The Christmas season was pretty hard on Natalie and I as neither of us have ever spent a Christmas away from family. Even though we had very little extra money in December we decided to set aside $25 to do some decorating around the house to make it feel more like Christmas.
We ended up leaving these decorations up until the middle of January and have since given all of them away to our friends down here. All of December was a bit of a whirlwind. We had two Christmas programs at our church that we helped with, an end of the year babywashing that entailed buying gifts for all of the people that we see each week and a baby shower for two of our closest friends down here, not to mention continuing to take care of our weekly responsibilities.
We got to add another first to our list as Natalie and I cooked our first Christmas Eve dinner for two of the families on our team, the Morels and the VanderWerfs. It was a lot of fun but also a lot of work as our oven is only big enough to hold one thing at a time. As a result we spent two full days cooking, but it was completely worth it.
We woke up Christmas morning to very gray skies and a little drizzle. It was probably the coldest it has been down here since we arrived in June. It was a really nice surprise at it made it feel a little more like Christmas. We spent the morning with our "family", the Morels, opening our secret santa gifts and eating baked french toast that Danee made. It was a lot of fun.
Around 8:30 we left the Morel's to head down to the Catholic church that we work with on Thursday nights for the homeless ministry. Here is all of us standing in front of the gate to the courtyard of the church.
Every Christmas day for the past 10 years this church has put on a huge lunch for some of the homeless people in Cochabamba. This year there were around 200 people that were fed. The lunch is held inside of the main chapel of the church. We started setting up at 9 am and finished just in time to start letting everyone in at noon.
Natalie and I were servers. Basically our job was to escort five or six people to our table and then to serve them the three course meal. While serving we were able to talk to the people at our tables. During the lunch there was music provided by some of the homeless people that play instruments on the streets. Some of the people got up and danced! It was really an amazing experience!
One of the craziest things that happened that day had to do with one of the men that sat at Natalie's table. When Natalie and I were here in 2005 Natalie became friends with one of the shoe shine boys that lived in the plaza where we do babywashing. Through conversations Natalie realized that that same boy, now a man, was sitting at her table! His name is Javier and he is the one in the blue and white jacket sitting next to Natalie in this picture. Even though he only vaguely remembered her it was a pretty cool little gift from God.
The lunch lasted for about two hours and then we helped clean up and put the chapel back together. It was probably the best Christmas Natalie and I have ever experienced as it is the first time that we were really able to serve others on Christmas. By the end of it we were incredibly tired and we ended up going home and sleeping the rest of the day but it was completely worth every minute of work. Natalie and I hope to continue this new tradition of serving others more directly during Christmas next year. Here is a picture of all of the volunteers that helped setup, run, and clean up the feast.
The rest of the week up until New Years was time off for both of us. We spent it reading, watching movies, and spending time with other members of our team. It was good to have a little break before beginning the second half of our stay here in Bolivia. We spent New Years Eve at Carla and Rolando's house. They are our closest Bolivian friends.
Carla's parents and sister were there as well as Rolando's mom, his two sisters, and his daughter and her boyfriend. So it was all family and then us! We had a really great dinner and then passed the next couple hours talking and dancing to the year's greatest hits. At midnight we went outside and watched the entire city of Cochabamba light up with fireworks. It was better than any fireworks show in the States as everyone was setting them off so the entire sky was filled. It was a great way to celebrate a great passed year and to welcome in the next.
Our next post will probably be up this weekend and will talk about our adventures while Paul and Sue were here visiting. Hope everyone is doing well back home.
Very nice. Thanks for the update.
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