Christmas!!

Now, we've begun practicing our program. Last Sunday while some were practicing, others made a craft that Katrina had prepared before she left. Like the others she prepared, they really liked it and were prepared to take these paper ornaments home to hang on their tree. . . but we needed them for our bulletin board.


There are some children flannelgraph Bible stories in Russian now. There are a couple of thick books giving different Sunday School activities. . . but no visualized songs. So every time we introduce a new song we visualize it. Here is the first verse of "O Come All Ye Faithful" in Russian that we'll be singing in the Christmas program.

Because of the busy-ness of our week, once our gifts were all wrapped on Christmas Eve, we opened them, so that each person could have more fun enjoying them, BEFORE we started preparing the end of Christmas week for guests, a New Year's Party and a another mini retreat. Here we are reading the Christmas story, before we begin.


I'm thankful for God who reached down and placed His spotless, loving Son in this almost-trash-can of a world. God sent out a wondrous lighted and musical birth announcement in the form of the star and angels. He placed His Son in a poor family with a birth in a barn, smelling of cows, donkeys and goats. Jesus, in His social rank, wasn't "above" anyone. God left Jesus in this unfair world for angry hands to beat. God allowed scornful faces to mock and to spit on the Maker of the Universe. Jesus came to cry at Lazarus' tomb and to minister to the crowds. Sometimes He withdrew to a quiet place with or without His disciples, at the close of busy, busy days. He came to share all that we are and feel. I thank Him for that. He came to show us the way through. He came to bring hope, light and salvation. I'm more thankful than ever in my life for all that Jesus did.