Christmas in Chiminisijuan

We had many people for our Christmas party in Chiminisijuan today. We are guessing maybe 175 based on the number of crafts and bags of grapes that we handed out. Here are the pictures that we took.

The women and children gathered in the big room of the clinic building. A couple of the Bontrager children sang some Christmas carols. Then Armondo, a pastor who lives in San Andres, told them the Christmas story.

Then we handed out the craft. The craft had many steps including coloring, glueing, glitter, ribbon etc. It took all of us (about a dozen total of Fickers, Bontragers and Allisons and Cali,the PeaceCorp worker in Canilla) to get the craft done


Here are some of the kids coloring.



Caleb took a picture from up high so you could get the total effect. This is just half the room!
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Then we sang "Happy Birthday" to Jesus in both English and Spanish. We made all the people form a line so we could give them a cupcake, an apple and grapes as they went out the door. Thank you to the Elk Point United Parish for their generosity in providing apples and grapes. Here are pictures of Cali handing out cupcakes, Bethany handing out grapes, and Caleb handing out apples.




All the while we were doing this, Hannah Ficker and Don (and the translators) were doing clinic down below.



We pray that the Lord touched the hearts of those who came and heard the story of Jesus' birth. The people in this village don't know about Jesus and what a Wonderful Gift that God has given us in Him. They push and shove to get the free stuff that we give them (think of Wal-mart on the day after Thanksgiving). They are hungry and isolated and desperate. Jesus is the Hope that they need. We pray that seeds of Hope were planted today in Chiminisijuan.