Happy Thanksgiving 2014

If there's one Western holiday that most Japanese are not familiar with , it's Thanksgiving.

I get blank stares from my students whenever  I mention that one of my favorite holidays is Thanksgiving.  They say, "What's that?!  How is that celebrated?"

Well, blame it perhaps on the Americans here in Japan who didn't quite share this one holiday with the Japanese.  That's why I am so glad that the American missionaries who came to the Philippines hundreds of years ago introduced this holiday to the Filipinos.  No, we didn't have turkeys and all the trappings, nor did we go home for that Thanksgiving dinner in the Philippines.  It's not really an official holiday in my country but most Christians picked it up and tweaked it a bit to become the Thanksgiving Sunday at churches .  Oh, how I miss those special service and the potluck lunch afterwards!

Back to my Thanksgiving celebration here... I decided to do one Culture Lesson with all my classes during Thanksgiving week.  The aim is to let  them know that there is such a holiday in the USA and Canada, to let them know when and how it is celebrated and of course, why it is celebrated.  So after the usual vocabs unlocking and tracing the history of the holiday (by PowerPoint), the students did the activities like word searches, puzzles, games, art crafts, etc.  I asked them what would they thank God for this year.  Some of them drew what they're most thankful for this year and posted these on the wall.

The fun time was capped with a simple snack - pumpkin pies, baked by Maya Hayashi.  Most kids do not like pumpkin, but surprisingly some of them asked for seconds because we gave them just tiny slices this time. Because we decided to bake just enough for all the classes , sadly,  seconds could not be given.

Best of all, I would say, is the Thanksgiving Prayer that we (chaplains and I) decided we would do  before they had the pumpkin pie snack.  For most of them, that was their first time to hear this kind of prayer, their first time to be prayed for or prayed over.   Of course, the prayer by the class chaplain was in Japanese so the students could understand every word of it.  It was such a heartwarming moment to see them, especially the younger ones , express their thanks to God with closed eyes, clasped hands and grateful faces. 

I'm looking forward to another Thanksgiving fun with the classes again next year, God willing !