Every so often the pastor of our church (aka Dad) will ask the greeters to hand out something with the bulletins. This time, it was rocks. Little, smooth rocks, like you find in landscaping.

He never tells us what they're for; he saves that for the sermon, where he uses it as a visual illustration and asks us to keep them to remember the point. So here we are handing out rocks to people who come in, without explanation because we have none to give.

We quickly decided this wouldn't do. So we started making stuff up. Stuff like:
- "It's 'Free Rock Day' at Santa Clara First Baptist."
- "Today, you're the designated Charlie Brown."
- "Welcome to Santa Clara First Baptist, where we rock!" (GROAN.)

And my personal favorite:
- "We're going to stone the pastor after the service." (Alarmingly enough, at least three separate rock recipients came up with that one without us even suggesting it.)

Ikuyo, a church member who was a huge help during my preparations for Japan, brought her friend Yoko to service today. Yoko's in the country for a year since her husband is working in the area. So Ikuyo introduced me to Yoko, and I gave her my best "hajimemashite" ("pleased to meet you"). She got that surprised "Hey, he actually knows Japanese" look on her face but returned the "hajimemashite" and accepted my handshake.

Then I dropped a rock into her hands. "Ishi" ("Stone"), I explained. And the weird look returned. ^^;