How's your Christmas season so far?
The "Unforgettable Christmas" outreach went well Friday night (December 12) at the Chi Alpha Student Center. We aimed for an interactive experience so as to make it memorable. Last month's guest speaker and his wife came and brought one of his wife's students plus their two little boys. (She teaches English on a part-time basis.) An American missionary couple, a guy from Jujo Church who's been coming the last two meetings, and a member from the University of Tokyo Chi Alpha read Bible passages about Christmas in Japanese. The student president of Waseda University's Chi Alpha was the emcee and she did a good first time job. She and I led in singing Christmas songs in English and in Japanese.
Shelley Carl, U.S. missionary, sang and played a couple of Christmas songs on the guitar and then spoke. She based her message on a new Christmas song "A Baby Changes Everything" by Faith Hill. You can hear it on YouTube here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2o1uxzI-hA&feature=related
At different times she had us get in small groups to discuss her points. We talked about unwanted pregnancy and what we would do if we knew someone in that situation. I think it was really good for Asian young people to openly talk about this. Sexuality is rarely discussed in a Christian setting in Asian churches.
Afterwards, we had a fellowship time. Yuri and I made plenty of cookies because we had leftovers. The apple cider went over well, too. One girl said it was the best she'd ever had. :)
