fun with claire

::: "in america," explained claire to her audience of seven kids (ages 1-4), "when we meet each other, we don't bow to each other...we shake hands"

[puzzled look on kids' faces]

"hello," claire said slowly each time she went to a child to shake his or her hand...

the first time around, each child was apprehensive in giving his or her hand, as if claire's hand was electrically charged...

[same puzzled look]

the next time around, the children relaxed...

claire then played a "Hello" song, inviting the kids to shake hands with her and each other...but they only wanted to shake the american's hand...after some convincing, claire managed to get the kids to shake each others' hands...

[replace puzzled looks with squirrelly behavior]

even the one-year-olds were getting into the act, particular a cute, chubby-faced boy named riyu, who approached claire throughout the day to shake her hand...

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:::

...as one way to extend a hand of goodwill and good news to the families of our community, on saturday (8/12) our church started the first in a series of monthly children's programs called "fun with claire" (claire to asobu)...
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...anyone who has (or works with) kids knows that anything can happen, anywhere, anytime...also, getting young children to do things together is a challenge, to say the least...

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...by God's grace and as His answer to many prayers, from the opening greeting above to the end, the kids and their moms stayed focused and seemed to have fun with the program prepared by claire and our creative team of women (izumi, kotomi, mikiko, and yoko)...especially encouraging was the good time of interaction between our church ladies and the young mothers...

.

...as he was leaving,

riyu ran up to claire,

offering his little hand

for one last shake...

:::