Hello world. I hope you all had a Merry Christmas! It was great here in Botswana. We woke up around 8:00 because some girls were super excited that it was Christmas so they woke people up. We ate breakfast, hung out and finished gifts until lunch and then we opened the presents. We did a secret Santa and I got some Oreos, jar of Nutella, some chocolate balls and a bracelet. I love it all!! We ate supper after we cleaned up and then watched the Polar Express to end the night.I missed home but at the same time I was glad that I celebrated with my team.
Christmas has been the same every year for me. On Christmas Eve we have a service at night and we also go to my grandmas house. On Christmas my family wakes up, eats breakfast and opens the presents. We clean up and then we go over to my other grandma and grandpas for the rest of the day. My family has always known the reason for the season but we don’t live it out well. We know it’s Jesus’s birthday but it doesn’t seem like we truly celebrate it for that reason. We are more focused on handing out presents, eating lots of food and spending time with family. None of that is bad but it also doesn’t focus on the reason for the season, which is Jesus’s birthday.
This year is the first year that I wasn’t worried about presents or the food. I was trying to actually focus of Jesus and celebrating Him. During supper we went around the table telling everyone what Jesus means to us on this special day and what our favorite memory of Christmas is. That’s when I realized this was the first year I was actually focusing on Jesus and how it’s about Him and not all the other things. Without Jesus’s birth I definitely wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing. I might not even be alive. He changed everything! We could be living like the people in the Old Testament. So crazy. Jesus is awesome and He deserved to be celebrated on His birthday. This year opened my eyes to that and how I need to celebrate His birth rather than focus on the gifts I’m giving and receiving.
Another gift that God gave my team is that we are all FULLY FUNDED! So praise Him for that! There are still some people on my squad that are not fully funded so if you feel called to donate to them that’d be cool 🙂
We leave our ministry site on the 2nd to go to Victoria Falls in Zambia for an adventure day and after that we will be going to South Africa for debrief for a week and then to our next ministry site for 2 months! Please pray for safe travels for all of the teams. Thanks!
