July Fun

I SWEAR that I was just blogging about the end of the school year and yet here I am blogging and another school year is upon us once again! I would be blogging about the Jr. YBA Convention but perhaps another year and another time that will fit into the comprehensive youth program. 

July was a extremely busy month for the Fellowship Club. Well, relatively at the beginning of the month we helped by making and selling musubis at the Moiliili Hongwanji Bon Dance and SummerFest. We also helped Jr. YBA with their shave ice booth which was right next door to ours. 

Josh showing off some of the musubis ready to sell!

Also in July we held another Director's Nite and the theme this time was ninjas. There were ninja ducks, ninja cheese. We made origami ninja stars and watched the movie Shinobi:heart under blade a definite must see.

We also celebrated Suzanne's birthday which was earlier that week. She  really enjoyed her birthday cake because it was just her style.

I'll be back again soon to report on a special collaboration project that we worked on earlier this month that deserved it's own post.

Also if you haven't signed up for the Young Adult Retreat IV, you still have time but you need to contact Jake ASAP if you want to attend. We have also set the date for Manoaphobia and it's going to be August 31. We look forward to seeing you soon!

March mischief...

Hey,

Sorry it's been a while. Things at the BSC have been crazy and I promise that we actually have been doing things and not just sitting around pretending to do things.

In case I didn't mention before, the BSC staff was lucky enough to be invited to see Rev. Yoshiaki Fujitani speak at a presentation of the VVV on February 23. It was quite special to see a film on the VVV and to hear Rev. Fujitani talk about his experiences with the VVV.

As I may have previously mentioned here we took Yuiya Yokoyama to a UH baseball game. What I probably didn't mention was that his father Mr. Wayne Yokoyama gave a presentation on his work as a translator. You can read at least part of his talk here. It's really interesting because he found D.T.Suzuki's orignal introduction to the Kyogyoshinsho! He also briefly mentioned when he visited On March 3 that he's been very busy working and his work is finally coming out, which is quite good news for us!

In March it was also Dwight and Rev. Kevin's birthdays so we celebrated with an M&M ice cream cake. umm...as you can tell there was an incident with breaking the knife. It was a really good birthday for both of them though. There will be more updates to come though and it will be great!

Oh! Also if you are on facebook.We are there too! Link! You should be our fan because if not you are missing out on some interesting stuff not featured on our website or our blog!

Laie Beach House

So the Fellowship Club finally made it to the beach house at Laie Point and the view was so incredible I can't even... After getting settled in the group made its way to the enclosed neighborhood beach and have some typical beach fun.

After the beach the gang relaxed for a bit taking in the view and having Mr. Randy Muramoto teach them how to cast.

After a while, Wayde was lucky enough to have his line shake and he caught a sting ray which took him a super long time to reel in. Paul's line also shook later in the night and he was lucky enough to catch an enuenue.

It was a really good trip. We're already looking forward to going back in October. Sorry, its so far away but Spring/Summer is always crazy for us!

Kahuku Hongwanji and shrimp trucks

At the last part of the story the Fellowship Club was leaving Wahiawa Hongwanji headed for Kahuku. We now catch up with the gang at Kahuku Hongwanji where they attended a short service in honor of Kahuku. Thanks to the Tatsuguchis for leaving the flowers on the altar.

The Fellowship Club then stopped at the nearby farmers market to get lunch. Which was so delicious!

A few members of the Fellowship Club had fun playing on the preschool toys that were at Kahuku Hongwanji and of course we snapped a few other pictures before heading out to Laie.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Wahiawa Cherry Blossoms....

Once Upon a Time... The Fellowship Club decided to take a weekend trip out to see the sights on the Leeward Side of Oahu. Along the way they stopped at Wahiawa Hongwanji and met Jack Tsujihara, resident Cherry Blossom expert and jack of all trades. He began by telling us a bit about the cherry blossoms trees at Wahiawa and how it was just about cold enough.

Then while we were waiting for people to arrive and get breakfast from Sunnyside Bakery around the corner the group fascinated themselves with the Zen garden in front of the minister's residence. Mr. Tsujihara even gave us lessons on how to make the nice raking technique.

(Dwight, Emi, Jess, and Beau)

Don't worry we made sure to check on Mrs. Okano's peach tree which from the looks of things appears to be in good health.

We then stopped at Mr. Tsujihara's house to check out his Cherry Blossom trees before heading out on the rest of the adventure.

TO BE CONTINUED...

UH Baseball Game

Yet another delayed post, but we're pretty close to caught up to the present for now, I think.

On March 3rd a group of us met up to take Yuiya Yokoyama to see UH take on the Wichita State Shockers. Yuiya, is the son of of Wayne Yokoyama, who was a guest speaker at the BSC for the weekend. Yes, if you are wondering Yuiya is a baseball junkie and that's why we took him to the game.

The Fellowship was lucky enough to score a couple of free tickets from Wayde and were also able to get some good seats thanks to Abby's connections. Here are some pictures from the game:

And he's out!

The final score...

Everyone who came!

We hope to see you at our next event!

Celebrating Chelsie's Birthday!

So as mentioned in a previous post, we are trying to acknowledge and celebrate everyone's birthday as it comes lately. This past month in February we had 2 birthdays of the Fellowship Kirk Shimabukuro and Chelsie Takasaki. Chelsie agreed and was a bit thrilled that we were going to have a celebration for her birthday. Kirk never responded, SORRY KIRK!

Here's the cake we got Chelsie, It's a fruit flan from Safeway :)

We had picked a day and a time that we thought was good for both parties to partake in the festivities that wasn't too late, February 24. Her Birthday was actually February 6. People actually came to enjoy the flan.

But Chelsie didn't show as plan and as much as we were worried. we couldn't let a perfectly good flan go to waste. So we had some....

And left Chelsie a nice message about how we waited for her and everything. She showed up later and said that somehow at work she had messed up her schedule and ended up working longer than she should have. She had some flan and said that she loved the thought anyway.

So let's get down to celebrating some more birthday in March shall we!

Living Treasures 2012

These next couple of posts will be out of order because as much as I've been meaning to post and talk about the adventures the Fellowship has been having I just haven't had the time. So bear with us while we catch up!

On February 3 & 4 The Honpa Hongwanji of Hawaii held it's 100th Giiseikai ( Legislative Assembly). During these proceedings, the film Aloha Buddha was screened and a resolution encouraging current members to bring their friends, family, and neighbors to temple was passed.

On Feburary 4 the Annual Living Treasures Luncheon was held at the Sheraton Waikiki. Ken Oyadomari, Allyson Fujii, and Justin Shiraki along with Emi Hashi and Brandi Yamamoto were ushers to the honorees this year. Sadly, we didn't get to take a group picture this year, but here are a few pictures of the honorees.

Goro Arakawa of the Arakawa Store in Waipahu

Ben Finney, Co-Founder of the Hokulea Movement

Gordon Mark, ukulele master. He played 2 songs for the fellow honorees and the audience.

the other honorees were Barbara Kawakami and Lynette Paglinawan. Here's a link to the Olelo video of this year's honorees visiting the Hawaii State House and getting honored there. Click here Also in attendance was Jake Shimabukuro and former Miss Universe, Brooke Lee.

Also at this year's Living Treasures the Honpa Hongwanji honored two ministers for their service. Those ministers were Rev. Ryoso Toshima and Rev. Thomas Okano, both ministers are now enjoying their retirement.

Sorry the pictures are little blurry and out of focus. The attendance at this year's Living Treasures was crazy! I decided that taking pictures via the screen was probably easier than looking like a crazy person and rushing the stage. More posts coming soon!