Tumbling through fall.

Fall foliage on the campus of Luther High School.

For J-3s, fall goes fast. No sooner had Caroline and I gotten back from Sapporo than school started again, and the craziness will continue straight on through till Christmas. We've had a good share of three-day weekends, but fall is also the prime season for both school and church events, so I've been kept quite busy.

Festival decoration by the senior Special
Advanced English kids. (They sold rice balls
wrapped in grilled meat--so popular that the
line went out the door and down the hall!)

October marks the beginning of the second semester at Luther, and to ring it in every year Luther holds its annual Gakuinsai, or school festival, on the first Saturday. The school festival is a major event at any Japanese high school. It's the one time of year that the public is invited on campus (for a non-admissions related event, anyway), and each homeroom class and club plans its own special "thing", whether it's selling school-logo emblazoned towels, holding a mini-carnival, decorating their classroom like a haunted house, or serving up fast food. Some even get corporate sponsorship--we've had classes selling real Baskin Robbins ice cream. The PTA also comes out and takes over the entire parking lot selling used goods, official PTA t-shirts, and every kind of street food imaginable. For the entire duration of the festival there's a "stage presentation" (talent show) in the gym, featuring mostly student bands. Students wander the hallways hawking their Luther notebooks and zipper pouches, using their best sales-English with the J-3 teachers, leading to amusing exchanges such as this:

Students: "Please buy our class t-shirt!"
Me: "I don't even teach your class!"
Students: (Pause, look at each other.) "But... we love you!"
Me: (Shells out 15 bucks.)

I spent most of the day hanging out with the English Speaking Society, who was busy making their school festival staple: s'mores. We have to special-order the graham crackers, hunt for marshmallows at the import grocery store, and spend a minute explaining what they are to most visitors, but the s'mores always end up a huge hit.

Sign outside the ESS tent for the uninitiated.

Getting ready to roast!

Not exactly a real campfire, but it did the job.

On the church side of things, the major fall event for most of the Lutheran churches here is an annual "bazaar", which is like a rummage sale crossed with a street festival. At Kuwamizu's bazaar in early November, the whole thing was held in the sanctuary. Half the room was covered in used articles and handicrafts for sale; the other half was food--and a lot of it. Church bazaars are great places to pick up Japanese housewares and traditional items at garage-sale prices and grab a cheap lunch to boot!

Some of the goodies you could get at the Kuwamizu bazaar in 2013.

The pews are all put in the center of the sanctuary for cafeteria-style seating.

I spent most of this year's bazaar on sauce duty for the mini-okonomiyaki (Osaka-style savory pancake) my pastor's wife served up (and occasionally ketchup duty for the corn dogs, called "American dogs" in Japan).

 

My lunch--or the half that was left by the time I remembered to photograph it. I was so hungry by the time I could go on break! From left to right: sweet red-bean soup, yakisoba, and the paper sleeve for the mini-okonomiyaki I'd just scarfed down.

There's been a million other little things going on, events and get-togethers (fried chicken bento boxes for Kumamoto J-3 Thanksgiving 2014, for example), that it's a bit disorienting to stop, look back, and realize it's already been more than three months since summer vacation ended--and there's plenty more coming up to keep me busy this month, as you may imagine. Happy Advent! More to come in the next few weeks.

Hmm... something's going on in front of the high school building at Luther...

 

Welcoming the Christmas season with songs and Scripture readings at the Luther tree lighting last month.

For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.
Romans 15:4 (NIV)