A little garbage, a little party, a little basketball and a little church.

As a part of living in the neighborhood, each house takes a turn to clean up the area where you put your garbage and recyclables.   Thursday morning when I was about to leave for school, I looked into my mailbox and found "the book." 

What generally is required from me each day, is to clean that area.  I take a bucket of water and use the broom, dustpan, brush, and squeegee to clean out the cement structure.  I am responsible for 3 - 4 days after which I pass "the book" on to the next person.  

This is the cement structure where we bring our garbage and recyclables.  Note the bucket where I bring water.  This picture was taken after I cleaned it. 

This is and the next four pictures are the before cleaning pictures. 

These tools are used to help clean.

Top left side.

Bottom left side

The blue containers are used to collect PET bottles.

This and the following two pictures are after I have cleaned.  Bottom left side. Notice the difference!  :)

Top left side.

Top inside looking to the right. 

So, Thursday was the last day of the first semester.  It has been a busy semester for the Middle School teachers.  We have implemented the Standards Based Assessments and Reporting and have come to the time to prepare the report cards.  It has been a lot of work checking and rechecking, plus coming up with ideas that would communicate clearly the what students know.  As a way to celebrate, the Middle School teachers were invited to my place for a little celebration.  Funny thing is, that I totally forgot to take any sort of pictures.  It was a fun, social activity.  
Saturday, I was the event supervisor at CAJ.  We had SAT taking their tests, Saturday School in the library, and the Middle School boys teams played St. Maur's and YIS.  It gave me a chance to work a bit in my office.  I managed to organize my files and put them in my new cabinet.  I'm still working on decorating and putting it together, but the piles of papers and books are now off the floor and put away in the cabinet/bookshelf.  That felt good.  
Here are a couple of pictures of the boys playing basketball.  

This was the MS boys C team playing St. Maur's

This was the MS boys B team playing St. Maur's

This is the MS boys A team huddling during a time out playing YIS. 

Saturday was a long day at school, but it was also fun to be able to watch the Middle School boys play some basketball.  
Sunday, I decided to attend International Community Chapel of Saitama.  It is has some English as well as Japanese.  To get to Kotesashi, I bicycled to the train station, took the train, and then walked to the church.  It was a nice service, with one of our CAJ staff preaching there.  I think I may go again.  The funny thing was, on the way to Kotesashi on the train, for the last two stops, I was the only person in the car.  That is quite unusual!  

I have been told, but never checked it out, that they have the same advertisements in the same place in each car. 

When I was young, my brothers used to have to show the bulletin and share what the sermon was about from the church they attended if my parents didn't see them in church.  Here's my bulletin from this morning. :)  

It is almost the end of the weekend.  We begin what CAJ calls SLEW, Spiritual Life Emphasis Week.  Our speaker is Seulgi Byun. I pray that he may be able to be used as God's messenger to share what the students need to hear.  I hope you had a good weekend as well!