Our Christmas Play

This was such a fun outreach! I love working with these kids. I love the teens too... many of whom were my kids when we had our Bible studies in the first two communities.

We had our first Christmas play 4 years ago when we were working in our first ex-guerrilla community. There was a lot of controversy going on at the time (surprise surprise) and I knew of several people who wanted to come but were under a lot of pressure not to. There were others whose spouse or parents wouldn't let them come either, so I filmed it during rehearsals (so that there would be plenty of light) and put together a DVD for everyone to take home afterwards. Well a family who has recently moved to NH and has started coming to our church mentioned to me that they had seen that DVD several times! I had forgotten about it. The message of the Gospel is very clear in that video. Just another example of people who try so hard to keep God out, but they can't!

We started rehearsing for this in October. It was a blast! Jimmy built me a cute little stage and rigged some lights for special effects. It was pretty fancy!

The narrators I chose were so professional! Erginia and Sophia are from SR and they are teenagers now, but they didn't mind helping out. Virgilio is from San Pancho and he is so smart! I don't think any of them missed a practice.

Now my wisemen on the other hand... the only time all 3 showed up at the same time was for the actual performance.

{Notice the wiseman costume propped against the wall!}

These are shots taken during practices since I knew we wouldn't have time during the event.

 Joel was the cutest baby Jesus of any Christmas Play in the history of time... I'm sure of it!

Jonah and Silas had one line each, "Baa!" They were supposed to wait until Sophia said the word "tranquilo". Instead, when Jimmy cued them Silas yelled, "Tranquilo... Baa!" Jonah said "Baa" with Silas, but Silas was kind of a mic hog, so he started inching his way to the mic after Silas moved, but he was worried about falling off of the stage. Everyone else kept going with the scene. So several lines later Jonah finally makes it up to the mic and yells, "Baa." Followed by "Dada me Baa, me done?!" Baby Jesus and the sheep stole the show!

Here is the cast waiting for the play to start. They look nervous in this photo! I was surprised at just how serious and nervous they were about it. I brought lanterns so that they could color when they weren't on stage in hopes of trying to keep the noise down. The sounds travels horribly in our building, just a chair scooting over the tile floor is a distraction.  

We had been praying for this outreach. With the people in this photo, the kids in the drama, and all the people standing outside we had over 100 people come. I was really happy with that. Several of those visitors have returned since then too. 

Kimberly was in from Guate visiting her family in NH. It was such a nice surprise to have her there. She looked so good! She is in charge of a new facility that the women and children's shelter she works at is starting. She is a testament to the fact that God can take whatever circumstances He is given and make something beautiful with a life!

The drama went pretty smoothly. It didn't matter anyway, our church is very laid back. Beyond the outreach to those outside our church we were in it for the fun we could share together as a church family, celebrating Christ's birth!

Here were my elusive wisemen:

And here are some of our other characters that I didn't get of photo of in action:

{Alejandro the Inn keeper} 

{Vilma, my reluctant Angel}

{Paula, who announced Christ's birth to the Shepherds}

 Can you guess?

{Luis as Cesar Augustus}

And here is everyone at the end! (Plus some other random little kids who wandered up on stage.)

For the finale I had bought some candles for the audience to hold while we sang Christmas carols, but I left them at home... and Jimmy forgot my guitar. Awesome pair aren't we! So sweet moment to be shared together - lost... oh well. We still had a great time of fellowship afterwards. 

Jimmy made lots of ponche, the traditional holiday cider, to serve and we had cookies. I totally forgot a platter for them too, so we served them out of a cardboard box... classy! Nobody cared but me.

Fireworks are a Christmas tradition here, so we ended the night with a show outside!

 It was a really special night shared by all of us that I don't think will be soon forgotten!