This year, I lead the Elementary School Winter Workshop while Garrun was at a camp retreat site in Cincinnati leading the High school workshop. It was held at the Ohio Family Church in Columbus on Thursday, Dec. 27th -- Saturday, Dec. 29th, from 9:00 -- 4:00. It was a great turn-out, with over 20 participants each day. I was very grateful to have the help from a few Middle School volunteers (I couldn’t have done it without them), and other ladies from our community.

The theme of the Workshops this winter was "The True Meaning of the Season." We wanted to express the true meaning of Christmas and of Jesus to the children, along with the importance of God’s Day and the New Year. We were very fortunate to have some parents give talks each day to the children. On Thursday, Grace Sasaki spoke about Living for the Sake of others (even when we don’t want to).

It was a great start to the workshop because the children were able to apply it to their experiences at the workshop (when there was a game or activity that they didn’t want to play, for instance) and when they went home to their parents and siblings. Roger Bair taught a song to the children on Friday, explaining to them the true meaning of Christmas (each letter in Christmas represented something important about the holiday, it was really cute and an easy method to help them remember). Also we were fortunate to hear from Annette Yamakawa who spoke about peace.

Each day we had a lot of fun with arts and crafts and other games and activities. The children were all great participants and we look forward to the next workshop.