Okay, this one is a little late, from last fall, but I just found the photos in Aileen's camera.

Aileen teaches English at a famous private school founded by a Christian educator nearly 100 years ago. The school is still nominally Christian, and many - though by no means all - the students and faculty come from a Christian background. She pours on the TLC for all these kids going through the angst of Jr. High. She's also a fun teacher and very popular with the kids and administrators. (And she was at school past 8 p.m. tonight, getting all the final tests marked and grades for the semester turned in. Yep, the school year ends in March in Japan.)

You can see her kids having a blast in pictures I've linked to here. As part of her English lessons, she teaches facets of US culture that she thinks the kids would find interesting. Not surprisingly, the idea of Halloween makes a big impact on the kids. "You mean you can just walk up to people's homes and they'll give you candy?!?!? Whoa!!!" Last October, Aileen took a bunch of dollar store props for the kids to use for their costumes. As you can see, it was a smashing success....


(You can also click this photo to get to the album...)

I get myself in trouble sometimes. Maybe you do this too... You think about something you're supposed to do. Get the stuff together that you need to do it, think through your angle of approach... and then tick it off your mental list of Things To Do. Without actually ever having done it. And then you get the phone call, email, or your kid bugging you, whatever. After a bit of confused mental protest ("I know I did that!") you realize that you're all plans and no action. I'd blame it on age, but I think I've been doing it all my life :-)

So here it is March 1, and at church we've been using our new hymnbooks for a full two months now! Want to say a special "Thank you" to those of you who helped purchase these for the church.

The hymnals are nice -- full of the old traditional standbys along with a good dose of more recent melodies and worship songs. Anybody up for a chorus of "Amazing Grace?!"