A Clean House of God

Did you notice? Did you feel that up lifting freshness in the church that comes but once a year? Did you smell that slight hint of scented pew wax on Sunday? Yes! Yes! Yes! Our home, God’s home, is clean, from walls to windows, from top to bottom, Sanctuary, chapel, classrooms, offices, Fireside room, fellowship hall and even that grungy filthy greasy kitchen…all clean. And it took a lot of you to get the work done along with our Scouts and their fathers. We thank and appreciate all of you who came out to roll up your sleeves and apply that good old-fashioned elbow grease to scrub and make shine our home. Even the screens were removed and hosed down. Nothing was left undone.
After several hours of nose to the grind-stone work, lunch was prepared and served to a now famished work force. Hamburgers and hot dogs with all the fixings, potato salad, chips and cookies was the fare with a lot of relationship building as the work crews sat together to share this meal and tell storeis. What a beautiful sight.
We are thankful to BOT for organizing this annual house-cleaning event. To DeeDee especially, who was around most of the week preparing for this big day and ensuring that all the proper wax, cleaning solutions, solvents and supplies were available for the specific tasks at hand, on the day of the clean-up. Oh…and that includes proper signage of what is used where throughout. Thank you DeeDee. Many thanks to the church leads as well, Mona Otomori and the kitchen crew; Mimune Tsukamoto, chapel,; Art Black, the sanctuary; Cynthia Fukuda; Fellowship Hall; Rob Hikido; Classrooms and supplies; Kelli Martines, Church office; Warren Shimonishi, window slat screens; and Brian Hamilton, all around, walk around supervisor.
Of course, we cannot forget our lunch crew: Mark Iwagaki on the grill; Fukuda and Terri Koike, purchasing the food for lunch; Steve Tabuchi, took care of all the fixins’, and Judy Yasutake, the delicious potato salad.
Finally, hats off and a huge thank you to Boy Scout Troop 201, and their parents which amounted to 19 strong, along with CYS adults, 7 and all from the church, 25 for a total of 51 “Thank you for all the help from Scouts and CYS” commented DeeDee Azuma. “without them our tasks would’ve fallen short. We can use more and hope next year, more of our church people will come out and help.”
We are happy that our one injured fellow. Jeffrey Oldham, who suffered a fractured fingertip and contusions on two other fingers will fully recover. No blood was shed in the Sanctuary after a pew accidentally fell on his fingers. OUCH! He is now known as three-finger Oldham.
Mark Teagle did some board work and general cleaning before rushing off to a Wesley Ukulele Band fundraising event at Roy’s Coffee Station.
Kelli Martines and friend Richard set about cleaning up the church office.
Just a few short months after kidney transplant surgery, Joanne Miyahara is at church cleaning the sanctuary furniture.
The dirtiest, greasiest work was left to CYS parents who made our kitchen cook area sparkle.
Akiko Buchanan and Shizuko Adachi clean all the chapel chairs.
The kitchen crew cleared the clutter that builds up in a year. From left we have: Beverly Lovaas, Terri Koike, Misako Kusuda, and the much needed help of a CYS parent.
Supervisors DeeDee Azuma and Brian Hamilton discuss logistics.