NLCH Christmas 2007

It's tough trying to find where to start in describing what Christmas is like here. It's certainly different than anywhere else and our memories of Christmases here will always be very special to us. This post would be too long if we tried to talk about everything that goes on here... from getting all of the presents ready, to all of the activities of Christmas Eve night and Christmas morning. Our friends and coworkers, Lee and Staci, did a good job of giving a summary of everything on their blog here. Rather than try and do that again, I'll just talk about a few of the highlights. Then, Kara may want to fill in more details later.

Our first highlight and one of the things that will make this Christmas so memorable for us was being able to watch the three of our boys who celebrated Christmas for the first time with us: Juan David is the little guy in the picture above, and in the pictures below to the left, Javier and his brother Eliseo. On Christmas Eve, I was giving Juan David a piggy back ride and asked him what he had done for Christmas in the past. His answer was, "They gave me a little motorcycle toy and we ate cookies." It's good to know that he celebrated Christmas with his family before coming here, yet it was also exciting to know that he'd never seen anything on this scale before.

Javier's and Eliseo's story is different. They'd probably never had much of any kind of Christmas before. They were both really excited in the days leading up to the 24th, especially as they saw presents start showing up under the tree. I stood near these boys as presents started being handed out so that I could see their reactions as they got their first gifts. I expected pure excitement, like in the picture of Juan David at the top. They were excited allright, and Eliseo's reaction was similar to Juan David's. He was so excited about his presents that he took them back to his room, laid them out on his bed and slept with them there all night! Javier's reaction, however, made me just about lose it right there in the middle of more than 40 kids opening their presents at the same time.

His first present came to him and he took forever to open it. I thought it was just because, having never done it before, he didn't know it was okay to just tear into it. After seeing him be so careful with other presents as they came, though, we started to realize that he was doing that because he even liked the wrapping paper so much that he wanted to keep pieces of it. Staci said that as he sat on the floor unwrapping one of his gifts (really slowly) that she saw him tearing up because he was so overwhelmed and happy.

As I watched these little guys be so excited about some simple presents, I couldn't help but think of Jesus' saying, "If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!" Sure, we can say that Christmas is about Jesus and not about the presents; but watching these boys' faces as they got some new clothes and toys... there wasn't much doubt that Jesus was heavily involved in the process and pleased with the result.

Another highlight was that Kara's parents brought down all of the gifts to fill the kids' stockings to open on Christmas morning. The two of them packed their own things in one small carry-on, while bringing about 240 lbs. worth of luggage full of things from people in their church to fill the stockings. It was a ton of work on their part and from their church, but the kids got some really good stuff.

Obviously things fell into place for the church to be able to help in this way this year- with us being here and Tim & Linda coming down to visit and being able to bring all of the things with them. But thanks to their willingness to help out and lavish these kids with gifts from people whom they'll probably never even meet, just in the effort to reassure these kids that they're not forgotten or rejected but children of the King... again, I just can't help but to believe that Jesus is pleased with that church's Christmas offering this year.


In case you want to see more NLCH Christmas pictures, we've uploaded a bunch of them here.

¡Feliz Navidad, Amigos! 2007

Please enjoy this year's version of Christmas greetings from some of our kids. And just for fun, if you want to see last year's video, click here.

Daniel's Shoes

The kids love trying on Daniel's shoes and clomping around in them. Below are a few of the pictures that I have of kids in Daniel's shoes. Even though they are all of little ones, kids of all ages seem to enjoy Daniel's shoes. Several of the teens and young adults who attend our weekly discipleship groups haven't been able to resist trying them on when Daniel has left them by the front door.

Jans and Emely.

Eliseo and Angie.

Juan David

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas?

Stockings

Kendon 's email in the post below mentioned that my parents' church, Mid-Rivers Baptist Chapel, is providing Christmas stockings for all of the kids here this year. We are very excited about this and thankful for their help! Here is a picture that my parents' sent of the tree in their church lobby with all of the stockings. My parents made beautiful paper stockings with each child's picture, age and name. Each child was "adopted" by a church member and a gallon-sized bag was filled with all kinds of treats for Christmas morning. I can't wait to see the kids open them!

What I am even more excited about is that my parents are spending Christmas here with us this year! They arrive on the 23rd and will be here for a week. This is an incredible place to be at Christmas, watching all of the children open their gifts and celebrate together, but it will be even more special this year sharing the traditions with my parents.

Message from Kendon

I was getting ready to put a post on here about Juan and then received an email that Kendon sent out letting people know about Juan's situation. His message also had a good update on Christmas, so I thought I would just put his email on here for those of you who haven't seen it.

"Dear Ones,

We wanted to get a quick prayer request out for Juan, Jose Angel's brother. He went home for a Christmas visit with his mom.

She has been suffering and grieving pretty badly with the death of Chepe and has been wanting Juan to come home to live with her. She finally talked him into it. However Wendy talked to Juan on Friday to try to find out what "he" wanted rather than what his mother wanted him to do, and he admitted that he really didn't want to leave the Home. When Wendy suggested that he go for Christmas and come back in time for the new school year in January, his face lit up and he said, yes, that is what he really wanted to do.

Even though Juan will be back on January 3, it was sure hard to say goodbye to him this morning. We got all the kids together and staff to pray with him and give him hugs.

Pray that God will use this time in his life and pray for his mom. She recently committed her life to the Lord. We are praying that she will hear directly from the Holy Spirit concerning His will for Juan.

Preparations for Christmas are in full swing but we sure do miss Greg and Marquette Garvick (have you all bought your tickets for next year?). Greg and Marquette have been coming down for a number of years to help us get ready but were not able to come this year. But we are thankful for Daniel and Kara, Lee and Staci, and our interns, Katie and Danelle. What would we do without them?!

The guest dorm has been turned into "Santa's workshop" and all the gifts that we have received from different churches and friends are waiting to be organized and assigned to the kids. Kara's parents are bringing the stocking stuffers, thanks to a special drive at their church in Missouri so we'll take care of that just in time for Christmas Eve.

Year after year, we wonder what God is going to do for the kids for Christmas and it is always truly amazing and overwhelming! Some of our staff today were commenting how this will be the first Christmas celebration for two of our new little boys, Javier and Eliseo. Whenever the topic comes up, their little eyes begin to sparkle with excitement.

Pray that our kids will experience the love of Jesus as never before, that the reason for celebrating is not lost in the materialism of the age in which we live.

God bless you...thank you for your prayers.

Our love,

Kendon, Wendy and Ian...for all of us at NLCH"

Intern Retreat at Lake Atitlán

Last weekend we enjoyed the chance to be back at Lake Atitlán again for a closing retreat for our three interns who are wrapping up their time here, Anna, Katie, and Danelle. It was a nice time, and we always like being back there at the lake.

I wanted to get pictures of the sunset one night, but we had been running around and got back to where we were staying a little late, so I had to settle for taking them from inside the compound there. Ended up, though, that it's pretty true to the experience of being there.

Oops!

Daniel and I bought a clipper set at the grocery store last week so that I could start cutting his hair. He was tired of trying to find somewhere to get his hair cut and/or trying to time it right so that he would be here when all of the boys from the home get their hair cut.

Well.... the good news is he won't need another haircut for awhile. The bad news, as you can see in the picture above, I am going to need a lot of practice and unfortunately for Daniel, that practice will be on his head for all the world to see.

In my defense, he picked out which guard to use, saying "I think this is the size that they usually use." Obviously, that was not right. With one swipe that became glaringly clear as a huge chunk of hair fell to the ground as if in slow motion, which triggered my jaw to drop as I gasped and stared at his then visible scalp. Daniel, knowing something hadn't gone quite as planned but still in the dark as to what it was said, "what??"

At that point, there was no turning back. Other than glue, there was no other option so we had to continue with the super short cut. Actually, I left him with more a "mangy dog" (not quite the adjective any man wants for their hair style) look because I couldn't bear to cut it all that same short length.

Hopefully, if there is a next time, I will do much better. Thankfully hair grows!

Pancake Breakfast

Last night, the interns had a sleepover for the little boys. They had a great time watching movies and eating special snacks.

This morning, the sleepover came to a close with breakfast at our apartment. The little guys were pretty cute showing up at our door in their pjs.

A few lessons were learned from this breakfast: (1) little boys and syrup are a bad combination, (2) when serving pancakes to little boys, you should not allow them to put on their own syrup, (3) little boys get into everything, (4) Daniel and I do not want to have eight children (especially 8 boys!), and (5) this may have been a one-time only event.

I used place cards at the table to try to separate some of the ones who seem to pick on each other. Who knew that they would actually like this... I am sure it helped that each name card had a Spiderman sticker! They asked if they could take their name cards with them. Then Josue asked me if he could take our Christmas tree with him.

When I was little, I used to love it when my grandpa would make me a "K" pancake. Therefore, I made a chocolate chip letter pancake for each boy, or rather I should say that I "attempted" to make a letter pancake for each boy. I have a new found respect for my grandpa. Those letters are hard to make and especially hard to flip without breaking!

It was a crazy and very messy morning. I think our apartment is permanently sticky, but it was worth it... I think.