Christmas time

December was a full month for us leading up to Christmas....

The girls had their Winter Concert at school where they each performed songs with their classes. 





I am proud to say that both girls were very enthusiastic singers!

The girl's school also had their annual Holiday Fair, filling the soccer field with tons of vendors and games, including a slip n' slide and dunk tank. Last year we were sick during this weekend, so no one got to go and enjoy the festivities, so the girls were very excited to attend this year.

*dunk tank Burkina style

I celebrated the pregnancies of three friends at a group baby shower.

We had our annual church Christmas service at the girl's school, and we all had roles in helping. I was in charge of decorating for the second year, Isaak gave a reading, Sydaleigh was the lovely pink and red cow in her sunday school classes manger performance, singing a little solo. And Marvelly sang two songs with her class and rang her bell with much conviction.

We attended Christmas parties with both our Embassy friends and our ex-pat/missionary friends....

We traveled to Yako two days before Christmas with our dear friends Seth and Rebecca as well as her parents who are in town visiting, to spend the night and to attend Sheltering Wings Christmas party and participate in a sponsor gift distribution.

We left for Yako Sunday after church and arrived in the late afternoon. We spent the last remainders of light playing with the kids....

And then there was a party for all the staff members and kids at the orphanage.

They had music and gifts and dinner and together we celebrated the success of another year and all that God has done through this ministry.

The following day we were up bright and early getting ready for the sponsor gift distribution.

This is a special time where sponsors in the States can send extra money to purchase needed items or gifts for the children they sponsor here at Sheltering Wings during the Christmas season.

There were a wide variety of gifts handed out, including new shoes, chickens, 50lb bags of rice....

sheeps, oil, fabric, bicycles and even a cow!

The girls were huge helpers in handing out the chickens and sheep. I love that this has become a perfectly normal experience to them now.

And we also got to meet the two girls that we sponsor!

Kadigueta and Neamata. Such beautiful girls.We sent them home with a 50 lb bag of rice, potatoes, and a box full of other goodies.

It was a great two days. It's always a joy spending time in Yako and serving alongside such committed and motivated people!

The night we got home from Yako the girls decorated their very first gingerbread house, thanks to Janet, Rebecca's mom, who brought it over from the States for the girls. How thoughtful!

After returning back to Ouaga I got pretty sick. I started feeling bad Sunday night after arriving in Yako, and by Christmas Eve I was pretty ill. Of course. I should have expected it, we're always sick it seems.

We had plans to have dinner with Fred and Nathanja, but instead I stayed home and Isaak and the girls went. I was initially sad to be spending Christmas Eve at home alone without my family, but the Lord quickly brought peace and I ended up having a lovely time. I turned on some new worship music Holly had sent me, and it just ministered to my soul. Sometimes it's good to be alone even when we don't initially want to be. The Lord used those few hours to just refresh me and give me an energy boost despite being sick. I sat in the living room listening to music for a long time, and then watched Grease while I wrapped all the presents.

The girls and Isaak had a great time with friends eating dinner and enjoying their company, and when they returned, I had the house all ready for them.

I had all the presents wrapped and their Christmas Eve presents waiting for them on the couch. The lights were off and the tree was lit as well as some candles. I had Christmas music playing and the floor was all set up for them to sleep by the tree, which is a Christmas tradition. I am so grateful that my sickness did not rob me of making memories and having a good time that night. The girls fell asleep watching Home Alone 2 in their new Jessie nightgowns with the mermaids Mimi sent. It was a great night.

But then later that night Isaak got violently ill and was sick in bed for most of Christmas day. Our poor bodies. He was a great sport though, and ventured out of bed in the morning to open up gifts with the girls, not letting a little (or big) stomach bug keep him from celebrating with us.

We had a great time together and it was a very peaceful day. We stayed home in our pj's all day, not venturing out or seeing anyone. We spent the day together and rested and tried to recuperate, knowing we only had three short days before we hit the road on another adventure.

It was a great Christmas season, filled with many memories. And before the month was over we'd get to make even more great memories. What fun times (even though some are very hard) we are having here in Burkina! We were reminded so often this month what a precious gift it is for us to be here, and we are so thankful for all the Lord has given us in the way of friends and ministry opportunities. That was probably the greatest gift this season, just getting to spend it here.

It was a very merry Christmas season.

The decorations are hung around the house with care.....

We have been steadily decorating the house for Christmas since Thanksgiving. I usually have a strict rule against decorating before December 1st, but Isaak and the girls were eager, so we did.

Isaak and the girls also missed having a "real" tree, as the girls said, so my cool cardboard and burlap Christmas tree didn't get hung up. Instead, we put up a little three foot pre-lit tree that a family graciously gave us who moved back to the States.

But, since we didn't bring any decorations with us when we moved here, it was a good thing that we started decorating early, because we needed to make a whole lot of decorations for our tree! Yes, I could have bought some from the highly overpriced home store here in town, but I wanted to stay with the simple theme from last year and strip away a lot of the excess so we opted to make a few decorations to hang around the house and on the tree and that was it.

So, the girls got to work making some snow flakes.

We bought some pagnes because Isaak had a great idea to make a local fabric garland to wrap around our tree.

So Isaak cut a bunch of strips of fabric and him and Sydaleigh, who he taught to braid through this
( ! she was so happy ), braided us a long garland.

We set our tree on a little side table next to the couch and Sydaleigh used one of her blankets for the tree skirt.

To decorate the tree we made some dough ornaments.

And a whole lot of paper ornaments I made from a stack of paint samples from Walmart that Kristine sent me last year.

The beaded stars are from the Ampo orphanage, and there's the fabric garland that Isaak and Sydaleigh made.

Our decorated Christmas tree. We were stumped on what to put on top, the girls insisting that we needed an angel to complete the tree, and me not really caring if it was left bare. But then Isaak brought in a tiny little box that we had forgotten about from last year and inside were just a few decorations that my mom sent us including a wooden angel! It's meant to be hung on a wall, but I stuck that thing on the top of our tree and we were all pretty happy to have an angel up there, and not just any angel, but one my mom sent us. Made our tree even more personal. And then we strung up around the house some handmade paper decorations of ornaments and the snow flakes the girls made and a wreath of paper hand prints glued to a plate.

We set out our little nativity we purchased while in Ghana. It's the manger scene made from a calabash. On the windows I hung the stockings I sewed for the girls last year.

And just some other little touches here and there.....

My friend Ima brought me this little wooden angel from Germany and the girls insisted we buy this $2 nativity, which is actually pretty nice for $2, it lights up and everything.

And that's it. Simple and understated but still lovely and personal. It makes me happy to see so much of "us" in our decorations.

Only one more night till Christmas......