Christmas Blog…. i know its late

    Christmas was something I waited for anxiously. I knew it would be the time in which i would realize how much I miss home. I was right about it too. What I didn't expect to happen – (and I am sure that it will) – is how much of christmas 2012 i'm going to miss during all the other christmas's to come.
   The night before christmas my team and I lived in almost a state of oblivion. We knew it was coming but it didn't feel like much more than the 24th of December. But, as usual, God completely knocked down the doors of all my expectations. Later in the night christmas music blasted all around the impoverished streets of Manila, right outside our doorstep- quite literally. Soon then as my teams hearts finally felt the joy and familiarity of christmas we ran to the music and joined hands with a bunch of little ones standing around the music. From there the kids jumped all over us and we all danced around with them. More and more kids came running and I felt the joy of the Lord consuming the street. As we left to go start the celebration of Christmas with our JAZ girls, we hugged the kids and told them how much Jesus loves them.
   That night is when the girls finally moved in to the home that my team and others spent the last month preparing. When I saw all the joy on the girls faces as that sat next to the tree, all i could think about was all the redemption that Christ had brought even in just that living room.  God brought 29 girls who were abused or neglected together as a family, safe from harm and in a new home. An exact representation of what God plans for us when we go to heaven. This year I found out there is no better way to celebrate christmas than to watch his beauty and redemption unfold. 
   We sang around the home with the JAZ girls to Christmas songs. Clarita, one of the youngest JAZ girls, surfed across the kitchen on a cart and I, absent of disciplinary care, swept her up and we kept singing and dancing around. 
   On Christmas there were a lot of firsts. Some for me and some for others. One first was seeing all the JAZ girls experience Christmas for the very first time. It was so beautiful!! All of them got up so early to open their gifts and to love on one another. A perfect picture of how God loves his children so dearly. Another first I experienced was seeing all the poor children of Manila go from door to door asking for any kind of gift at all. It completely broke my heart. The girls had a large bag of fruit snacks for those kids prepared but eventually that bag ran out. It killed me watching and turning kids away. It killed me knowing that I have no idea what it feels like to be on the other side of that door. In my sorrow I had to remember that God is a God of provision and he had redemed the 29 girls behind me. 
   Later on christmas day my team and I opened our gag and dirty santa gifts to each other. After gifts were opened I felt so uncomfortable knowing that I had nothing left to open. Its embarressing for me to admit, but I was honestly perplexed by the idea that christmas gifts were over. I wouldn't recieve anything else that year. And i hated it. But it was I needed. I needed to be humbled and shown that it was never about gifts in the first place but also to show me that it was rare what I have recieved in past christmas's. God was humbling me and showing me where my contentment failed. 
  If I had to sum up what God had for me in store this christmas it would be simply…
" I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want."
Philippians 4:12

That's what I wanted to feel, and thats what I got this year.

JAZ girls!!

My teams christmas tree

Us and all our gag gifts!

Christy looking fly in the gag gift that I gave