Christmas Catrucho Style!

Our last few days in Honduras were filled with gift-giving, pie making, and just the general hype of celebrating Christmas with a bunch of kids! At the Heart of Christ base we had two days of Christmas since the Central American tradition is to go big on the 24th. Some girls on our squad helped make around 200 tamales, Papi Lee set off non-regulated fireworks (still has all fingers in-tact) and we watched the kids put on their first-ever Christmas pageant. The stable only got blown over by a breeze twice and only one of the angels ripped her wings off. It was the cutest!

Here are some pics of Christmastime Catrucho style. (Catruchos are Hondurans if you didn’t know. It also means rice and beans apparently).

Here’s some of the squad watching the pageant from upstairs. 

 

The kiddos making their big debut! 

 

Erica and Ivania enjoying the festivities. Suhcute!

 

Team Kaleo showed up and brought Santa with them! It was amazing and Japheth thought so, too!

 

All the other kids were just mediocrely impressed. 

 

Jordan and Erica hangin out during coffee hour! (Our favorite time of day). 

 

Katerin eatin her snack. 

 

The pie making process begins!! 4 apple, 4 pumpkin and 1 pecan! I will make one for you when I come home. 

 

More Pies…

 

Things I never thought I would do on the race: 1. Make a homemade apple pie.

 

Present time on Christmas!

 

Ivania loves her new toys!

 

Christmas pudding! Our hosts unexpectedly showered us with goodies. So sweet!

 

This is why Hunter Young is the greatest. 

 

Christmas sparklers. (Photo Creds: Carson Stutzman…Just one more reason why he is also the greatest). 

 

We got tired of sitting inside and wanted to join the festivities.

 

Carolina. At first she was standoffish and only said “no” to me, but one day out of the blue she wanted me to hold her. AIM trained us not to tell the kids “I love you” since we would be leaving and that could be emotionally damaging to them. Instead I told Carolina how much Jesus loved her every day all the time. 

 

Love. Just Love.

 

Carolina kind of liked Chelsea too. (Okay, she loved us both…)

 

Oh…more Carolina. 

 

Drawing a blob with Carolina. 

 

Here’s another one of Ivania and her amazing nurse Michelle on Christmas. 

 

Fine. Just one more of Carolina. (She’s excited about the moon in this one. You just have to hear her say “la luuuna.” You may just melt).

 

Team P.O.W.E.R.S. – We made it through 3 adventure-filled, yet pretty challenging months of the race together. I learned so much from them and know we were placed together to push each other towards Jesus. The boys of the squad are currently heading off to Belize for a month of MANistry, so our co-ed teams are temporarily disbanned until we leave for Malaysia.

For the rest of January I will be in Guatemala with a new team of girls. We are actually settled into our new ministry already, and I will update you on that soon!

Happy New Year and mucho amor to all of you!

-Heather