On Dec. 23rd, we got a special phone call. Our friend Daniel from First Pres. in Columbia called us on our US phone number. He wanted to know if we were still in the States and if so if we would be coming to the children's Christmas Eve program at First Pres. We told him, we were in Chile and so we couldn't come. He told us Dr. Thomas had asked him to read a scripture for the service and he wanted to invite us. We told him, that we would watch it online and were so happy to know he was going to be apart of the service. We were so grateful for his phone call, because we might not have remembered about the Christmas Eve service.
Daniel is a special friend who always makes us smile. We met him a Thanksgiving long ago when we joined some friends in Anderson for Thanksgiving. Ever since then, when he sees us at church, he bows down to us - because our last name is King. It meant the world to us that he thought to call us and let us know.
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| Here is the service on the computer with Daniel reading his scripture. He did a fantastic job |
We put extra focus on advent this year - since the children were a bit older. It was such a blessing to read a story a night from the Jesus Storybook Bible. While we have read through this several times, we have never done it in conjunction with Advent. It was amazing to use this as a tool, since every story Sally Loyd-Jones wrote points to the waiting arrival of Jesus. Nathan really understood the concept of Advent. Juliana is still a bit young - but she actually would sit and listen to a whole story. Just a few months back, she couldn't even sit still part of a story. Progress!!
The kids went to bed Christmas Eve with great anticipation of gifts. Jeff and I stayed up wrapping their gifts and putting them under the tree. We always wait until the last minute. It was an unusual shopping experience this year. We didn't yet have our car and we are pretty much always together as a family. So how in the world do you buy gifts 1. without the kids knowing and 2. getting them home on the bus. We ended up renting a car for a few days because we thought we would have to drive to Santiago to get the cash to pay for the car. So we took advantage of having a car. Since we had no idea what kind of toys were available to buy, we all went to Lider (Walmart). We walked the toy aisles and Jeff and I discretely made a list of things to buy on his phone. Thankfully the kids were clueless of what we were doing. Then I took the kids to the food section of the store to grocery shop, while Jeff took the list and bought the toys. He took the toys to the car and then we finished the grocery shopping. I do have to say, it was the fastest I have bought Christmas presents in a long time. It was kind of nice.
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| The tree on Christmas Eve. Ready for the children. |
Even though it was a bit harder than we thought being away from family this Christmas, it was a good one and we were blessed.
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| Very excited to have new bikes. Nathan was sad to leave his in Costa Rica. This is Juliana's first bike. |
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| Puppet show |
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| Finally he got his dinosaurs. He has asked about these for months! |
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| Juliana now has everything a little girl could want for her baby. |
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| Daddy trying to figure out how to do the transformer - it required instructions and lots of patience. Who knew they were so complicated. |
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| Bike helmets to go with the bikes. And a cool castle tent in the background! Gifts from grandparents. |
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