The Final Christmas Celebration

The stockings were hung....

carols all sung.

The presents were stacked under the tree...


for all eyes to see.

And as always, the joy of the Lord filled the air
wiping away all doubt and care.

For this day was the last lonely Christmas
for the Appelgate team to take bliss.

Presents were unwrapped
although the joy never untapped.

The candy lay about the floor
with all the tummies oh-so-sore.




For the parents had sent in the mail
packages of love and candy without fail.

The previous day was just as joyous
with lots of fun and not so much fuss.

The hot spring was comfortable
while the train staff dressed up merriable.

Songs were all sung with cheer

With friends so close and dear.

And what would a Japanese Christmas be

without a lovely cake to see!

On Christmas night all merriment was had

with friends all around to make us glad.

The food and fixin's were oh so wonderful

talkin' and laughin' never a moment too dull.

Although turkey was out of the question....

A glazed ham would do for din-din.

And to finish off the Christmas joy

was free coffee from Mister Donut, oh boy!

Nativity Play

Here is the celebrated Nativity play we promised!!!!

Hope you enjoy this version.......

Best Christmas Party Yet

Today was our best and final English Club Christmas party! It was full of non-stop laughter, joking, and fun times!

We started the party off with a cookie decorating contest, in which each student was able to choose and decorate 3 cookies any way they like. Here is a sampling of some of the finished products (the one in the center of the tray took FIRST place actually!)

Afterwards the students finished decorating the rest of the Christmas cookies.. and last year they made us matching "boy and girl" cookies, well this year on their attempt, they accidentally gave Angie a giant eye, so she figured she should probably make her eye the same so they didn't feel too bad about making her look like "EYE-gore!"

We also had a fashion design contest, in which the students were given 2 rolls of wrapping paper (we should be specific- Japanese rolls of wrapping paper, which means only about 3 feet of wrapping paper/roll) and could make any fashion they wanted.. here were the final designs from the left- the "the Tin-Man," "Santa-Pebbles," and "the Parisian-Christmas Queen!" In case your all dying to know, the Tin-Man won!!!

We played many other games, ate tons of delicious food, did a White-Elephant gift exchange, and laughed a lot! Best of all, we did a nativity play, complete with costumes and everything, but you will have to wait for us to upload and edit the video before we put it up on here! Hopefully we'll get to it this week, since our vacation starts on Wednesday!!!

103... Do we have to go?

Today we had one of those days in which we had to ask ourselves, "Why are we leaving?" and we also remembered, "Oh yeah, this is why God has brought us here!" It was one of those days that makes us super excited and joyous but also makes our hearts break as we think of the impending good-bye.

Sometime last month, one of our English Club students asked us if the students could have one of the English Clubs in December to do something for English Club. Of course we said "Yes!" excited that they were wanting to plan and run an English Club. Up until a week ago we had no idea that they were actually up to something quite suspicious. After seeing them come in and out of the teacher's room numerous times a day to discuss things with the Japanese teacher whose the head of English Club and having them dodge us in the hall with things hid behind their backs, we realized, "Oh, maybe they're doing something special for us." But of course, we had no idea what this would entail.

As we entered the English Club room today they informed us that we-Travis and Angie- would be partaking in some special games:

The first game: Taboo, in which the first round we could only say 1 word to describe our word, and the second round we could only do gestures. Sounds easy enough, right?! That's what we thought, until for the "one-word" round they had their own names, Mickey, and other famous characters, and then for the gesture round they had things like, shrimp, Snoopy, Obama, and compass! Yeah, they definitely made it harder on us than we ever do on them! But, we all had great laughs as Angie tried to act like a shrimp and Travis frantically crawled around on the ground like Snoopy!

The second game: Treasure Hunt, of course also had a twist. To get our clues we had to partake in mini-challenges or answer a question about English Club; for example, "Where was the first English Club party held?" or "Whose speech title was, 'Studying Abroad?'" We had untli 4:30 to find 9 clues, and we made it back at 4:26- just in time!

Our last hint for the Treasure Hunt led us to unlock the English Club room, where we were surprised with confetti, poppers, baked goodies, and shouts of "Congratulations!" That's when the party took on a more serious tone and the tears started coming. Each of the students went around and shared their favorite memory or experience about English Club and gave us a "good-bye/thank you" present, including a memory book with each of their pictures and a letter.

Needless to say, this was one of our best experiences in Japan, not because of some cultural experience or some awesome sight-seeing place, but because of the love that we felt from our students. Times like this remind us why God sent us here and shows the work that He has done through us here. We know that God has reached each one of those students and each student has grown because of it, and we are excited to see how much more God has in store for them in the future.. . even if we aren't here to witness it first hand.

Last Year of Santa-san!

Last Saturday was a sad day for Travis as he was "Santa-san" (a.ka. Santa Claus, though Japanese people don't realize that Claus is Santa's last name, so it's just 'Santa-san') for the last time ever in his life! Seeing how it was his last year, he went out with a bang, and wrote an extra long script in Japanse and dazzled the students in his red costume and big belly!

And of course he wasn't the only thing that wowed the crowds...the local elementary school unicylcing team was quite spectacular as well. Unicycle is a very common elementary school sport here in Japan, and is something that is always quite surprising and intriguing to us whenever we watch them!! We hope you enjoy it the same. Here is a small clip to demonstrate their mad-unicycling skills!