Silent Night, Steel Bands & Sunburn

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

 It's the most wonderful time of the year...

 Twins turning ten; they wanna have some friends

School festivities, will the schedule ever end?

Its the most busiest time of the year!

Ladies Bible study brunch, drinking sorral punch,

When friends come to call,

It's the happiest season of all!

With some visitor greetings and a few staff meetings

It's the most busiest time of the year!

There were  parties for hosting,

And we were all toasting

While caroling out in the sun's hot glow,

 The first Christmas story

And all of of its glory

Played out so the whole world could know,

The reason for the most wonderful time of the year!

 Flies on Christmas cookies,

Christmas lights in palm trees,

It seemed strange this time of year,

Christmas tunes I'm a humming

While the fan is a running,

But it's still the most wonderful time of the year!

Ok, I may sadly lack at poetic skills, but that kinda, sortaish sums up our December. We arrived back in Grenada on December 3rd and hit the ground running. It was a good thing though, because it took alittle to get adjusted to life here again. Being busy doesn't give me as much time to dwell on what I'm missing back home.  I will let the pictures give you a glimpse into what our December consisted of. Thankfully, we can celebrate Christ's birth no matter what country we're in!
 

                                          Ladies Bible Study Brunch....we had a brunch at our
                                           house instead of our usual Bible Study this month

                     They are ten now. Big stuff. Their stories start with, "Back when I was little..."

                        Ten years ago we were on the brink of sleepless nights, colic babies and
                         sheer exhaustion. I will take these days any day over the newborn ones!

"The Christmas of the Tissues"

I thought Kaylah was working on school work...I guess we could call it an art class...

                                       Mechanical work...one of his favorite parts of his job...

         He loves the challenge of trying to figure out where the problem lies underneath the hood...

                           LaBorie School's Christmas program...they did a wonderful job!
                                    Thank you teachers and students for all your hard work!

                                                                   "Carry your Candle"

                                                                   Fourth and fifth grade

                                LaBorie Mennonite School...the whole school, grades K-6th

 

                                                          Staff Christmas Banquet

                            Shawn Lapp is telling Austin Smoker something exciting! So cute!

           It had rained all morning and I was beginning to panic, wondering how we'll entertain             everyone indoors. Thankfully around lunch it cleared off and the children could play outside.

               December 15 brought these four young men to our little island. Three of them were
               in the youth group when we were youth leaders. We had a wonderful week catching
               up with them again! After they left, Carter said, "I wish they could have stayed
               for a year!" They loved all the attention they got!

               Chris thought it was just alright to have some Rook players living with us for a week!:)

        They moved a shed from the Laura location to our place for storage. They had to take it apart to
       move it, then rebuild it at our place. It was hot, hard work! (Or so they said, I wasn't a part of it:))

                                                             Rebuilding the shed at our house

                                                      The finished product...or almost finished.
                                   L-R Kenton Horst, Johnny Martin, Craig Martin, Chris & Justyn Nolt

                     Our boys thought having these guys help with dishes made it so much more fun!
                      I need to talk to their moms, because rumor has it they did stacks and stacks of
                      dishes when they little boys, WITHOUT complaining! Hmmm, I need some tips...

          There were quite a few visitors over this time with other staff, so one day we took the whole
         group on a little tour around the island. Above: Fish drying in the sun. They load it with salt,
          hence the finished product name, saltfish. I can't say it looked or smelled real appetizing!

                                                      Craig and Collin piloting an old airplane:)

                                     Pearls Airport, the airport that was used before the Maurice
                                   Bishop Airport was built. The old runway is used for drag racing.

                    Sugar cane mill....it is very old but they still use it to produce sugar for rum

                         Chris was glad for the boys help in setting up for the Live Nativity

                                 Covering the wooden frame with palm branches for the stable

  My biggest challenge was to get the laundry dried between rain showers. These jeans were almost     dry when it gave a quick down pour. With no dryer for back up, you have to find some different
 ways to dry them. I took them off the line and laid them in the sun in hopes of drying them faster.

                The one day the men happened to be around when these guys were dragging
               a net of fish in, so they helped pull it in. They were rewarded with a few small fish...

                                                           Filleting the fish from the net

                                                          Christmas Caroling in LaBorie

                    With some of the staff home for the holidays, it left Chris as the only driver for our
                      location. I think we almost broke a record with 20 adults and 5 children in the "bus".
                      They call it a bus but it looks more like a small van. Either way, it was packed!

    Headed to our next location to sing. This is the first time I got sunburned while Christmas caroling!

           We got invited to one of our church member's aunt's funeral. It was a Catholic funeral.

                              The grave yard. We couldn't stay for the burial because we had to go back
                              to LaBorie and bring down people for the Live Nativity that evening.

Live Nativity...we did two plays for two nights in a row at the Spice Island Shopping Mall. It was fun, but the children were ready to be done. Above: The donkey was so scarred from his traumatic ride to Bethlehem, he refused to carry pregnant Mary to the stable. He showed some donkey traits by biting, kicking and refusing to walk. In the end, we decided poor Mary will just have to walk to Bethlehem.

                                                                            My shepherd boys

                                     My angelic girls...at least they had to act like ones for a few hours!

  The Live Nativity included a mixture of narrative, youth singing and acting out the Christmas story

                                                           A quickly snapped family pic

Now the donkey decides it's ok to have someone ride him...after the play is over!

We took the youth Christmas caroling to the mall Christmas eve. I am thankful

 we have managed to teach our children to be attentive and sing out......or not:(

 

 

             We spend Christmas Day at Thaddeus and Rose. The food was delicious! While we did
              miss our families it was nice to have "family" in Grenada to celebrate Christmas with.

We spend the afternoon playing games. 

 While the gesture was appreciated, my world didn't feel very joyful when my silent night was interrupted by bells on Christmas Day....actually this steel band came later than the ones

 that came by EVERY morning the week of Christmas...BEFORE 5:00am...sigh...

just let me sleep, I don't feel like being merry and bright that early in the morning!

Needless to say, there was no sleeping in for the children that week!

                           The day after Christmas we had a picnic at church for church attenders

    They are teaching us some new games and we had fun playing them after lunch

 

                  This clubhouse in the bush continues to be a source of entertainment for the
                  children. They spend many hours back there, scheming up new booby traps,
                   ways to better their clubhouse and new membership rules....

Not only was I hearing drums out my front door, but now I'm also hearing them out the back door?!
                                  Practicing for the upcoming tour...the High Band (its).
                                 We are now accepting reservations for our 2015 tour.
                                 We will perform at your school, church or social event.
                                   Please call to make your reservation...314-jus-kidn
  Or you can visit them live, in studio.We will be happy to accommodate you!:) (We love visitors:))

             And that concludes the month of December...at least the events I took pictures at.:)

Prayer requests:

Bible Conference-Dec. 28-30

Crusades- Jan. 1-6

Speaker, Merle Burkholder and his wife Edith

Scott & Yvonne Martin-they plan to move here as pastor in March

 We are so thankful they have answered God's call to serve in Grenada!

The need for pastors in Grenada