Christmas: Honduran Style

The week leading up to Christmas was filled with the question "will this be your first Christmas in Honduras?" which was then followed by "are you ready for it?"

I wasn't quite sure what exactly I was supposed to be ready for, but my first Honduran Christmas was a success.

All of us from the Villa came into town for Christmas week and we divided the kids up between Betsy's house and Elvia's house. I was fortunate enough to have Jaime and Edgardo open up their house to me. They also invited 3 of the kids from the Villa to spend Christmas Eve with us. We had a full house: 2 teenage girls, 4 boys, and 3 adults but it was a blast!!

(picture: Edgardo, Jaime and the crew...Noe, Angie, Dani, Jonah, Daniel, and Carmen)

We started out the night with a church service 7:30-9:30 complete with songs, dramas, etc.

Then the 9 of us went back to Edgardo and Jaime's house for Christmas dinner. By the time we had everything ready to eat, it was nearly 11 pm (which I'm told is early). When midnight rolled around, Christmas day was ushered in with fireworks shows from all directions. We took all the kids outside to see the show and enjoy the bangs.

(picture: freshly arrived from church and cooking the turkey!)

Once Christmas Day was fully upon us, we settled down with cups of hot coco to open our presents. Then it was time for a Christmas movie and finally off to bed at 3 am.

From what I've gathered, Christmas Day is more of a day of recovery since most of the celebrations take place on Christmas Eve. But we enjoyed a relaxing day at home: watching movies, going for a walk, playing with the new presents and celebrating Jesus' birthday with birthday cake and singing!

Honduran Christmas wasn't exacty what I was expecting, but what a wonderful way to celebrate the birth of our Savior.

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. ~Isaiah 9:6

Ten Monkeys In A Tree

Wow! It has been almost a month since my last blog, I can't believe the month got away from me, but here are some of the highlights.



- Hae Young (my boss at the Villa) and Betsy (the director of the ministry) came home from Korea which means that everyone is back. After 2.5 months of various people traveling, it's nice to have the Jericho family all back at home.



- Thanksgiving! Although Betsy has been an ex-patriot for 30 years (more than half her life), she still makes it a yearly tradition to celebrate Thanksgiving. This year we celebrated at Jericho School in Tegucigalpa and over 60 people came! It was a beautiful time to be together and the girls and I were in charge of the pies (pumpkin and pecan) which turned out great!



- My dad came to visit! It was a huge blessing to have my dad visit for 10 days. I was a little nervous about how he would react to 10 rowdy kids but he held his own and the kids loved him! Dad was here for Jericho graduation and Thanksgiving day so he pretty much got to meet everyone in the ministry. I loved having my dad here and being spoiled for a little bit.



One day while my dad was here, we took all the kids out hiking to show my dad the land. We came across an avacado tree that the kids have always begged me to let them climb. Of course I couldn't say no this time, so we hoisted the kids (two-at-a-time) into the tree. It was so fun watching them get to the top and pose to have their pictures taken. Dad became the hoister which all the kids enjoyed...they loved climbing up on his back to reach the lowest branch.



I've been trying to load pictures for the past two days and the site is not being cooperative. So as soon as it's working again, I will have pictures up and posted.