Christmas in Niger

It is New Year's Eve already!

I hope all of you have had a very merry Christmas and great holiday times with your families. We have had some great fun here over the holidays with our family in Niger. Our team is so special to us. They really are our family when we are so far away from our flesh and blood. We've had great, simple times full of memories and laughter.

Christmas morning was pretty laid back and being the unorganized mom that I am, I had not bought presents ahead of time while we were in Canada and had nothing for the kids to open on Christmas morn. 😞 oops. Nathan had some great homemade gifts for mom and dad and even his big sister. Jaelyn had cleverly made a "treasure hunt" for Nathan. He had so much fun going through it, and her creativity came out in full force with hints that rhymed ("the closest you can get to the room you cannot enter - to find what you seek, you'll have to clamber like a spider"... he is not allowed in Jaelyn's room, and the hint was taped to the top of the doorway, so he had to climb up the doorway to get at it!) His treasure, at the end, was a pack of gum (which he has finished already!) but it was great fun.

the box of twix on the table was my sad attempt at having something for Rog, Nathan and Jaelyn

Before you or I, start to feel too sorry for my children, I will leave you with some pictures of the kids we see here everyday. Living among the poorest of the poor helps to give us perspective.

These kids were SO excited....they were going to eat CHICKEN for dinner!! (They were actually laughing at me because they were trying to give me the chicken to hold and I was freaking out)

This little 4 year old is playing with a RAZOR BLADE!!!

Babies crawling around, bare-bottomed, on the hot sand

The boy in the green slippers is holding on to his "car" made of a dried up millet stalk, thrown out plastic and a bottle cap.

Another boy shows me how his "car" works...

It has almost become cliché to say "Jesus is the best gift of all," but it really is true. And although we like to say it, we still get caught up in the commercialism of Christmas. I like to believe spending quality time with our kids over the Christmas holidays is more of a gift than they will ever get to open (physically), yet I can't help but feel guilty that I had nothing for them to unwrap. And though I want so badly to explain fully to our friends in the village about this amazing person, Jesus, the reason we celebrate Christmas, they don't really understand and often aren't quite ready to hear. So we also try to show them Jesus with our actions. We try to show them how much God loves them with tokens of love (this year for Christmas it was cooking oil and spoons), and by going back every week and sharing life with them.