Thank you to all who came out. We were blessed with wonderful weather and spirited bunch who cleaned and beautified Honolulu Zoo! Thank you to those who contributed food for our humble church family get together after. I’m sure our efforts brought joy to God and peace in this world!
Aloha and Mahalo!
Rev. Owen & Taeko Nakao
Aloha everyone!
Thank you to you all for your hinokishin and efforts for the Path!
Just a friendly reminder to participate in the zoo cleanup this
Saturday, 5/3 from 9am.
Meet at right (facing the entrance) side of front entrance at 8:45am. Hinokishin is at 9-11am. As we’re always short on equipment, please bring your own dust pans, rakes and brooms with your name labeled on them. Trash bags are provided. And if you have them, wear the One-world, one family T-shirt!
We will serving chili dog with rice lunch. Please join us after the Hinokishin at 11am and also enjoy the zoo!
If you would like to help with the food please let me know.
We need someone to bring one or more of the following:
Grace is bringing the chili. Thank you. We’re expecting 25-30.
Pearl church will provide, table, mat, water, paper goods, utensils.
Mahalo!
Rev. Owen Nakao
On May 4, 2013, the Annual Hinokishin Day activity in Hawaii was held at the Honolulu Zoo. A total of 21 participants from Pearl Church attended this event. From 9am to 11am, approximately 120 participants took part in weeding, raking, and other general cleaning of the zoo.
Blessed with beautiful weather, participants had a very enjoyable Saturday morning in spirited Hinokishin and unity of mind.
Please let me know by Wednesday morning whether you will be riding with us and/or joining us for lunch.
Rev. Owen.
On March 29th through the 31st, albeit a little mild rain, the Annual Spring Camp and 38th Annual General Meeting was successfully held with a total of 55 children and 5 counselors. Activities such as the Mini Olympics, Adventure Trails, Camp Fire, and traversing the world’s largest maze at the Dole Plantation were all run with the help of members of the Young Men’s Association, Young Women’s Club, and Women’s Association.
This being my first year as a camp coordinator, it was a very challenging task; much more so than I expected. It really made me admire school teachers even more so for their patience and skill at what they do everyday. The children, while cute and fun to play with, are not always going to listen or do what is expected.
Also, being new father, I began to recognize the importance of the camp for our children of the path. Growing up with the camp, I realized that the camp was a unique opportunity for children to interact with others away from their parents for an extended period of time and gain a lot from that experience. They begin to face issues getting along with other children and they cannot exactly run away from it. They have to think a little more independently as opposed to following routines established by their parents or have their parents do things for them. The camp leaders also begin to have responsibility over others. All those small and new experiences with emphasis on the Service, Hinokishin, and helping one another have had a big influence in my life growing up. Being a part of the BGA Camp staff allowed me to be a part of that positive influence on many children and so I now look forward to helping out with the next BGA activity.
Lastly, much thanks to the Bishop and Mrs. Hamada for their many years supporting the camp and judging the “Talent Show” during the Camp Fire activity.
This was also published in the April 2013 Issue of Origins & Makoto.
On Sunday, April 14, 2013, after the Pearl Church monthly service, as assigned for the Joy Workshop program in Hawaii, Pearl Church hosted the monthly Joy Workshop. There was a total of 13 participants who sat through a short 30 minute introduction and lecture by Setsumi Saltman and an hour-long group activity the followed after lead by facilitators: Rev. Tyrone Inouye, Rev. Lynn Nagata, and Rev. Owen Nakao.
The lecture by Ms. Saltman included an introduction to Tenrikyo, its concept of “joy,” what obstacles to achieving “joy” (dust), and what we can do the achieve “joy” (Hinokishin, the Service, and administering the Sazuke). Ms. Saltman also shared a personal experience about how conflict was an obstacle of achieving “joy.”
For the group activity, participants were divided into three groups, each lead by a facilitator; one group was for Japanese-speaking participants. The group activity involved filling out questions on the “Joy Workshop Handbook” and allowing participants discuss their answers. The “Joy Workshop Handbook” focused on identifying obstacles to joy and how we may expressing gratitude for the things that create joy in our lives.
Hearing the answers from my fellow group members was, to me, the most important aspect of the whole workshop because it reinforced and expanded my perspective of joy and gratitude.
Positive comments could be heard from participants openly discussing their experience they just had. With the great turn out in participants and results, we look forward to supporting the next Joy Workshop!
The Dendocho Mochi pounding event was featured on the Star-Advertiser on December 31, 2012! Moses was the big star in this article. It was a nice corner article on page B3.
On November 28th, Pastor Owen, Moses, James, and Lewis spent a whole morning for a tree cutting Hinokishin session at the Mission HQ of Hawaii. It was a pretty big job, but it was no trouble for an experienced team. If you would like to join us on our next Hinokishin activity, please let Pastor Owen know!
Thank you to those who came out for the all Tenrikyo Nioigake Day held on this past Labor Day at Stadium Park. About 80 people attended of which 18 were from Pearl Church. About half of us went door to door nioigake while the other half clean the park as Hinokishin.
A Caucasian man approached us at the park and exclaimed, “I was just thinking, ‘wouldn’t it be great if a group of people volunteered to clean the park today,’ here you are! Would you mind if I borrowed your cleaning equipment?” And he joined us in cleaning the park! It was an awesome day. On door to door I partnered with Setsumi, we administered sazuke three times! There was a lot of paper & plastic trash that day at the park, so the cleaning was dramatic.
Thank you to you all. We just made the world a better place!
Rev. Owen Nakao
I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to all of you who helped at the Pearl Church garage sale today (August 5)!
We grossed $655.15! I expect the net to be about the same due to most items and supplies were donated. This amount is about $100 less that last year, but more than I expected considering our pr efforts was somewhat less that last year.
New items this year were sweet potato manju (made by Taeko Nakao), mango bread (mango from Roy Yamada and baking by Chieko Nakao) and kim chee (donated by Robert Nam). Thank you to you all who donated time, material, food, ingredients, funds, garage sale items and sincere effort.
$300 will be donated for the re-roofing at Mission HQ while the balance will be used to help members with Jiba Pilgrimage airfare.
Thank you to you all!
Sincerely,
Rev. Owen Nakao
