Chocolatada ~ Santa Rosa de Villa

One week ago the whole family was able to finally go to Santa Rosa together. A friend of Eddy's has been coming to church with us for over a month now and often times he comes to pick us up on the way. It works out well for both of us since it is easier to get to church on time when you go by car and he can use the money (we pay him what we would have paid for a cab and sometimes buy his lunch in the church as well.) When we learned of the Chocolatada that would take place in Santa Rosa we asked if he could take us there and he gladly accepted.

We arrived early to clean up and put things in order for the service. Many of the kids also arrived early, here is a picture of them entertaining themselves with a box full of broken toys.

Hadassah found a familiar chair (this is the exact same one that is in the nursery at home) and just observed the kids for awhile.

All of the children are together in one classroom, over forty of them. They begin with a little worship.

After they have a short teaching and then work on a craft.

This day they were making crowns.

Hadassah decided that she would join them. Apparently she couldn't resist the opportunity to color... even if it meant leaving Mommy's side to sit with the other girls.

After they finished their crowns Denise affixed a bible verse to them.

Here are some of the faces of the children from Santa Rosa de Villa

This little boy passed out during the bible study.

After the service we served the kids paneton and hot chocolate.

The week before we went to Santa Rosa the Lord put it on my heart to give the kids gifts. As it turned out the church had some left over from another group that had come and so I spent a couple of hours in the church organizing the packets for the kids. The younger children received crayons, pencils, funpads, toothbrushes, stickers, bookmarks and a few pieces of candy. The older kids also received similar things with the addition of toothpaste, a comb and a bracelet.

Does Josiah look like he needed a nap or what?

Once all of the kids left we needed to do a bit of cleaning... it seems that many of the kids didn't like the raisins in their paneton and they somehow managed to all end up on the floor. Hadassah was such a good helper. She helped Mama pick up all the toys and even swept with the rest of us. What a blessing it was to see her serving with all of the adults.

Denise made me take this picture because she loves this dog. I'm posting it because I've yet to share with you about these dogs. There are so many dogs here, this is a typical one. Most of them are strays or just left to wander the streets. In Cañete there were tons of them and they were even wandering in packs. I see them all the time, no matter where I go. The just curl up and sleep on sidewalks or where ever is convenient.

After we arrived back in Lima we took Pepe (Eddy's friend that drove us) and the kids to McDonalds. This is a picture of a huge Christmas tree (not real... I don't think they have those here) in Miraflores (the tourist section of Lima.)

Now for some pictures of my ministry... my adorable little ones!

These are pictures from the day Hadassah danced at school.

This is my favorite

This one is nice too...

Oh, and this one too!

She tried her best to pose with her little brother but he had had enough for the day.

Here is Hadassah just being a ham in general.

Enjoying Josiah's Birthday present.

The other night we took the kids for a "date" to a very nice park called Parque de la Amistad. Hadassah was having such a great time, here she is being silly with the nativity scene.

I was trying to get her to pose for the camera here but she was too busy being a silly goose.

Josiah is growing with leaps and bounds. These last couple of days he has began climbing on and exploring everything. He has also began mimicking many different words and recognizes both birds and dogs. Now that he is becoming his own person Hadassah and he are squabbling quite a bit and constantly fighting over Mommy. They keep me very busy!!

Here are some pictures of Josiah's recent adventures. Another thing that is new this past week is the protruding of his tongue. He is constantly sticking it out with a huge grin on his face and it is the cutest thing... at least I think so!

Climbing on to the night table from our bed.

This is his favorite place to sit. Well actually today he realized that he could throw the cushions off the couch and climb up there so that could be his new favorite.

Here he is sticking his tongue out because he knows he is up to mischief.

Again with the tongue...

Riding the truck Grampy sent... tongue out again.

I took this one yesterday, he emptied the bottom shelf and climbed in. Note the tongue.

As you can see this post is quite long and I did not even mention Cañete yet. I will make a separate one for that. We are so busy this month that the things to write about continue to pile up. We went to a couples dinner in the church this past Saturday night which was quite a blessing. Some of the singles in the church volunteered to watch all the kids while the couples had dinner upstairs at Pastor Brian and Betty's house. I have pictures of all the couples in order to "introduce" you to some of our family here.

I do not think I will have time to get the next post up until the following week as we have a busy schedule ahead of us. In Peru the festivities take place on Christmas Eve rather than Christmas Day. We'll be heading to the church Wednesday night for the service with paneton and hot chocolate to follow. Later on we will have dinner together with a few other families that will stay on into the night (the tradition is to eat the dinner at midnight but I don't think we will eat quite that late.) On Christmas day we will travel to Chaclacayo to have Christmas dinner with Justin, Sarah and the family. I'm really looking forward to the fellowship and American style cooking. We will pass a few days there with them so that Eddy can help Justin finish up the deck (this is one of the few things holding them up from officially opening the orphanage.)

In the mean time, you can see that I added a new link to the right under Blogs that I Read. This is a link to the church in Cañete and you can see some great pictures there of the Chocolatada... while you are waiting for me to finally post the ones we took!

!NOSOTROS LOS DESEAMOS UNA FELIZ NAVIDAD!

WE WISH YOU ALL A MERRY CHRISTMAS!