community art

Friends from our church sometime get together to do art.   
Our pastor has been preaching about seeking God's face.   So we decided to have a collage around that theme.

                   Cutting, gluing, stamping, painting--and, of course, eating together afterwards!

The first night, each of the 4 women created their own collage.  Sorry that some of the pictures are not high-quality, but I wanted you to have some idea of how things looked by the end of that night.   We had 4 completly different pieces of art...

However, we did not feel that we had actually finished what we were meant to create.

So two weeks later we got together again.   We (reluctantly) decided to tear our pictures apart to make something completely different.   Since we could not bring ourselves to rip up our own pictures,  we took somebody else's collage in hand and tore it into two or three pieces.   After taping big white papers together on a table, we started to glue the torn pieces onto the new, larger background.

We were not sure what we are doing or where it was leading to.    Together we tried our best to make something beautiful out of the broken pieces.    Honestly, at that point it really did not look that great.  Then we selected warm colors of acrylic paint (orange, red and yellow) and brushed pigment around the scraps of torn collage.    As we did so, one of the women said, "Look--there's a hole in the middle!  Let's make this hole look like light."   We did so by adding white paint as highlights.
 
Yet still, it looked like something was missing.  So we decided to put the
the words "This is Jacob, the generation of those who seek your face, O Lord." (Psalm 24:6)

When the words were put onto the picture, something magical seemed to happen. We stepped back to gaze at the picture.  A powerful, shining piece of art now lay on the table.  It looked  as if we had planned it out from the beginning.   How had this happened?  We were not sure, except that we knew it had somehow grown from our creativity-in-community.  

The process of making this art was as precious to me as much as the end result.

I learned not to hold onto my individual artwork, since for the sake of the community each woman had allowed her own collage to be broken in order to make a bigger picture.
I learned to keep going, and to trust the process, even when you do not know what will be the end result.
I experienced that when you work as a community, something unexpected and beautiful can be born.

We shall overcome

https://www.opendrive.com/files?NV8yOTg1MDYxXzlGYWpF

The girls at CH sang this song in Hindi at the Indian Independence Day celebration which we held recently.
This is the protest song  that became a key anthem of the African American Civil Rights Movement (1955-1968.  (If you click on the link above, you can hear the audio of the girls singing.)

We shall overcome
We shall overcome
We shall overcome someday

Oh deep in my heart I do believe
We shall overcome someday

They were trafficked, abused, now rescued.  They have started the long jorney towards healing.
It is not an easy road.
But yes, deep in my heart I do believe that they shall overcome.

International day

Kids's school had an international day

Satoshi sang a Chilean song in Spanish with guitar.

He just started taking guitar lessons a few weeks ago!

Sawyer dressed like "Pope Nicholas IV" in the medieval room.

With that red bath towel, he looks pretty good.

Meena dressed in a casual Japanese Yukata.
She looked beautiful, though it is actually Roger's bathrobe!

I wish you were there to enjoy with us the pot luck food from many different countries.

Australia: Sawyer cuts his hair, May 2012

Saywer had long hair.   Last year while in the USA, when Sawyer went a barber to get his hair cut, he heard that he could donate his hair to a cancer patient.  But at the time, his hair was just a little too short to be donate-able.   So he decided to wait one more year to cut his hair, so as to donate his hair.

So this year when we went to Australia, Sawyer decided to cut his hair, and donate it.     The hairdresser carefully followed the instructions from a donation website (bundle the locks of hair; tie them off, then cut).

I encouraged Sawyer to cut his hair.   But actually, when I witnessed his hair being chopped off, somehow it made me cry!  (Sawyer, didn't cry, though.)

                             We mailed the hair to the foundation who makes wigs for cancer patients. 
                                  Sawyer said "My head is cold!" So we went out and bought a cap.

                           

Grandpa's boarding school ロジャーのお父さんの寄宿学校

Roger's father grew up in India.   He went to a boarding school in the Himalayas when he was 7, and when he was 14 he and his family emigrated to the USA.
ロジャーのお父さんは、インド人です。インドに住んでいたとき、７歳から全寮制の寄宿学校で勉強しました。１４歳のときに、家族とともにアメリカへ移住したのです。
Last week we had an Spiritual Life Camp at a Christian retreat center near that boarding school.   After it ended, we took our children up a steep & curvy taxi ride in the mountains to visit Grandpa's boading school, Sherwood College.
先週、修養会はその寄宿学校の近くでした。くねくねした山道をタクシーに乗って、子供たちとその寄宿学校を訪ねました。
This is the gate of the boarding school: 
寄宿学校の門で。

Then we met the "Senior Headmaster" who is like the Vice Principal, who welcomed us & showed us around.
教頭先生が時間をとって、学校を案内してくださいました。

We went to the History room, where we found the register entry of Roger's father's admission in 1947, the year of India's Independence from the British.  Notice lines F.50 and F.51, which are Roger's father Robert and his twin brother Richard.
ロジャーのお父さんの入学が記録されたノートを見せてくれました。５１番は、ロジャーのお父さんの名前。そして、その上の５０番は、ロジャーのお父さんの双子のお兄さんの名前です。１９４７年、インドの独立の年です。

We took a family photo with a notebook (the Admissions Register) that is older than any of us!
その記録と一緒に記念写真。


Here's a view from the main building, looking at the roofs of where his dorm was.
これは、寮を見下ろした光景。

Right middle is the chapel where he used to sing in the choir.  On the right is the classroom building.
ロジャーのお父さんが聖歌隊で歌った、チャペル。

 Inside of chapel.   Roger's father may have sat in the same chairs 65 years ago.
チャペルの中。ロジャーのお父さんが６５年前に座ったいす。

Then we drove 15 min down to where the lake is.   Roger's father used to march down with other students to buy cakes, snacks and watch movies.
We went to a crowded market at The Flats (site of the cinema hall) and ate Tibetan steamed momos (pot stickers).
１５分ほど、寄宿舎から山を降りていくと、湖があります。そこの、マーケットでロジャーのお父さんは、週末にでかけ、スナックなどを買ったそうです。マーケットで、蒸し餃子をたべました。

Meena ate the aloo paratha (Indian bread stuffed with potatoes).　美奈は、ジャガイモがはさまっているインドのパンを食べました。

Then we found a cake man, in the same way Roger's father has described from his memory: a man wearing an Indian hat, selling slices of cake out of a tin trunk. We all screamed, "It's the Cake Man!" 

ロジャーのお父さんから聞いていた、ケーキマン　（インドの帽子をかぶり、アルミのスーツケースに入ったケーキを売っている人）を見つけました。

We had to taste (we ate Coconut Macaroons, though Roger's dad would have ordered a Cream Horn or Chocolate Eclair).  We thought this man might be a son of the cake man that Roger's father used to know.

このケーキマンは、ロジャーのお父さんがケーキを買った人の息子かも？

Savoring the pastry.

The lake must be the same view with what their granpa must have seen.

湖の風景は６５年後も変わりません。

子供たちとともに、おじいちゃんの歴史をたどる、有意義な一日でした。
                               We are so proud to have heritage so rich.   We love you, Grandpa!

Autralia: Meena's pie face, May 2012

The first day in Australia, as we drove from Sydney to Newcastle, we stopped at a famous restaurant at the top of a hill in a forest, "Pie in the Sky."   There Meena had her first bite of meat pie.   Since then, she has changed forever:  She fell in love with meat pie.


オーストラリアでの第１日目。ミートパイを初めて食べました。それ以来、ミートパイは美奈の大好物となりました。

There is food chain called "pie face".  Whenever she got a chance, she ate a pie.
オーストラリアにはPIE　FACEと言う、パイの専門店があります。機会があるたびに、美奈はミートパイを食べました。

ミートパイを食べると、笑顔いっぱいです。
and there would be a smile on her face.

But then who ate MEENA......?
でも、その美奈を食べようとするのは？

Australia: in front of the Opera House, May 2012

Last time I wrote this blog was 2011!   What happened?  Courage Homes happened, and the blogspot stopped.   In fact, I haven't blogged so long that it took me more than five minutes to find my own blog site!    So I decided I will start again.  I cannot catch up all last 6 months, so I will start from Australia trip.

前回、ブログを書いたのは、なんと２０１１年の１２月でした。COURAGE HOMESの開設以来、忙しくてブロクを書いていませんでした。実際、今回ブログを書こうとしたとき、自分のブログサイトが見つけられないような状態でした。過去、６ヶ月間のことを全てブログするのは難しいので、オーストラリアの写真から、はじめます。