So this past week we have been hosting some Japanese people for a program called Bridge. Bridge was started some 20 years ago as a way to create a bridge between Japan and Hawaii with the intent of bringing Japanese leaders here to teach them MiniChurch, church planting and church leadership. The program stopped for awhile so this was our first attempt in over 10 years. This year’s program brought in 4 people from Kansai and Tokyo and to celebrate the end of the program we had a BBQ.

Now I’m a big fan of this program on the Travel Channel called Man vs. Food. There was one episode in which they went to Minneapolis and tried a burger called the Jucy Lucy (or Juicy Lucy). Basically it’s two beef patties with cheese in the middle. So instead of the boring run-of-the-mill cheeseburger with the cheese on top, this one has a nice layer of gooey melted cheese on the inside. When you first bite into it your mouth behold the power of cheese.

Sounds easy right? We decided to see if we could recreate this famous burger.

Here’s Abby crimping the burgers together

Can you see the cheese bursting through on the right?

Finally, the finished product

Of course, being the good host that I am, I let our honored guests from Japan try the first burger. Here’s Konomi, a 21 year-old girl from Kanagawa taking the first bite. We didn’t tell her about our secret surprise in the middle so she was truly surprised when she bit into it and got a mouthful of boiling, bubbling cheese.

Itedakimasu!

Halfway through the half pound burger

After everyone had their fill of food, the guitars came out for an impromptu kanikapila session. It was really fun to just sit around and play music. Music truly is a universal language. The really awesome part was that after playing a few songs, our jam session turned in to a worship session and we were praising God in English and in Japanese all at the same time!

Kei, Konomi and Mizue (Bridge participants)

Braddah G and JC doing it local style

Dural, Krystal and Keao pick a good song to play

It was a five man acoustical jam!

Good friends, good food and good music. What better way to spend an evening?