Merry Christmas Events...

First off, MERRY CHRISTMAS everyone. I pray that you all have (had) a wonderful time with your families.

Secondly, the Christmas party for the kids yesterday at our home was a COMPLETE SUCCESS. It was SOOOOO much fun. I can’t even explain how organized it was; how wonderfully everything went and that the food we got was more than enough.

The Children’s Christmas Party

We woke up early in the morning; Daniel and I ran in to town to get some last minute things and the 25 pounds of diced up beef that would be cooked up that day. Amanda, Faith, Aly and Anne (our social worker) stayed behind and started cooking the chapattis (tortilla looking like things – so good) and slicing up 15 large cabbages. Jared jumped right in and started peeling potatoes (much to the surprise of our two Kenyan friends, Violet and Nancy who came to help as well).

Daniel and I went and got the enormous amount of beef, picked up the ice cream (for Christmas Day’s yummy breakfast) and back home to help prep the food.

Around 10:15, our first guests arrived….two hours EARLY, which is so not Kenyan. But they were just so excited to get here. The two girls, Dalma and Vivian went and played on the teeter-tawter in our backyard and the boy, Dennis, went and played with Ian (he’s the ex-street boy that lives at Bud and Kim’s – Todd is his caregiver right now) in our tree house.

The rest of the guests started arriving around 12:15; within a half an hour, everyone was here, about 100 people in total. As they arrived through our gate, Jared served them each a glass of juice. He set up his own juice stand and everything! Then the children went off on the adventure of playing on all the playground equipment we have. The older children opted for a game of volleyball (the net went up for my birthday party!) and quickly the adults joined in.

After an hour or so of everyone just relaxing and playing, Amanda and Faith gathered all the children for game time. For the first time ever, the children played potato sack and three-legged races. They LOVED it. Then it was boys against girls for tug-a-war. The boys won the first round, then the girls added Daniel and Yancy (friend of Todd’s) and of course the girls won but the boys were mad because the girls had guys on their side. So Faith, Amanda and I, being girls, joined the girls on their side. Yeah, we SMOKED the boys, they were flying across the yard; we were so strong.

After the games, we gathered everyone together. Daniel (with Anne translating) introduced each group of people that were there. Then he spoke of the true meaning of Christmas and being followers of Christ. After that, we prayed for the food. They started with the youngest children and worked their way up. In this culture, the children are always served last; they, unfortunately, being on the bottom of the totem pole. It was a huge thing for them to be served first; it was their day; it was about them. Faith and I went and served the cabbage and the chapattis. Included in the meal was rice, a beef stew, soup (that is used for the chapattis to dip in as well as moisten the rice with flavor), cooked potatoes, cooked cabbage and chapattis. For dessert was a fruit salad consisting of bananas, pineapples and mangos (the best dessert EVER).

After dinner, Daniel and I were presented with a cake by one of the families. It was a heart-shaped Christmas cake that said, Merry X-mass on it (yes, that’s how they spell Xmas). It was a ceremonial thing in honor of us. It was really cute. They wanted Daniel and me to cut the cake together but we felt a little odd about that so we asked the parents to join us in the cutting. Ruth, the mom, then fed us each a piece of the cake (there is a so-not flattering picture of her putting the cake in to my mouth. Ugh!). She then called the other wazungu (white people) to come to the table so she could feed them each a piece of cake too. Then she served each child a piece of the cake as well. It was a wonderful tradition and we so appreciated it.

We then presented each of the four different groups of children there with a football. The children were ESTATIC, especially the boys. They LOVE their football here.

Then as each group was leaving, we handed out the Christmas gift goodie bags to them, girls getting one and the boys getting another. The girls got school supplies, notebook, nail polish and candies; the boys got school supplies, notebook, deck of cards (they LOVE playing cards) and candies. The high school children (we have six of them in our program) received school supplies, including geometrical sets, a nice black notebook, nail polish (for the girls), cards (for the boys) and candies. The children LOVED their gifts. They were so excited to be receiving something, anything.

After everyone left, we all sat back and just reflected on the day. We all agreed that it was a successful day; we wouldn’t have changed a thing.

Christmas Day

This morning we made a big breakfast for everyone; 14 of us. The breakfast included: crepes (made by Amanda and totally amazing), ice-cream and chocolate syrup to put with the crepes (seriously!), scrambled eggs, yummy bacon (which is SO expensive here), German pancakes (Timo’s first attempt on making them – success!) and cappuccinos. We were so full from breakfast.

After breakfast, we opened up our gifts given to us by Santa (well actually brought from the US to Kenya by Faith but from Danel, Daniel’s mom). We all got t-shirts, the girls got some type of deliciously smelling lotions/shampoos/body washes (it’s exactly what a girl wants when living here, seriously!). After we all opened our gifts, we went to our stockings (also given by Danel and brought by Faith) and found tons of other cool stuff…candy canes full of Hershey kisses, 2008 day planner, ponytail holders, notepads, etc. It was wonderful. Thank you so much Danel – you’re awesome!!!

After clearing the wrapping paper up from that, we decided to play the white elephant game as some people were still in presents mode. The limit for the cost of the present was 300 shillings which is about $5.00. Here is a list of what the white elephant presents were and in brackets who got what:

1. Sugar cane, skipping rope and two free soda (Jared)
2. Two used stuffed animals (Aly)
3. Used New Kids On The Block sleeping bag (Amanda – and she DESPERATELY wanted it)
4. Candle holder and two candles (Daniel)
5. Shampoo, Sunscreen and Purell Hand sanitizer (Meredith)
6. Burette and chocolate (Caleb)
7. A soapstone jar with Todd’s picture taped to it, as well as written on the lid of the jar, “Chuck’s Beard” (Todd’s nickname). Inside the jar, a baggie full of Todd’s recently shaved beard hair (Eva Joy – and she DESPERATELY wanted it. Sick people, I know! )
8. Badminton racket and birdies (Ian)
9. Velcro dart board with balls/darts (Faith)
10. Baby wipes, hand sanitizer, first aid kit, phone card and tiny wooden giraffe (Yancy)
11. Trucker’s hat with a truck on it, saying, “Want A Ride?” with chocolates (Jacky)
12. 8 funky hats, including a woman’s flowered bonnet (Timo)
13. Rubber ducky with chocolate in it’s holder (Todd)

It was seriously some hysterical laughing time watching people open these gifts, especially Timo as his face beamed with excitement with each hat that he tried on. He was praying that no one would steal his gift(s) from him and he was so thankful when the game was over that no one did.

The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing around the compound.

Then it was prep time for dinner. Dinner consisted of: mashed potatoes, corn, green bean casserole, rice and broccoli casserole, sweet potatoes, homemade macaroni and cheese, gravy and bbq’d steak with HP sauce (I found some here; I was so excited). It was a feast. It was SOOOOOOOO good.

The rest of the evening consisted of people talking on the phones to their families back in North America. All of our cell phones rang off the hook of family members calling each of us to wish us a Merry Christmas. Thanks Mom for calling me; it was SO great to hear your voice.

This week is going to be a crazy week. I’ll be home most of the time finishing up on accounting/year-end stuff and completing the sponsorship updates on the children for the sponsors. This week is also crazy for holidays. Today was a holiday here in Kenya for the obvious of Christmas Day. Tomorrow (26th) is a holiday so that people can travel to their voting towns to vote for the election. Thursday (27th) is a holiday because it’s Election/Voting Day (keep that day in your prayers) and Friday (28th) is a holiday so that people can travel back to wherever after the voting day. Thankfully, the rest of the stores (supermarkets) will be business as usual. With those holidays, it means all banks; post offices and government buildings are closed for the week. And three of us are waiting for packages that were sent to us. Guess we’ll have to wait until Saturday or even next week. So sad!

Anyway, that’s the Christmas scoop for you all. Hopefully in the next day or two, I will have the pictures of the Children’s Christmas Party and our own family Christmas Day on here so you can see just how much fun we all had.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Love you all,
Meredith
xoxoxo