New Traditions

Everyone has their Easter traditions. Church, brunch, egg hunt, family time, everyone has their own special way to celebrate the rising of the Savior. We were eager and excited to see what Sapporo EV Free had planned.

Usually after church we eat a meal together, often prepared by one or two women from the church. This weekend we would have a potluck. After a wonderful Easter message (and I know it was wonderful, because our friend K translated for us!), everyone got to work to get the potluck ready.

I have never seen so many people in our church's kitchen. Everyone was busy putting the finishing touches on their dishes, and bringing trays, bowls, and plates into the sanctuary.

Would you believe that THIS was not all of the food!?

In the forefront you can see the cookies my friends helped me make. (Side note: have you ever seen someone eat a sugar cookie with chopsticks? I have, and it is hilarious!)

After singing our food prayer song, everyone filled up a plate and found a seat and a few friends to chat with.

In our church, the sanctuary serves as a multipurpose room. To make it extra festive for our Easter potluck, the pastor's wife asked Stephen to draw Rabbits, Eggs, and Basket for the walls.

Here's a pic of Stephen posing with one of his rabbits. (He was making bunny ears. )

The room was lively with conversations. And Everyone was snapping pictures with their friends.

Here I am with 3 awesome ladies from Ch!n@ who are a part of our church family.

I was surprised to find out that our pastor's wife had organized games for the whole group to play after lunch was cleaned up.

Our first game involved trying to get a group of 3 people to fit on a piece of newspaper that got folded in half for each new round. I fell down early, so I was able to snap some action shots of the other groups.

Here's Stephen and his group. They lasted much longer than me and my group did.

Here is a shot of the winning group implementing some serious strategy!

The next game was like the old American game, whose got the button. We passed, or pretended to pass a game chip down a line of people, and the other teams had to guess who really had it.

I probably should have been paying more attention, like everyone else in the room.

The final game was really fun, but totally unfair for the group that had the two Americans. (Our apologies to team "Rice".) It was a version of "Telephone" that involved writing the word on your neighbor's back. But the word was Japanese, and written in Hiragana.

Here's Stephen trying to write うさぎ (Usagi- Rabbit) on his neighbor's back. If you couldn't guess, our team lost.

We had a great time with our church family this Easter. Can't wait 'til next year!

Happy Easter, From the Borbas!