The season of giving

Christmas is always know as the time to give, but let’s be honest, we all love receiving also. Here in Guyana I gave A LOT but also received more than I imagined.

 The countdown to Christmas started, but this countdown was not for when we would be able to open our goodies. It was a countdown to the day we had to pass out Christmas food baskets.  The process of preparing the bags took many days of preparation.  Special trips were made into Georgetown to bring in two plane’s full of donated items and an additional flight for 1300lbs of bulk food.  We had to separate the donated clothes into sex and size. ( I will never  cut off the tags on my shirts to help the people sort my clothes easier when I donate them. )Josh, one of the other SM’s, started to get pretty good at guessing sizes. When the clothes were done we separated the toys, books, school supplies, shoes, hygiene items, and random items.  One morning was spent single bagging 300 lbs or rice and flour, 55 kilos of sugar, 25 kilos of milk, and 55 lbs of salt! We filled 65 bags and included oil, noodles, beans, split peas, a can of veggies, seasoning packets, and more that I forgot… Once all the bags had food we personalized each bag with clothes to fit each individual family member. (At least, we hoped they would fit… We had their ages and Chrystal could describe the sizes. If they didn’t fit, the families would make them work.)  At the end of each day, there was no rest for the weary; once we got home it was time to start making costumes for the Christmas play at the Thomas Hill church (our home church). I was able to help hand sew angel wings. We didn’t have card board to simply cut out the wings. So, using some innovation, we got mosquito net wiring to create the wing shapes and then sewed fabric around the wire. Making the wings was time consuming, must have spent at LEAST 3 hours on them! 

Christmas Eve day came and we were ready to deliver our packages! As usually, our plans couldn’t go as planned and we were not able to start until the afternoon. When we arrived at the house where all the bags were stored there were kids and people waiting outside. They had been waiting there all morning to see when we were going to start sharing out the bags. I sat in the car for a bit, until the kids decided to calm down and stop crawling into the windows. Our first load in the car was really packed in; I volunteered to walk to the first houses. When the kids saw me starting to walk they came running and grabbed my hands. We walked together skipping and singing “We Wish you a Merry Christmas.” Seeing the smiles on the kids faces already made my hours of work worth it. Five hours later all the Christmas bags we had made had been passed out, but we had missed a few houses. I was exhausted, thirsty, and hungry, but worked on making a few more bags. While adding some clothes to a bag I stepped on a dead frog! It was disgusting but, instead of freaking out, I just laughed it off and kept focused on what I needed to get done. I was in “the zone.”

We finally reached back home and had enough time to make breadsticks for dinner. Christmas Eve dinner consisted of breadsticks, left over cinnamon rolls, and a snack mix that I had made for Christmas day; we were too hungry to resist it. Then off to the Christmas program we went. The church was packed, we sang Christmas hymns, and children acted out the nativity, and did some special music. The program was simple, the decorations were curtains added to the windows, but everyone was happy.

Christmas was the long awaited day of rest! Everything was done and we just enjoyed sitting around the unlit Christmas tree. (Electricity didn’t come on until later in the day.) Our Christmas meal was a typical American meal, mashed potatoes, green beans, sweet potato casserole, CHEESECAKE, and apple pie.  The sweet potato casserole was made of pumpkin due to a lack of potatoes, we used up the last of our rationed green beans, olives, and cheese, and the cheesecake was a splurge because we had to buy cream cheese.  While I didn’t receive a lot of physical gifts on Christmas, I definitely received a great blessing. I have always wondered what a Christmas would be like with no presents. (I did get a book and popcorn seasoning..) There was plenty of happiness to go around. The days and hours of hard work had been worth it when I saw the smiles on the families’ faces. 

(p.s. this is Julia who actually posts the blogs. Jana writes them then either takes a picture of what she wrote, sends it to me, and then I type it up and post it, or (if her email is working) she is able to attach it and sent it to me. Sorry for such a late post about Christmas. Between her lack of internet reliability and my school schedule (and the blog getting lost in all my messages haha) it was hard to get it up. She is already working on another blog, so hopefully we will have another one up soon. Thank you all for continuing to pray for Jana!)