Feliz Navidad!

(written Dec. 25, 2008)

Have you ever had one of those days where everything just turned out exactly like you'd planned, or even better? Well Christmas (meaning yesterday, Dec 24) was one of those days for me. Lots of people put in lots of hours to make this Christmas special for the kids here. I helped shop, wrap gifts, prepare gift baskets, fruit plates (it's tradition here to recieve an apple and grapes for Christmas dinner), and candy bags, helped prepare the gym for the special meal and program and helped with other misc. details (and there were quite a few). Our director of children's services and our director's wife both did an amazing job and everything turned out splendidly. The day was spent making preperations, and in the evening, we all gathered together in a beautifully decorated gym to share a special Christmas meal. The request was for rice with peas, gluten, garlic bread, salad with dressing (they don't usually eat dressing here), and bananna splits for dessert. Delicious!

Dinner was followed by presentations from

each of the houses. My house did a dramatization of "You are special" by Max Lucado, as well as a rendition of "Feliz Navidad" (I wanna wish you a merry christmas...). Interspersed between acts was the handing out of cards. During the week people made cards for different people and came and hung them on the Christmas tree. The names were called out and given out during the night. Afterwards us missionaries headed for the tractor. Yes, that's right. We have a tradition here of Santa riding around on the trailer pulled by the tractor, handing out gifts. We went along to sing Christmas songs and add to the cheer :) The gifts were a hit, almost everyone was really excited. Later, began the fireworks. A little dangerous in my opinion, but lots of fun nonetheless. (Clean-up in the morning not as fun, but worth it). We stayed up until about 3 the next morning, it was a fantastic time. The 25th was a lot more low key. Us Americans hung out at the director's house - eating, watching movies, riding the horse, stuff like that.

There was one moment, sitting in the gym, looking out over all the faces of my kids and people I love and I just felt so content and happy. We were all there together, happy and safe and so blessed. My heart overflows with praise to God for where He has brought us and what He has done.