When I was preparing to come here I knew I wanted to be here for Christmas. I wanted to have a different experience. I wanted to be able to forget myself and serve others. But when I would tell people I was coming here for Christmas many thought I was crazy. Why in the world would I choose not to spend Christmas with my family opening lots of presents and enjoying yearly traditions?! Well with Christmas almost all said and done, I would never change my decision for the world. I have had one of the best Christmases ever. One that I will never forget.
It all started on Christmas Eve. They gave us all the morning shift off. We decided we were gonna do a secret santa gift exchange between the 6 of us volunteers, Bryn and Sean, and the Chicaiza family. (they are our other set of "bosses". They are an Ecuadorian LDS couple that live with us with their 3 kids; Grace, Jared, and Maibe) So we went shopping in the morning for a gift for the name we drew. The store we went to was called SuperMaxi. Its pretty much just like Target. We got home had lunch then went to afternoon shift. After shift we had a potluck dinner. We all made a dish that our own family makes for Christmas. It was fun to eat all the different food and hear all different types of traditions.
After dinner we made a Yule Log. I don't know where this originated from but we thought it would be fun. We all wrote down wishes on a piece of paper and then we burned the log in the fireplace.
While the fire was burning we sat around and read Christmas stories. The stories Christmas Orange and I Will Keep You Warm definitely touched our hearts since they are about orphans. I would encourage you to read them.
After our Yule Log burned we wrapped presents to bring the kids at SVP in the morning. We were so excited to bring them to the kids. I think I know how it feels to be Santa Clause now! We then went to midnight mass at a local Catholic church. Don't know where this idea came from either but it was great fun. If only I knew what they were saying the whole time.
We had a beautiful foggy Christmas Eve night.
Christmas morning was an early one. We had to make it to morning shift by 7. We got up at 6 and had a delicious breakfast of breakfast casserole and monkey bread.
Bryn made these cute stockings for everyone. They were full of candy and treats then we wrote something nice about each person on a piece of paper and put it in their stocking.
We got to the orphanage and we so excited to wake up the kids. They didn't exactly know what was going on but it was still fun. I spent my morning in Sala Dos wiping lots of runny noses, breaking up fights, changing poopy diapers, and entertaining children. Great fun. Then we gave all the kids presents. They mostly just loved the wrapping paper and bows. They gave us the afternoon off so we said Feliz Navidad for probably the 10000 time and were on our way. We came back to the house and had lunch and gave out our secret santa gifts. It was so nice. Even though we only spent $5 on gifts it was so meaningful. We all got one gift and it was great. Thats all we needed. Before we gave our gift we said something nice about the person. I sure do love the people here!
The other volunteers and I. Niaby, me, Susan, Brooke, Annie, and Elizabeth.
We then gathered up a ton of stuff that people have donated and went to pass it out to a poor community. This was the highlight of my Christmas.
This is just a small glimpse of what their surroundings looked like.
All the kids got into a line to get some presents that we brought.
Very quickly it turned into mad chaos.
Here are some people enjoying their new things after it was all done.
We handed out toys, clothes, books, toothbrushes, and soap. It was amazing to see how humble and grateful these people were. Every single one said gracious and made sure that everyone was getting something. I was amazed to see how excited they were about the bars of soap. It was like a bar of gold to them. When we left the other volunteers and I were just in awe. We could not believe what kind of poverty these people were in and how we just take the littlest of things for granted, like a bar of soap. It definitely opened my eyes and made me grateful for what I have. That is all I wanted for Christmas this year and I am so glad that I got it. Yes I missed my family and opening presents and all that jazz but this, giving serving and forgetting yourself, is what Christmas is to me.
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