Halloween in Nagano

A bit behind but still wanted to share some of the things we did in October.
We know there are some who feel that Christians should not celebrate or recognize Halloween.
We personally do not feel that way and hope not to offend anyone by our actions/activities.
Living in Japan we do our best to take advantage of every opportunity to reach others for Christ.
Using a story I'm sure many of you have seen comparing a pumpkin to being a Christian we enjoyed using this to teach several of our students while carving the pumpkins.
For most this was their first experience carving a pumpkin and to relate it to the Christian comparison was a fun and enlightening experience.
 

 

 

The first three pictures above are my English Club high school students.
We had about ten pumpkins of various sizes and had fun talking, sharing and creating.

 

 

 

These next three are the junior high youth that attend the Sunday afternoon English service that John leads.
Along with a young man from Indonesia and our Pastor's wife, this was a first for all of them.
As they each created their own masterpiece they took turns reading the comparison story along with some related Bible verses.

 

 

 

These three are from the annual Halloween party that John and our friend, Mako, do for their English students. This year there were over 100 kids and around 150 people in total! They had fun playing games, singing songs and trick-or-treating.
(Since John has been wearing the same costume - remade, over made and redone again & again - for the past ten years I really think we're gonna have to come up with a whole new plan before next year!)

 

Last but not least, we used one class at one of my elementary schools to teach the kids - and as it turned out the teachers, too! - how to carve a pumpkin and how it relates to life as a Christian.
As a first time experience for all I think they did some pretty great work!
We also went trick-or treating around the village but I somehow didn't get a shot of that in here...