~Our Christmas Day in pictures~

This was our first Christmas away from the USA that we had no family and no Americans to celebrate with! In Costa Rica in 2005, we were privileged to have fellow Spanish students/missionaries Zack and Sarah Robberts celebrate Christmas with us. But God helped us to have a good Christmas this year, in-spite of missing our family and friends VERY MUCH!
~Phillip trying to get a picture of our family. We opened our gifts in our room, for that's where our tree is, and our living room furniture had just been cleaned and was wet.~~Our mission directors, the Mark Beckers, gave us this neat object lesson nativity set that teaches kids/adults what Jesus really wants for Christmas...each one of us! After Phillip read the Christmas story from Luke 2, then we did this and it was a very touching time!~

It was 7 numbered gift boxes, and 6 of the boxes had a different figurine of the Nativity in it. Each person had to explain the significance of that figure. The 7th box represented the gift that God wanted for Christmas, and when you open the box and look into it, you see yourself in a mirror. It is a neat object lesson.
~Phillip talked to our little Noah and asked him if he wanted to give his heart to Jesus, and he did. So here he is praying the prayer of repentance (while playing with his toe =)and telling Jesus that he wants HIM to have his heart for Christmas. It was touching...after I took this picture I was bawling!~
~Kimberly and her Winnie the Pooh house slippers that she got for Christmas.~
~Noah and a neat gift that our creative Kimberly made and painted for him...a parking lot for his cars...out of a cornflakes box!~
~Sarah and her doll house that she got for her birthday/Christmas.~
~I had a wonderful Christmas. Phillip got me a new vaccum (see pic below), this neat old coke bottle for my Coke collection, and 2 nice Richard Clayderman piano CDS. Phillip got nice gifts too.~
~Sarah and Kimberly love to vacuum our stairs with my new vacuum...YEA!~
~Noah and his dump truck we got him for Christmas! After we opened gifts we ate lunch, and then baby and I took a LONG nap. =D~
~Phillip, Kimberly, and I played Kimberly's Monopoly game that she got for Christmas...for several hours...interspersed with fun phone calls from our dear family and friends that we really missed being with this Christmas! My parents called us, Phillip's parents called us, our good friends the Jim Kemps called us, and then before we went to bed, my whole family who were all together at Daddy and Moma's house gave us a fun phone call.~
~Since I had a nap, (and Phillip snuck one too, for he NEVER gets a nap and is ALWAYS on the run for Jesus) before we knew it, it was 11:30 PM so we headed upstairs to go to bed for the night, and Noah fell out of our bed and hit his ear on the corner of our bedstand. =( It was soooo SAD...for I Know it had to HURT very much!~
~Mommy is reading poor hurting Noah a story to try to comfort him! Thank the Lord for that wonderful salve that we have, we've been keeping that on his ear, and it is healing up fine!~
We had a wonderful Christmas day just being together as a family! We surely MISSED getting to be with our families in the USA...my family was all together at Daddy and Moma's house in IN (21 including my 100 year old Grandma) and it was HARD knowing we weren't there, but God helped us. My family gave us a phone call and sang to us and gave us their love and told us how much they were missing us being there...and we LOVED getting their phone call! It really helps our hearts to know that in 2 weeks, LORD WILLING, my Daddy and Moma are coming to see us here in Colombia. YEA!!
Hope y'all had a wonderful Christmas too!