~Our Christmas Eve Service~

~Little Elijah being a cute little "Santa Claus". Have you ever seen Santa Claus with a pacifier? =)~
~ We have 2 churches here in Bogota, and Phillip and Juan Martin are starting another one. Jimmy invited our 3 churches to join their church for a Christmas eve service. The Colombians celebrate Christmas on the 24th. That works out nicely for us for we can be with them on the 24th, and then have our own quiet Christmas as a family on the 25th. There was a good crowd of 130 or so of us at the Christmas eve service. It was hard to get all the crowd in the pics.~
~Most of the kids sat on these stairs to make more room in the chairs for the adults.~~Here is another shot of the kids sitting on the stairs.~
~Jimmy and Farly asked me to help lead the singing. I'm OK with being upfront as long as I'm playing the piano or singing,...but I don't like to talk. =)~
~Phillip is greeting the church here...and then later he had the privilege of bringing the Christmas message for this service.~
~Each church was to have their children sing a special. There were only 10 people who could come from our 1st church. Here are the kids from that church singing their Christmas song.~
~Jimmy's church kids singing a Christmas song.~
~There were 54 in attendance from our 2nd church. Here are the kids from that church singing a Christmas carol.~
~Elijah and his little friend.~
~Kimberly playing "Silent Night" and "O Holy Night" on her violin.~
~Our family sang "Redeeming Love" in Spanish of course. =)~
~All of the kids that were present received gifts. Here, Elijah is receiving his gift. A fun set of boats for him to play with in the bathtub. After the service they served typical Christmas Colombian food called "Natilla" and "bunuelos" and Pop to drink. "Natilla" is like a Flan or pudding, and "Bunuelos" are like a little fried bread that sort of reminds me of Hush Puppies.~
~A cute little baby that Kimberly enjoyed holding.~
~Paula, Felipe and Karen rode home with us and so we decided to invite them and their Dad Juan Martin to our house on Christmas eve to play Scrabble, and to eat tamales.~
~We had yummy Colombian tamales for a Christmas eve snack.~
~Felipe in a big way telling a story...not realizing that Noah had fallen asleep in his lap. =)~
~The girls sharing their gingerbread houses with their friend Paula.We had a great evening together. We found out later that Felipe, Karen, and Paula's Mom whom they live with wasn't even home, so had we not invited them over, they would have gone home to a cold empty house on their Christmas night. =( It was of the Lord that we thought to invite them over. They seemed to really enjoy our evening together. They left at 11:00 PM, and I still had done nothing towards making Christmas dinner. So, Phillip helped me get the turkey in the oven, and then I fell into bed. It had been a long, but fun day.~We had a good Christmas day together...I'll post pics soon.~