A word on the Tenri Chuch Hierarchy, Race, and a Whole Lot of Cleaning

Ok, here's a quick lesson on the hierarchy of Tenri Churches in the Nagoya area. I live on Aichiyo...there is a church here that is local. The regional church above it is the Aimachi Church in Nagoya. Aimachi Band was started there and used to rehearse there. Aichiyo's gymnasium is a fairly recent thing (five years to ten years). The man who was high up in Aimachi's Church back in the day also happens to be the father (now deceased) of the man (Coz) who is in charge of Aichiyo...and the Aimachi Band. The main Tenri Church is in Tenrikyo (kind of like Rome for Christians) and is a few hours southish of Handa City. I've been there before and it was great...I will post those picture soon.

Anyways...about a week ago Aimachi had their big cleaning festival of the year. It was 5 or 6 hours of cleaning EVERYTHING. Washing walls, moving hundreds of floor panels and cleaning underneath them, etc etc etc. I got a good lunch out of it and hundreds of people showed up. It actually didn't occur to me until when I was looking at these pictures...but out of those hundreds (500 maybe) I was the only white person there. Then it occured to me that this NEVER occured to me around Aichiyo either. I think that's amazing that I've been here for a month and never felt uncomfortable because I was the only person of my race here. That really is amazing and an incredible compliment to my hosts and friends here.

So here are some pictures.

We got there early in the morning...here are the Thai guys camping out in front of the Church, catching some extra sleep. At lunch, I'd say about 250 people were just passed out on the "lawn."

HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS of these heavy and awkward-to-carry floor mat things had to be transported out of the church (so we could clean them as well as the floor beneath them) and then back in afterwards. What a huge pain.

Chopstick king chowing down on some noodles.

Mitchi and I looking accomplished after we cleaned the walls, pipes, poles, floors, tiles, etc etc etc you see behind us. It took a few hours, but you could have eaten your lunch off it if you wanted to. These masks serve two purposes. In this situation, we were using them to keep from inhaling the dust. However, when Japanese people are sick they also wear them around town to prevent spreading whatever sickness they have. It's not uncommon to see people biking around Handa City or Nagoya with these on.

Cleaning EVERYTHING.