Christmas time at Lily. The summer sun beating down on us takes away from that "Christmasy" feel, I must say. Christmas came and went in a flash and I felt like I completely missed the "Christmas boat". That may be ok, because I don't mean that I missed the true meaning of Christmas, but I missed all that nostalgic, annoying atmosphere that makes you feel all warm and nice, but really is fake, and then when the holiday is over you emotionally crash. But I did get a lot of fellowship with Jesus and some deep themes of Jesus' coming.
Jesus left his RICH, PERFECT, PAINLESS place in heaven to come and be with us and save us messy people. He came to a no-name place and slept in a animal feeding trough. And then suffered his life so we could be healed, whole, and spiritually alive. So, I do the same (in my none-savior sort of way of course!). I left a lot of comfort and came here to a no-name place with great brokenness and struggle. And man, its hard. But God told me to come. I can understand Jesus a TOUCH more.

This Christmas time, many kids went to be with distant relatives they have (family that cannot care for them full time) and so it was a quieter time at Lily. Those who have no family at all stayed and it was great to spend more quality time with them. I enjoyed it so much.

For the first time, the older kids have started to really be on fire for reaching out to their community. They've never really thought past themselves before, but now they are starting to think about the broken people who live in Mophela. Just before Christmas, Lily organized a peace walk to protest physical and sexual abuse that is so rampant here. One of the older kids wanted to hand out food to his poor friends, so we went food shopping and delivered it all to them to their overjoyed surprise. Others are saving their little bit of pocket money to give to help their friends.

But the best thing was that a teenager organized an outreach to a nearby children's village that is far less well-off. He got all the older kids to participate and so they all organized lunch, games, and encouraging words from God. It was so great that they were all ministering to their own! One children's village to another. They knew first hand the struggles of being an orphan and so really were able to encourage. They learned SOOO much from organizing and serving those kids. They saw how much they did have at Lily as well. There is a huge momentum shift here. It has been so great to see them understand the gospel just a touch more.

Christmas day was a wonderful day for me. All the volunteers were together and had some of the older kids over for brunch and a gift exchange. It felt like a real family. Then I baked 6 cakes for our huge evening dinner feast (150 people!). We worshiped God together and it felt like a taste of heaven in a poor place.