It's going to be a memorable day: Thursday, May 1st

My pastor, Ieva, allowed me to use her name here. So I'll call her "Ieva", instead of "my pastor" from now on. Thank you, Ieva!


One of the special things about today is.... we had our lunch out! Ieva, a social worker intern (who has been here for the past 8 months and will finish her work this Friday), and I had time together. We went to a Caribbean restaurant. Ieva and I had a chicken soup, which is her favorite, and the intern woman had chicken & beans with rice. There were chicken, pastas, and potatoes in the soup. It was sooooo yummy!

On the way back to our Home, Ieva stopped at a corner and said to me, "Naoko, you'll see the school? Do you remember the time I told you about my dream of bringing children to our nursing home?" Yes, I remember, I said. If a group of children visited our nursing home regularly, even if a few children, it'd be great! We could organize a family! We should visit there as soon as possible and ask teachers if they could organize a day visit to our nursing home and if possible, regularly.... We need more people to be there, just being there.

Then the social worker intern started to talk about her wonderful idea of bringing graduate students or university study groups to our Home, who study history. Our residents have a lot of precious historical records in their memory, in their brains, in their minds. Unfortunately, most of the precious memories are vanishing away. So it's urgent to get their memory recorded. They are having their last days, sadly to say. They are willing to talk. In fact their condition is unstable sometimes. You often have to wait until it becomes better. But it's worth waiting. I liked her idea! I deeply wish her idea becomes realized. Also I wish I could have knowledge of American history and could understand the preciousness.... I want to understand their words more...

The intern woman was today's guest in our service. Everybody there gave her warm comments, which made me moved a lot. It was such a beautiful scene that she greeted to everyone as she left the room. Warm atmosphere was filled with the room.

Almost at the end of the service, Ieva asked me to sing a song for her. I happened to have my favorite song's sheet "In Everything" with me so I sang the song as I played the piano part. I think it was a new song to everyone but they seemed to enjoy it. I was so glad when they sang with me by humming for the refrain part!

You should praise the Lord, not only in good times, but also bad times. The song tells us. Yes, it's true.

After the service, another special thing happened!
I started a piano lesson with a resident. I first met her at our lunch table. We often have lunch together at the same table. One day she told me that her dream is to learn how to play the piano until she dies. "I want to do it until I die"... When I heard her words, I was so moved. My heart ached. And then I felt so glad that I am here and could help make her dream realized. Today, we had the first lesson! She loved "In everything". So we used the music and started to learn the melody. I think we really enjoyed our time together. We are going to have our lessons every Thursday. I'm sure she will be a great pianist because she is eager to learn everything and always a hard-worker. I hope she stays good as long as possible so that she could learn many things about music and anything else!

When our lesson was finished, she said, "you are a good teacher!" and I said, "You are an excellent student, too!" We were sooooo happy that we hugged each other tightly!

I think, I would think back of this day in the future, on our recital day perhaps? , and would say "Oh, it was the first day of our lesson..... what a memorable day it was!"