It was "Thanksgiving Day" at Baiko. Students and staff brought fruits and vegetables to school, which would later be distributed at an orphanage, nursing home, and daycare. All of the food was sprawled out on the chapel steps. It looked like a cornacopia had exploded!

After school I went to the orphanage. There were 52 kids ranging in age from 4-18 years old. Some of them are orphans and others are there because their parents cannot take care of them for one reason or another. The building is on the run-down side of things but still functional. The children were happy and looked like they were well cared for.

I started to use bricks with some of the kindergarten kids. Then one of them wanted to look at books. Before I knew it they were saying "ego hon" and starting to pull out all of the books that they had in English. So I read to them in English! They were fascinated with the different voices and expressions I was reading with. More and more kids came when I started to read. I got to read a book about a frog, Spot, number/shapes/colors, etc. I would tell them how to count to ten in English and then they would tell me how to count in Japanese. We had a great time together!

I also taught them the hi-5, which they loved. Every time they said something correct in English they got a hi-5. It was hard to leave them at the end. All the way down the driveway they were waving to us and saying "bye-bye."