(Pictures: Party with the hospital workers class, Party at our house)
(Video: As we winded down, a spontaneous rendition of one of the songs with someone else at the guitar. The electricity was out, so we were in latern-light.)
It’s that time of year again. For those of you back home, the weather is getting cold and you’re probably pushing your way through mall traffic jams. Christmas music is pumped into every corner of your life from elevators to grocery stores. You can’t escape Christmas. But where we live we have to be much more proactive or Christmas time would go by 
unnoticed.
Well, we don’t let that happen. We decorate our house. We play Christmas music, and we have Christmas parties.
This year we had 3 Christmas parties with 3 of our English classes. The parties are pretty simple affairs, but people seem to really enjoy it. We sing Christmas carols, eat some Christmassy type food (Megan made ginger cookies this year) and learn about Christmas. We usually teach them two things. First, we teach about American traditions like Santa Claus, giving gifts, mistletoe, etc that they see on movies and don’t understand. Then we explain to them the Christmas story.
This year was special because Grace was our helper. Her grandparents gave her a toy nativity set, which we take out at this time of year. She loves to play with it. Well, as we were explaining about Mary, she grabbed her toy Mary and held it up for all to see. “This is Mary,” she explained in her best teacher voice. The students loved it. She also loves the story of the angels and the shepherds and has even memorized the angel’s proclamation. Last night she shouted for all our students to hear, “I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the city of David a savior has been born to you. He is Christ the Lord” and she even tacked on “Luke 2:10 and11” We were very proud of her.
I’m always excited by the questions we get asked when we do these parties, “What is salvation?” “Why is Christmas important?” “and even, “What does it mean to be a sacrifice?”
We will leave for vacation in a couple o
f days to enjoy a Christmas holiday with family, but it has been great to share Christmas with our island friends.
PRAYERS ANSWERED
Our Christmas parties all went really well and have resulted in some great conversations and hopefully some deeper friendships. We were delighted to be a part of a special water service involving two new brothers. It went smoothly without raising attention.
PRAYERS REQUESTED
We will travel on Friday for a two-week vacation. Pray that our travels go smoothly and that the kids do well. Tom is nearly finished reading stories with his friend, but they still have 9 stories to go. They are planning on trying to read the rest tonight (because he will be going to school abroad)! Pray that they are able to do it and that, even though they are reading so many stories at once, it would all be understandable and taken to heart. Peter’s neck boils are slowly getting better, but treatment is unpleasant for him. Pray that his skin would clear up quickly.
