A Very Merry Christmas

This Christmas our children were blessed to have three different groups of people donate gifts for their Christmas.  The first group was led by some friends of our from our church small group.  They spoke with friends and family member and raised fund to not only buy Christmas presents but to also have dinner and a piñata. We wrote about it before and you can read about the wonderful evening here.

On Christmas eve, we brought the rest of the presents over and celebrated Christmas with all the children.  We started the evening reading about the birth of Christ and explaining that this is the true meaning behind Christmas.  The gifts and presents, while exciting and fun, are meant to symbolize the greatest gift of all: the birth of Christ.  Diana did a wonderful job reading the story with passion and excitement and afterwards, we prayed with all the children.  Then after a brief photo session, we dove into the Christmas gifts.

The second group of gifts also came from our church, but this was organized by our Operation Christmas Child program.  If you aren’t familiar with it, church members fill a shoe box full of items for either a boy or a girl of a specific age.  Then these christmas boxes are delivered to children who might not have gotten a present.  Best of all, they include a personal note in the box, sharing about their families, favorite Bible verses, and what Christ means to them.  It truly is a wonderful program that puts smiles on faces of thousands of children around the world.  Thankfully, this year the program leaders selected us as one of the groups that would be receiving these gifts.  We picked them up from church and brought them over to the children on Christmas Eve and they loved them!  It’s amazing how much stuff can fit into a shoe box.

The third set of Christmas presents came from Diana’s sister that was in from Spain.  She and her husband graciously donated some gifts for all the children.  When we handed out these gifts all of the children were in awe of what they received, but no one more than Willie.  He received a plastic yellow truck and when he saw it he couldn’t contain his excitement.  He repeatedly went around to all of us showing his bright yellow truck with a smile that stretched ear to ear.  Even after handing out the other presents, he always went back to the truck and even when we left a few hours later, he was still running up and down the halls with it.

To us it’s always amazing how such small things can have the biggest impact in the lives of children.  While they of course love the gifts, what truly brings a smile to their faces is to know they aren’t forgotten.  They realized that there are people beyond the children’s home that love and pray for them.  That’s the greatest gift of all: to share hope, peace, love, and comfort to children that sometimes feel abandoned and ignored.

We would like to publicly thank all of the people that were involved in making this such a wonderful Christmas for our children.  People sacrificed time and money to bring a smile to our children’s faces and we can’t be more thankful.  I would also like to thank Diana publicly for contacting, planning and organizing the three different groups of presents.  She was the catalyst for all the gifts the children received.

Thank you all and God bless!

Here are some pictures from our Christmas