What touched me the most was opening the “gifts” from our girls- far from store bought, they gave us handwritten poems, cards, handmade notebooks, a paper fan (for hot days!) and even a handmade belt for Papa wrapped with their colored paper🥹😭
Their hearts 😭😭😭
Rewriting our scripts for hard events like Christmas can be hard. But I’m grateful, that over the years, we’ve rewritten our own traditions— making the nativity scene, sharing what we’re grateful for, and opening presents under the tree.
This year, every moment felt so precious. Our 7-yr old said she was grateful for the tree, her gifts, for electricity, for family… and our 5-yr old said, “Grateful for a good family!”
We knew that everything couldn’t be taken for granted. Every gift was hard to find here in our small town and clearly an act of God’s provision. Finding the Christmas tree felt like a miracle!
Perhaps, gratitude is our greatest gift received.
Every year, we pray for God to help open our eyes to invite someone without family to celebrate Christmas with to our home on Christmas Day.
This year, we didn’t know who to invite- everyone seemed to have plans. Then God led us to a new friend from Switzerland whose dog befriended Courage.
So grateful to have the chance to do this. We pray that next year, we’ll open our home to more people 💛
It’s incredible how the Bibi (elderly grandma) of the loud dogs next door walked over lugging this in hand to gift to us on Christmas Day.
🥹
Once, we were terrified of them and frustrated with their dogs. Today, we’re finding solutions together. Truly, God can do incredible things 💛🙌🏾Praying for more and greater breakthroughs in the coming year.
I was worried before that my gifts to our children from the second hand local market wouldn’t be good enough for them. But I love their simple joy and big hearts— when asked to list what they were most grateful for for their first Christmas in Africa, they both said, “Family.” 🥹
