Last Night Out

Last Monday night, the men of BOB (Brothers of Boaz) gathered to wish Andrew Neely well in his new life (which begins this Saturday). As many of you know, he and Kayo will be spending the rest of their lives together! Yep, life sentence for Andrew in the Yamauchi Prison! (If you think that's mean, it's not my fault - his jump-suit on Monday actually said that!)

So we gathered at the Cafe for pizza and snacks, put the jump-suit on him, wrote all kinds of messages all over him, and brought him up for Kayo and the ladies to see him. Of course he was blindfolded so that he wouldn't know where we were taking him next.

So off to Mihama we went, where Andrew had to complete 5 tasks before receiving his gift from us. We're an evil bunch, aren't we? First on the list was that he had to stand on a street corner and sing a love song about Kayo in front of several people. Two of those in attendance were a Hong Kongese couple who are also engaged to be married. The song was to the tune of Elvis Presley's "Love Me Tender" and it begged Kayo to love him even though he's going bald and they're going to live the poor life on Tonaki Island. (Just kidding, Andrew - I know you'll be a great husband to Kayo!)

Then he had to walk around Jusco and ask at least 10 people if they had seen his fiancee - that they had lost each other and now he was looking for her. He had pictures handy to help people get an idea of who he was looking for. The catch - one picture had Kayo in the background and another girl in the forefront, and the other picture had Kayo's gramma as the focal point of the picture. The people he asked got a good chuckle out of the pictures.

Third up was a corn-eating contest. Andrew had to find 3 people against whom to compete for the title of "Fastest Corn Eater." Being an Iowan, Andrew had an unfair advantage and so he gave them a 5-second head-start. His competition included a high school girl, a college boy and a regular Joe (or Takuya or something). Well, the college boy actually beat Andrew. Said Neely: "Without the head-start, I would have beaten him for sure! I was almost there!" I guess the college guy was just really hungry and couldn't say no to free corn!

The last two events kind of fizzled, but they were still worth trying. One was that Andrew had to get five people to say "I love you, Kayo" in unison for the video camera. He got a couple of guys as far as "standby mode" but they backed down.

Then there was the re-enactment of his proposal scene. Kayo was played by Tokito. The whole thing went alright, I suppose, but Andrew kinda forgot some of the details that I somehow knew (I asked Kayo and she told me everything!), and that our group of guys was half Japanese-speakers and half English-speakers, and I felt the need to translate it, which made it really long and drawn out.

Well, a good time was had by all, I think! Neely, we're all praying for you, man! But Kayo, we're praying even more for YOU, girl! Just kidding... I love you both and look forward to seeing God do amazing things in your lives!