What a wonderful season Christmas is! I love that after thousands of years, the birth of Christ still brings healing, restoration and peace. People often talk about the “Spirit of Christmas” and in reality, the spirit of Christmas shows the heart of Christ and the things that he desires for us all year long.
The month of December has been a whirlwind of spreading Christmas cheer and showing Christ’s love on the precious kids that we serve. The month started off with the women’s group coming down with suitcases filled with presents, decorations, crafts and all things Christmas. Over the course of the week we have the privilege to visit each Casa Hogar that we work with and set up a tree and make ornaments and give each child their own Christmas gift! What a blessing it was to see the joy and excitement in the children’s faces as they opened up their gifts and worked together to decorate their trees.
I will never forget one sweet little boy, Santiago, opening up his present of a huge dog stuffed animal and coloring books and markers, but the thing he was most excited about was the small tube of travel toothpaste. When he saw the toothpaste his eyes got wide and he gasped and he held it like it was a priceless treasure. The rest of the day he carried that tube with him where ever he went. This made me really sit back and think about how much I take things for granted, especially around Christmas, when there is an abundance of blessings everywhere I look.
It requires a lot of Christmas cookies to feed 500 kids!
The presents are wrapped and ready to go!
Children from the children's homes were so excited to receive Christmas gifts!
Decorating the tree at the children's home
Danny loved my candycane ears! When I bent down to give him a hug he pulled them right off my head and tried to eat them! He thought they were real candycanes!
Christmas is truly a time of joy, generosity, peace and restoration. Praise the Lord for the hope that he provides for these children who have so little. I am honored to be able to love on them and help them understand the reason behind the gifts, crafts, cookies and parties.
I pray that you are resting in the hands of the One who came 2,000 years ago so that we could experience a love unlike any the world had ever known!
Merry Christmas!