Holiday hubbub...

The past two weeks have been very special --and BUSY, filled with one event after another. Below is a peak into how the Children's Home has been spending the Christmas and holiday vacation.

Several days before Christmas several of the older class children were assigned the responsibility of making over a thousand doughnuts for the campus to enjoy for breakfast on Christmas morning as well as during refreshments after several other holiday programs. The doughnut making production took several hours over the course of two days. The children loved it, and taste-tested several different recipes to find the "pukka" (perfect) one.

Other teams of kids were assigned with decoration responsibilities. Below, 11-year-old Esther and David (an intern) discovered that last year's angel decorations can also be used as costumes!

While in the US this fall, I facilitated a project for people to ship Christmas gifts to the Home for the children. Thankfully, all the boxes arrived in good time and I enjoyed sorting through the mountains of crayons, balls, coloring books, lotions, and many other things to organize in gifts for the children.

All the gifts in bags for each child ready for distribution!

Gift distribution! 

All the children gathered in the auditorium eagerly anticipating receiving their gift!

Little boys loved their tennis balls!

Little Deepa received a stuffed animal.

The scented lotions were a bit hit with the older girls.

Some older boys received Frisbees. 

Other gifts the children received included: crayons, plastic animal toys, clothes, candy, coloring books, sports caps, devotional books, necklaces, socks and gloves, soccer balls, and more... Thank you to all the donors in the US who collected and sent such generous things! All of the children were excited by what they received and said they'd never had a Christmas like this one before. And several staff expressed thankfulness that the children received such nice gifts this year.

For lunch on Christmas, there was a big community meal of rice, chicken and fruit.

In the afternoon, children who's sponsors sent packages to them for Christmas opened those gifts. (Yes, that's me wearing a sari.)

Later in the afternoon there was a program with songs and a drama performed by the children. The village community was also invited to the program. 

The drama performed by the older children.

Christmas songs sung by the boys choir. 

Hundreds of children and adults from the village watched the play and choir communicate the message of why we celebrate Christmas. 

In the evening were firecrackers!

 

Two days after Christmas, a wedding took place on campus between two Children's Home alumni.

While waiting for the wedding party to return from the photo shoot after the wedding ceremony, I and a few of my sweet girls went up to the terrace and had our own photo shoot!

 

The next day after the wedding, the annual two-day volleyball tournament began. Many alumni came and participated. It was especially fun to interact with them and hear their stories of growing up in the Home and where they are now.

On New Year's Eve, there was another program with dance and song performances. Earlier in the day, there had been relay games so students who won the races also received prizes in the New Years Eve service. One of the prizes was the small Gideon Bible, in the beginning pages of which the song of America (My country 'tis of thee...) was printed. The girls asked me what it was. I told them it was a song and obliged them by singing the first verse when they asked. A few minutes later, one of them said I should sing it for the whole assembly. I told her that if she went up and asked the man in charge, and if he said yes, then I would. She did and he said yes, so after the prizes were finished, I went up to the mic and sang it for everyone. There was a big rush of noise when I walked up to the podium; I think all the kids were excited that “Didi was going to perform.” Every month at the monthly communal birthday celebrations each dorm is supposed to have a representation of children perform something, so the kids are familiar with seeing dance or singing performances, but it’s always just the kids performing. I never have before. 

Now that the holiday and end of the year festivities are finished, one thing occupying my time is having the children who received gifts from their sponsors to write thank you letters. Below are Swati and Babli, two adorable little girls, drawing pictures for their sponsor. 

The holiday festivities were definitely fun and memorable --and very busy! I am glad I was here with the kids during the special, but I am also glad to get back to normal life in the New Year. (I still marvel sometimes that my life in this beautiful distant place with these precious children is to me now "normal").

:-)