Christmas Joy

This Christmas season was one filled with a lot of joy. This year was very low in donations of toys and clothes, but God provided a few families at the end of the year who were able to donate toys and money for Christmas outfits for all of the BG kids. One of our volunteers, Brittany, and I went shopping for 61 outfits! It did not seem like a big task when we started, but picking the right size and style for each kid was a pretty big task. We really enjoyed ourselves and seeing the kids showing off their outfits to one another on Christmas day was pretty special.
Christmas Eve was the day we celebrated Christmas with our staff. My mother-in-law, Mary, sent us a new devotional for December and so Bryan shared the devotions for the 24th of December. It was a very good message to help us begin our celebration. We gave each staff member a mug from Holland Christian's last team and a Jesus Calling devotional from the Corley family. They were very thankful and were also thankful because we had many donors come alongside BG in 2014 and we were able to give each staff member a little Christmas bonus in their pay check. They work so hard being the hands and feet of Jesus to the kids here and I thank God for providing the funds we needed to give them a little extra appreciation.
Christmas day was a very hot day and we had a neighbor donate 2 bouncy houses for our kids to jump in for the day. It was chaos and fun to watch the kids and the staff jumping in the houses. I have never heard so much laughter at BG. When it got too hot, the staff added water in the bottom of one of the slides and then all the kids got naked and climbed into the water. For the first time in 4 years, our staff did not even make the kids go inside for a nap, they all stayed outside for the whole afternoon jumping, laughing, eating watermelon, getting doused with the hose and throwing each other in the water (that was staff on staff as the kids were already in the water). I spent an hour supervising the kids in the water and got a nice sunburn which is so opposite of the Christmas weather we used to have in Michigan!
Then our final moment of joy came in an unexpected visitor. We were just finishing a scavenger hunt for Elijah's present when we were told that Lucky was on campus to visit us. It has been over a year and a half since we have seen him. He is 17 years old and tall now - crazy!!! We had a nice visit and it was such a fun surprise to see that he is ok and looking pretty healthy. I am thankful that God has been taking care of him and that He brought him back to BG so we could visit with him again. It took me a long time to give him his soccer ball, but Aaron Wildschut, I finally gave him the ball you sent back to Lesotho. It has been a great week, full of joy and I am thankful the Jesus came so our joy could be complete.
Happy New Year everyone!