Sunday, January 9, 2011

Shoebox Success!

Hi friends! I have to tell you it has been a crazy few weeks! We are doing our best to try and get back into some kind of routine after the holidays and are finding this to be quite a challenge. As many of you may remember we mentioned earlier that we were going to give out shoeboxes filled with gifts for the children in our church here. We thought about doing this during the month of December, however our friends here told us that it would be more appropriate if we could give the gifts out around Dia de los Reyes. Which means Day of the Kings. They have this tradition of the 3 Kings coming and leaving children gifts on January 7th. We think this is a really neat tradition! Anyway, many of the kids here don't get anything on this day due to lack of money. So, we decided to have our party on January 8th and had a huge party with cake and food and piƱatas and presents!

Now, keep in mind when kids around here, hear that there are gifts being given they come from everywhere. We did our best to keep the crowd down to our usual church children, however we did have a few party crashers. I  was getting really worried. I was counting kids and then counting presents and counting kids again, and more would come and I finally went into a room and said, " Lord, remember that story about fishes and loaves? Well, I really need you to multiply these presents so that each child gets one." Well, if He isn't the PERFECT provider, we had just enough boy presents, (22) and just enough girl presents (15) to allow each child to receive a gift.

These were the gifts we purchased waiting to be put into boxes.

These were the 3 pinatas we purchased and all the candy that went in them.

This was a typical boy's box.

Here is a typical baby box.

Here is a typical girl box.


Here is the great cake we had made, it was yummy!

This was the last chair in musical chairs. As you can see Alex was playing ref.

Here are some of the kids listening to Greg tell a story from the Bible.

This is a fun game they play when they see which team can cover their mummy best with 2 rolls of tp. Of course the funny part comes at the end when you see which mother fights over the toilet paper. :o)

This was at the start of the night when they were playing Pedro Says, like Simon Says but with a touch of Mexican influence!

Here are all of the boxes wrapped and ready to go.

The unvieling. The delight cannot be hidden!


I tried to get picture of these kids with their gifts and the pictures but it just didn't work.

If you see a boy with a hat on, it is a new hat!

Some of them don't look happy, the only thing they weren't happy about was me bothering them with taking a bunch of pictures! But.... other than that, they were extremely happy!!

Ready for battle!










He did get a box, he wasn't in one as a gift! Although, I would take him!!




This was all made possible by a few of you who chose to bless these children! Let me say, " Thank You!" on their behalf! You made them all very happy children! I hope you all get as much joy from these pictures as we did watching them open their gifts! You may notice in these pictures that the children are holding up handmade cards or pictures of people. Well, these are pictures that were sent to them from churches in the US to help personalize these boxes. I took these pictures so that the people who made the cards or sent the pictures could see who they touched. They may be hard to tell who the people in the pictures are, but hopefully they will know who they are! This party was a ton of work and we are glad it is over! However, it was soooo worth it! It was a joy to see these children completely happy. Thank you all for your prayers and for your support of us! We need you! love to you all! Missy