Japanese Children's Christmas Party

The week before Christmas, our Club Beyond leadership team (C.B. is the new youth outreach ministry on base) joined another squadron on base to help throw a special Christmas party for a group of Japanese 5th graders. These students have been learning to speak english and so this was a great opportunity for them to test their language skills.

We enjoyed a holiday dinner of American delicacies like pizza and fried chicken (hahaha). Most of what the kids can say in english involves simple phrases such as: "I like ______," or "I can _______". So we enjoyed interviewing them about what they thought of our American food. They seemed to like it after they figured out how to eat it. But the girls I sat with tought our slices of pizza were too big and weren't sure what to make of their Popeye's buscuits. We also asked them about their ages, favorite school subjects and hobbies.

After dinner, we played some fun relay races. We broke everybody up into three teams and worked together to win some candy prizes. Even with a language barrier, the students picked up on the premise really quickly and did a great job! Laughter all around.

After that we sang some Christmas carols in both Japanese and English. (Our translator helped us to sound out the Japanese verses. The students had been practicing the songs in English.) It was a lot of fun, and very meaningful to see that the Japanese children had studied these words about the true reason for the season and to sing the songs together!

Next, the Japanese students had a gift exchange among themselves. Finally, the squadron we went with presented each student with a special gift bag full of American toys!

I really wasn't sure what to expect from this outreach opportunity, but I am so glad I went. We had a great time interacting with the Japanese students, and hopefully made some connections so Club Beyond can continue serving these children!

Our team.