Feliz Natal

It's Christmas night and we've just had a very nice afternoon with friends. Two families from Rwanda joined us for a meal and the afternoon. They are both refugee families with long and interesting/tragic stories that we are still learning about. I once asked Raquel (on the right in the green dress) about her family and she told me they are all gone, meaning they were all killed during the genocide. She was spared because she was away at a boarding school at the time.

It was an interesting meal--a potluck including pizza, chapatis, fried rice, flat chicken (they flatten it when they cook it), fruit salad, fries, and other goodies including buckeyes and ice cream for dessert. Definitely not your typical Christmas meal, but there was plenty of food and it seemed to be enjoyed by all.

Afterword, we got out the playdough and the older kids played pictionary with it and the younger ones just played. Lucas and Nadia were the life of the party. I forgot how intense young ones can be! They are a lot of fun. I wish I'd had my camera when Lucas saw the matchbox cars we got for him. The look on his face was priceless.



We ended our time with singing in Swahili (one family lived in Kenya for a time), English, Spanish and we could have kept going. The kids in one of the families speak or at least understand five languages.

These are some of the friends that enrich our lives here and it is a privilege to know them. We miss being home (the first time we've missed Christmas with family), but we are reminded that many in the world are never able to go home.

Merry Christmas everyone.