Good-Bye Parties

And the turnover continues. This week we say good-by to Leeann, who heads down to Miyazaki, and one of the Japanese staff. (Turns out I was right when I predicted a new addition to the Japanese staff would mean someone was leaving soon).

My co-worker Amy already wrote about the goodpbye party on her blog, so I'm not going to bother repeating it. I'll just link to her description . Also she posted several photos on her photo site, of which I'm stealing the ones with me in them.

Here's one of the whole gang:

and here's one of me with a couple of the Japanese staff:

...um, not my best picture admittedly. I'm really following in Shoko's footsteps with the closed eyes. But at least I remembered the peace sign.

And last, I look on while farewell gifts are opened.

Update: more photos. Can you guess whose hands are bigger?

Link of the Day
Via Travelling Mercies I found a link to a post by the Reverand Daniel Meeter of Old First Reformed Church on Calvin connections to Blackwater. To quote briefly from some of it:

The Reformed tradition has never been pacifist like the Mennonites or Quakers. It has always discouraged war, but it has allowed that some wars can be "just wars." It shares this view with Lutheranism and Roman Catholicism.

There are a number of criteria for "just wars," criteria which our war in Iraq has never met, which is why the Pope opposed it from the outset. The various Reformed denominations in America, however, took no stand on it. Our American patriotism coupled with our fear of Terror trumped our historic "just war" criteria