanghai

Kyle and Keigo

...HAHA! Just kidding! BUT, we did play a game at Shaberanito (our weekly BEST club meeting) called "Baby if you love me, won't you please, please smile." The game invovled showing affection (as you can see!) and reciting the above sentence in order to get your partner to smile. Good job, Kyle! You get an A+ in male bonding! :)

In all seriousness, these pictures do represent the sweet friendships that are being strengthened between BEST members, especially the guys lately. It has been such a blessing to see God move as we open our hearts and our home to these guys week after week. How blessed we are!

...at a concert in Tokyo last weekend with our friend Kazu and his sister Sakae! Kazu is an old friend from Iowa but we met his sister for the first time last week; turns out she lives at our train station AND is a freshman at Chuo University, where many of the BEST club students attend school! the four hours of train riding was SO worth the short time we spent with this sweet brother and sister!

won't you be my neighbor?

our house is at the bottom of this hill on the right!

that's us on the left side of the duplex (and our honda minivan!)

thank for stopping by!

want su-mo?

what: BEST club Sumo extravaganza!!!

where: downtown Tokyo

who: all BEST club members willing to rough-it a bit in exchange for 4 hours of soaking in this ancient Japanese sport!

why: because Sumo is AWESOME!

masashi cozy-ing up for a night on the sidewalk!

where our group camped out from midnight to 7:30a to get free front row seats!

the line was growing in the morning!!!

in action!

just couldn't resist adding this close-up!

the arena from above

Not enough sleep, Tomo?

Kyle's new mentor :)

He shines forth...

The Mighty One, God, the LORD,

speaks and summons the earth

from the rising of the sun to the place where it sets.
From Zion, perfect in beauty,

God shines forth.

Psalm 50.1,2

Natsukashi!

Recently, BEST club took a hiking trip that was technically in Tokyo but as you can see, it's not what might come to mind when you think "Tokyo." It was a beautiful day and so great to get outside and just enjoy nature.

As the Japanese would say, "Natsukashi!" or "it takes me back!" It took me back to the few times I went hiking in Iowa at the bluff near the Iowa River and at the 70 with my family so I thought of them all day. You would love this spot, mom!

BEST Club BBQ!!!

Fuyu, Masashi, Mamoru and Naoko gaves speeches about the different aspects of BEST: Bible, English, Sports and Travel to give the freshman an idea of what BEST is all about. Great job everyone!

The grill masters: Masashi, Ty, Mikkun and Kyle. They cooked up some yummy burgers and dogs! Ahh, the sweet taste of familiarity! ;)

Some of the girls hanging out after lunch.

Chatting and enjoying the great weather...it couldn't have been a better day!

Jin and Kalya being cute as always!

Kaoru, Jen and Fuyu.

Kyle cleaning up the dishes in the river!

What would we do without 'em?

Keigo and Ayumi teaching us about our fridge settings

(we haven't quite mastered the language yet!)

Then Keigo broke one of only two lights

that we had in our house :(

Here he is with the broken light bulb!

But, all in all, a fun night!

Later, Yuuri (bottom) and Mashashi saved the day with their creative light installation methods!
(They really were putting in the overhead light!...Can you believe homes here in Japan don't come with lights?!?!)

Our first dinner guests! After a week of recruiting, Mark, Yuuri, Masashi and Fuyu gathered to call the new students to invite them to our BEST club BBQ....!