Our First Annual Singing Competition

One of the students at the institute took the initiative to plan a singing competition. It what such a great idea and turned out to be a lot of fun! 

 

It brought many people onto the property that I think would normally be too shy to come.

 This was an outreach of our youth group. Our heart is to build relationships with people, especially teens, who do not know Jesus Christ. 

 

Besides, the messages in the songs, they did such a good job sharing the truth of Jesus Christ before they would even start singing. I was so proud of their God given boldness and clarity!

There's my Momma! She was with us for this event!

Jimmy and I got to be some of the judges. It was very difficult! 

I was shocked by the poise and confidence that many of them had. It made the competition a very tight one!

 

Jimmy did a great job MC'ing and announcing the winners!

 

There was a finals round where the top 3 competed with new songs. Then we had trophies for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place!

 It was so well received that we have decided to make this an annual event for our youth group!

 It was a very memorable night!

Family Traditions #28: Christmas 2014

This was the year of the marshmallow. We had hot chocolate several nights a week while we played games... usually spoons. 

 

We consumed LOTS of them... probably too many, 

but we made many memories while we were doing it. 

 

We did so good, we put our tree up December 1st

 and watched White Christmas (ok, Mama made everyone watch White Christmas). A couple nights later we watched It's a Wonderful Life. But then we didn't watch anymore Christmas movies until after Christmas! 

 

And Yep, there was more hot chocolate!

 Of course we did our Advent Tree Devos each night!

And we did lots of Christmas activities in school. 

{Silly Silas!}

In early December our town always has 2 nights called Mesitas (little tables) where they sell homemade candies and goodies in the center square. It's like a huge bake sale with tons of music.  Each year we are always looking forward to all the goodies and we always get sick that weekend. Same thing this year. Silas and Eden were so sick, only Jonah could go. We called it Daddy-Jonah night. Jonah was VERY excited. He had pop and all kinds of snacks and just got to hang out with Dada! He did bring his brother back a blowup Spiderman!

I haven't shared this yet, but the institute has started its first church plant! It is on the corner of the farm property and is for the village next door. This Christmas Eve (Nochebuena) activity was the first one at that location.

 We went caroling again like we have done in other locations in years pasts.

 Here we are wrapping up cookies with invitations attached announcing our services.

 We have had several families hopping on the truck that brings the students to the services in San Pancho, so those are the ones that are in these photos. They will be the beginning of the church plant.

 We had a little devotional before heading out...

 and some cookies!

 There is no public lighting there, so it was REALLY dark. Plus there was lots of wind, so good luck lighting a candle.

We were walking in the dark in knee high grass on rocky unlevel ground with cellphone lights and carrying a bunch a cookies and kiddos... it was an adventure!

Nearly each house gave us tamales, the Nochebuena traditional food.

We couldn't carry them all.

Besides handing out the invitations, it was a nice bonding time with our core group!

 Afterwards a family invited us over for tamales at their house.

I love my little missionary kids! 

Later when we got home we opened one present, which is a tradition for our family. It is always a game we can all play together.

{I don't remember what Dada was saying in the picture, but it doesn't look like Silas was buying it!}

It was Phase 10. We played a version of that, with you guessed it, hot chocolate for a while  

and then we did our last advent devo before Jesus came!

After the kiddos were asleep Jimmy and I only had to move the dollhouse in and stuff the stockings. We usually have sparkling grape juice and then sit together by the tree, that's our tradition.

Christmas morning we made it up before the kids, but everything went fast once they were awake. 

Usually we do stockings and then eat breakfast before the rest of the presents, not this year! We were done opening presents by 8:20.

 Eden got chapstick in her stocking since she is always playing with mine... hopefully it was edible!

We skyped with both sets of grandparents!

 Then the kiddos got nice long naps before our friends came over for supper!

After dinner we had our birthday cake for Jesus!

We had a wonderful evening with our sweet friends and are so thankful that we got to spend a little of Christmas with them! 

 Later that night we had our last advent and put baby Jesus on the tree! Jonah has our bell wreath in his hand. They like to sing Jingle Bells and shake the wreath.

Here are some photos from the next day:

{Eden loves her dollhouse Jimmy made.}

{Jonah, Dada, and Silas spent almost 3 hours putting together the Lego castle MaG sent}

{E and I played with our new polish!}

{Twins!}

We had a wonderful memory filled Christmas together celebrating God sending His Son for us! We hope that your family did too!