We arrived at the children's home Friday afternoon. The common room outside of the room that we are staying in was full of gifts. We called that room Santa's workshop for a few days. That evening we began going through the gifts all of which had been donated to the kids making sure that clothing sizes were correct and making sure that all of "the goods" were spead as evenly as possible among the kids. That meant that we had to unwrap, go through, and re wrap about 300 gifts. We finished the majority of the gift wrapping Sunday evening. Also during that time Staci made 4 pans of brownies, 20+ dozen cookies, 5 cakes and a pumpkin pie (all of which are mostly consummed now). Lee washed a 40 pound box of apples and mounds of grapes (that were nearly the size of plums) on Sunday preparing for Monday night's events.
The evening of Christmas Eve is the "big event" in Guatemala. After supper the kids watched the movie "The Nativity" and at 9 o'clock everyone gathered for a short Christmas service. Groups of the girls had choregraphed dances, a few played various instruments and sang, we sang Christmas Carol's, Lee sang a solo, and Wendy had an extra flute so the two of us played together. Kendon read Luke's account of the Christmas story and then read our of 1 Corinthians. After that, we all took communion together. When the short service was over we ate snackes including apples and grapes (a Christmas must here), cookies, cake, ham, cheeses, and crackers. We drank "hot punch" which is a bunch of fruit juices with spices that was hot. By the point the little guys could hardly wait for their gifts. After cleaning up all of the "food mess" packages were handed out and opened. It was so fun to watch Eliseo, Javier, and Juan David open their gifts. For all three of them this was not only their first Christmas here, but their first Christmas to receive gifts.
The presents were opened and taken to their rooms just before midnight. Everyone, including the littlest ones were handed a bag of various firecrackers and their own set of matches. At midnight the whole country seemed as though it blew up. Imagine the best fireworks show you have ever seen - and then imagine that happening on every city block. It was amazing - for a solid 20 minutes it looked and sounded much like a war zone. The kids played with their firecrackers until 1 when they were sent to bed. After that we moved their stockings to the dining hall, as well as, their "group gifts" like soccer balls, puzzles so it would be ready for Christmas morning.
On Christmas morning, Kendon made his famous oatmeal pancakes, and they were excellent. Before we ate the kids got to see what was in their stocking and look at their group gifts. They were also surprised with a new puppy - a 6 week of Huskey who were offically have a name after the vote at dinner tonight. Kara's parents are here visiting for Christmas. Their church sent all of the "stocking stuffers" for the kids. There wasn't a square centimeter left empty in any stocking. In fact, they brought so much stuff that the two of them packed their clothes for the week in one carry on bag! After breakfast all gringos took a much needed recovery nap.
For lunch, there were traditional Guatemalan tamales, bread and cake.
Last night Kara and Daniel invited us to have Christmas dinner with them and Kara's parents. Not only did they bring all of that stuff for the kids, they managed to pack a whole ham in their carry on bag (that stayed frozen the whole trip), a cheese tray, sweet potatoes, Christmasy plates, napkins, and a few table decorations - it was pretty incredible. We feasted on ham, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, bread, and a pumpkin pie - yummy!!
It was alot of work to pull of a Christmas for 47 kiddos - and a great blessing to see those 47 kids be blessed. It was incredible to see how the Lord provided Christmas gifts for these guys. They all kept saying "we've never had this many gifts".
Here are a few pics for the past few day:
This is what gifts for 47 kids looks like!
This Javier opening up Christmas gifts for the first time.
Eliseo is on his bed with all of his gifts in a big bag - he was so excited about them that he wanted to sleep with them last night.
Juan David is checking out some new shoes.
Angie isn't generally afraid of much, but wasn't about to hold a roman candle - so she gave it to Lee.
This is the newest addition to the NLCH family.
1 comment:
duuude. that is a freakin' sweet story! :o) love it. :o)
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