unto us a child is born...

Christmas is over, I know, but I thought I would just share a little about what my Christmas in Cambodia looked like. First, it was certainly not white, but there were no lack of Christmas trees, tinsel, and inflatable Santas. I had hoped to escape the inflatable lawn decorations when I came to Asia, but alas, they have found their way here. I saw snowmen and snow globes and penguins on a see-saw and Santas that rose three stories high. In a nation that loves any reason to have a party or celebrate, they have risen to the occasion.

Sadly, many people do not understand the meaning of Christmas aside from a fat man in a red suit with a white beard. Along with my friends and teammates, we set out to make sure that the children we work with knew the true meaning of Christmas. We had been sharing about the story of Jesus' birth all leading up to a Christmas party!

We played games!
We ate snacks, including delicious Christmas cupcakes!
And, we performed the Nativity with costumes and all!
It is hard to see in the above picture, but we work with children in a public park, which means that anyone can listen in or watch our daily activities. On this particular day, we drew quite the crowd as we draped ourselves in sheets, donned pipe cleaner halos, and carried about sheep made from paper plates and cotton balls. The children gathered around to listen to the story of Jesus as they sipped their orange fanta and licked the cream from between their sandwich cookies. And, the street beside us began to clog with moto-taxi drivers who were sitting on their parked bikes watching the group of foreigners and Khmer dress in silly costumes. It was so much fun to share with the kids, and they all had a blast!

It is amazing what joy you can communicate with an aluminum foil-covered star and paper bags tied with ribbon brought to a baby (who might be a 21-month old baby girl) by girls with blonde hair and blue eyes.

The bottom line is that unto us a child is born. Thank You, Jesus!