Ever since we made the decision to come to Guatemala, we had been looking forward to being able to spend Christmas at the children's home, and the last few days have been a very special time.On Christmas Eve, we started the day by going to church in the morning. The kids were already very excited, because most of the events happen late in the night of the 24th. The younger kids even refer to the 24th as "Navidad," since the 25th is a much more relaxed day. After church we returned to NLCH, had lunch, and then started getting things ready. It was a good bit of work just to carry all of the presents to the dining hall and put them around the tree.
After dinner, the kids watched a Christmas movie, and then we had our worship servi
ce at 9:00. Almost all of the kids participated in some way; we had a skit of the birth of Christ- complete with the sheep pictured on the right, dances, and songs (be sure and see the Jingle Bells video below). Kendon gave a short lesson, read the Christmas story, and we shared holy communion together. After the service we ate again, and then about 11:30 the kids started opening their presents.It was a lot of fun to get to watch them, especially the litte ones since they haven't learned how to hide their excitement yet. Little Josue, pictured right, would pull out each present one by one, then hold them up
and yell, "Look! A shirt! (or a car! or whatever it happened to be)." When he got these superman pajamas he showed them to everyone would would pay any attention, then proudly wore them over his clothes until everyone was finished.Then came midnight, and we had never seen anything like this before in our lives. The whole world down here sets of firecrackers and fireworks at the same time. We had plenty for the kids to set off themselves, and it was about 30 minutes of non-stop noise and smoke, but they loved it. I climbed up on the third story of the school to look out over the city, and it was amazing to see fi
reworks going off like that in every direction. It's not exactly taking "Silent Night" to heart, but it was certainly memorable.Christmas morning, Kendon always makes pancakes for everyone, so we enjoyed a good breakfast after watching the kids open their stockings. The rest of the day was pretty relaxing as the kids
enjoyed playing with their new things.I've taken up enough space here, but if you'd like to see more Christmas pictures click here. If you'd like to see more videos, click here.
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2 comments:
Daniel, it's great to see God using you and Kara! It's so exciting and continually fills me with hope to continue on. 2006 has just been such a hard year for us. I lost my oldest brother and one of my favorite aunts within 5 days of each other and I'm just now starting to breathe again. Thank you for your faithfulness to keep doing what God has called you to do.
Daniel and Kara, I am so proud of the two of you for serving God and just loving on those kids. I love you guys and hope to get a chance to see you soon. Daniel, the trip is going to work out, I recruited the team personally so it should be a wild one!
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