The kids and youth of my home church, East Bay Free Meth are known for the most part, in our conference, for being kinda strange. But I think the label is somewhat unfair because half of the time, it is us older guys, the youth workers who egg them on and "challenge" them to showcase their abnormal behavior. All for the sake of good laughs (and maybe fellowship?)... and more often than not its all worth it for everyone involved. Of course, things involving food are a favorite... considering all the bbq's we host, along with after service luncheons. One of the more "famous" is the Chubby Bunny game "East Bay Style." For those who are not familiar with the original version, the game consists of a group of people stuffing marshmallows into their own mouths one at time. After stuffing an additional marshmallow, the person is required to say the phrase "Chubby Bunny," hence the name of the game. Of course, toward the end of the game, there'll be two people battling it out with puffy mouths and drooly cheeks. Basically it looks like the two remaining people got their wisdom pulled out... well, except that in the case of the game, they're smiling.
So, what makes it "East Bay style" is that instead of using marshmallows, we use pieces of luncheon cake. Sometimes at the end of a luncheon, there'll be a layered cake in honor of someone or some event, and always at the end, there'll be at least 7 pieces left over. In the relatively short history of the game, I am yet to see anyone break the two piece barrier.
Anyway, the point of the entry. Don't worry there's a point! I'm not just being nostalgic. Obviously, I can't get a group of people in a church in Japan to do most of the stupid/crazy things we did back home... but I can gradually get them there right? So after Sunday service this passed Sunday, I got four different brands of cold milk tea from the local convenience store, and set up a taste testing contest. Considering that most Sundays, after worship service, everybody went their own ways... this is a major step. Why milk tea? I've always noticed that Nobuo, the pastor's son and Gospel choir director, would always be drinking a specific kind of milk tea made by Kirin, a drink company. I knew that there were a bunch of different brands and so I always thought that it was odd that he'd get the same brand of milk tea when they all tasted the same to me. He of course, claimed that they all tasted different, and the one that he always buys is the best tasting one. At the end of worship service, we found 3 others who wanted to participate! And so, the contest was birthed. I found four different brands, and did a blind taste test. They had to guess which brand went with which cup. Nobuo was indeed the milk tea champion and was able to correctly match 2 of the 4 brands. It was a hit. So it looks like this may be the beginning of something very entertaining at the church in Date. Oh, and here's an aftermath picture. I think it'll be easy to figure out which one Nobuo is... after all, he won.