How do your girls cope seeing others who have much less than they do?

I was surprised how many people asked me this question on our recent trip to the UK. “How do your children cope visiting other children who have no toys to play with? What do they make of the fact they live in a good house, while their friends live in poor houses?”

I was surprised because it has never been an issue really. When she was only 5 years old, my eldest went through a phase of trying to work out how rich or poor people were by asking me questions such as “Do bus drivers shop in the market or the supermarket?” They have always been aware some people have, and others do not. It is how life is. They are very accepting of the fact. They regularly play with children from poor families and they play with them just as they do children from a richer family. They are just as happy sliding down a pile of sand in the backyard and making mud pies, as they are playing with a fancy doll. It is just what they have always done. They do have many toys, but they are also used to having to gather up those they no longer play with so that we can donate them to the local school or poor families.

They are, like any children, anxious to have the latest toy that was advertised on the television, (not that they get them!) but are also aware that they are blessed. I think growing up with children who are materially poorer than them is teaching them to be grateful and not to take things for granted. They see how much hard work it takes to feed a family, when they see men sweating it out in the fields around us in the midday sun. They have accompanied me, since they were babies, on visits to patients and families living in very poor circumstances. They accompany their father to see the houses he builds for poor families and join in the celebratory meals of chicken and rice which the families often offer once a house is complete. Many of their own second cousins live in much poorer circumstances than ourselves. We do not shield them from these realities of life. They help me give out school supplies to sponsored children and Christmas gifts in schools. They see what we try to do to help others less fortunate than ourselves.

I do teach them that they are blessed; blessed to have a family that loves them, to have a home and food and clothing, to have an education and to live in peace and freedom. I hope growing up knowing and loving people who live in poverty will make them grateful and generous. I hope it will help them be hard-working and ready to make a contribution to society. I hope they are growing up knowing God loves the poor and we should too.  

Western societies seem to be struggling with a younger generation who believe they are entitled to many things – said to be the result of well-meaning parents giving their children everything they want. Toys, books, clothes and food are so cheap and readily available in the UK, it is hard to do otherwise! But I think this is a problem when then people think they are entitled to prosperity, health and long-life. When calamity strikes they think God has let them down, when He never promised those things in the first place.

And more than that, they are missing out on the wonderful things God has promised us. What are toys and clothes in comparison to sacrificial love, perfect peace and eternal joy? These are the things I want my girls to value, and they are available to rich and poor alike. I shall continue to expose my girls to the realities of life, because I think when we serve the suffering, then we meet Jesus. And that, my friends, is amazing.

Why did you give up the wealth and security you could have had as a doctor working in the UK?

During our recent visit to the UK I was asked several questions repeatedly - so my next few blogs will be answers to these FAQs!

First up is, "Why did you give up the wealth and security you could have had as a doctor working in the UK, to work for a charity in Ecuador, with an unpredictable and far inferior income?"

To be honest this not something that often crosses my mind. Many of the things wealth could buy me are simply not attractive in comparison to the amazing life I am privileged to enjoy. I do not hanker after an expensive car, a big house or foreign travel. I find it grounds me to live beside people who struggle to feed their families each day. I do not compare myself with those who have more than me, but rather give thanks for the abundance I already have.

I have learnt to appreciate the benefits of a simpler lifestyle. I love the fact my daughters spend their time playing outside, not glued to screens. Our lives are full of reading wonderful books, creating beautiful crafts, and time spent as a family.

I consider my intelligence, education and opportunities to be God-given gifts. He did not give them to me to hoard up things for myself. He gave them to me to share with others. Living in rural Ecuador is my way of sharing the gifts God gave me with others less fortunate than myself. I find helping the sponsored children to gain an education they would not otherwise have, inspiring. I find great joy in running the girls´ club, and sharing the faith that gives me such love and peace with them.

I do sometimes question if I am limiting my daughters´ opportunities in life. It is easier to "give up" things for myself, than for them. Wouldn´t they be better off attending a private school in the UK as I did, rather than being homeschooled by their mother? All choices in life have their pluses and their minuses. However, I think the life my girls are living is enabling them to be happy, healthy and equipped to contribute to the world. I cherish the opportunity to be the one who is shaping their hearts and their minds.

I find that being out of my comfort zone, out of my culture and made to rely on God in a way I never would have done had I stayed and worked as a GP in the UK, has totally changed my perspective. It has enabled me to experience God´s loving care and provision in a tangible way. Living in a place where I often feel insecure and uncertain fixes my gaze on the One who is constant and unchanging. Living life filled with the love of God is a wonderful thing. I hope you too know His loving care wherever you are and whatever you do.

 

Encouragement

Encouragement and inspiration always build one up, so it was wonderful to receive both these gifts from Jenny the other day. 
I first met Jenny when she was twelve years old. She had learnt to make jewellery at school, and brought me some to ask if I would be able to sell any of her creations for her through our project in the UK. She wanted to be able to go to secondary school, but her father did not believe it was worth educating girls, as she would likely end up a wife and mother, looking after her home as her mother did. 
Jenny wanted to  have a career, a means of supporting herself, a way out of poverty. I was impressed by her initiative and determination. I agreed to try selling her jewellery, sending packages of it to my mother in the UK for the Project Ecuador stalls. 
It sold well, and Jenny faithfully brought me batches of new designs every fortnight the whole six years she attended secondary school. Her beautiful earrings, bracelets and necklaces generated enough income for her to pay for her uniform, shoes, stationary, books and bus fares, and helped her self-confidence to grow. 
Now, aged twenty, Jenny has a full time job as a book-keeper, and is studying accountancy at university in the evenings and at weekends. 
Jenny asked me if she could come and teach jewellery-making to the girls in the club I run. She wanted to share the skills that had so helped her when she was their age. It was a real encouragement for me to have her help and speak to the girls. 

Jenny encouraged the other girls not to give up on their studies. She told them about her faith in Jesus, which has helped her to keep her eyes focused on her goals in life, when other glittering temptations have sought to derail her. 
Jenny is a warm, humble, confident, quietly-spoken young woman now. She desires to have a degree, a respectable job and one day a Christian family of her own. May the God she so faithfully serves grant her her heart´s desires.   

When Home is a Foreign Country

A guest blog post on http://www.amyboucherpye.com today... 

When I left Britain eleven years ago for the bustling equatorial city of Santo Domingo, Ecuador, I never expected to call it home. I was going as a missionary doctor, to serve for an undefined period. Everything I encountered was different, other and strange. I constantly felt plastered in sweat and dust. The barbecued tripe, cow’s udder and maggots that people offered me to eat did not appeal. Whilst I admired the beauty of the tropical flowers and humming birds, they did not conjure up the feeling of home that wind-swept heather and the humble robin did.
Each morning, I ventured forth to a world where I had to make myself understood in Spanish, fight off the mosquitoes and ride the over-filled bus with chickens pecking my feet. Each evening, I returned to my rented home where English DVDs, toast and tea could be enjoyed.
Three years later, I was married to an Ecuadorean with a beautiful baby girl. Now, Ecuadorean culture invaded my home. My husband expected rice three times a day. Spanish was the predominant language spoken. My in-laws were free with their help and advice.
“Don’t sit the baby up, she will end up with saggy cheeks! Cover your shoulders when you nurse her, or your milk will be cold. Keep a hat on her at all times or evil spirits will enter her through the soft spot on her head.”
My own toddler woke me one morning waving a leg of guinea pig in my face. It was left over from the previous night’s meal. “Want meat Mummy,” she cried. For her, eating guinea pig was completely normal. I wondered what on earth I was doing bringing up my daughter in this strange place. I felt a sudden yearning to go home to “normality”. Tea and toast seemed a distant dream.
There followed a steep learning curve of not only knowing the local customs, beliefs and ideas, but also understanding their values and priorities. At first, it drove me mad when people told me that they would be at an appointment at a certain time, and then were late or did not show at all. It was frustrating when my husband set out to do a, b and c in a day and only did a, leaving the rest for tomorrow. Gradually, I came to realise Ecuadoreans value people and relationships above work and money. If they meet someone who wants to chat, they will, disregarding prior plans. You will always be welcomed into an Ecuadoreans’ home when you turn up unannounced. A family shares the food they have cooked among the number of people who happen to be there at a mealtime. If a friend has a crisis, everything else can be set aside in order to help them.
I found I had to embrace living as part of an extended family. In a society where there is no social security or insurance, families rely on each other. When my car breaks down, I phone my father-in-law, not the breakdown services. Grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins live close by and are a daily part of each other’s lives. Individualism is frowned upon. Adult children take their parents into their homes when they are elderly and nurse them.
It was only as I came to appreciate the culture of my adopted country that I began to feel at home. Life became more familiar and predicable. It stopped shocking and jarring me at every turn. Life in Britain remains more intuitive, but there are now aspects of British culture that I find hard.
Living in Ecuador has taught me to appreciate the positives in a different society. Our God is a God of variety and creativity and each family has their own way of expressing themselves and making a home. The experience is stripping away my illusion that my way of doing things is the best way, and is making me more of a world citizen. It is making me look forward to the day when our home will be with God and with His people from every tribe and nation, living in perfect harmony and love.

Andrea Gardiner is a medical missionary in Ecuador. She tells her adventures in Guinea Pig For Breakfast. She works for Project Ecuador www.projectecuador.co.uk.

Back to School

It is the time of year when many children are going back to school. New shoes are shining, larger uniforms are freshly ironed and sparkling school bags are filled with colourful pens and pencils. Schools are waiting with libraries to be explored, laboratories ready to be experimented in and sports fields ready for action.
The rural schools here are filled with bright smiles and mischievous looks, but the children´s shoes are old and tight. Some children have nothing to write with and no books to write in. Others simply stay at home as their parents cannot afford the back to school expense. This year there are children newly arrived in the area as their rented homes were destroyed by the earthquake. Their parents are now caretakers on local farms, working in exchange for a roof over their heads. These people lost the little they had and have no skills with which to better themselves.
Each year we are pleased to be able to buy individual children school supplies and uniform through the support of their sponsors. The teachers in the local schools never cease to thank me for the help these children receive and are always asking if there are more sponsors available for more needy children.

We are also delighted to be able to support the schools with books and resources. These schools do not have a library. The only books the children have are the set textbooks. They also lack computers. Where can the children hear stories, have their imaginations fired and investigate the topics that interest them?

We have been able to give each of the 6 village schools in our area a selection of books this year for the children to enjoy. These have included non-fiction, story books and Christian books.
The nursery teacher in the nearest school was delighted to have new stories to read to her little ones. The older classes take it in turns to sit outside in a circle to read a book of their choice. Some of the older children read to the younger ones. It is wonderful to see the children enjoying the books.

We were also able to help the Carchense nursery class with some toys for imaginative play. The teacher had a room full of 3 to 5 year olds to teach for 4 hours a day, and hardly any resources to do it with. These children come from very poor homes. They may have one or 2 toys at home, but no more. They lack stimulation and need to develop their motor skills and imaginations.
Their smiles say more than my words could to show their appreciation.

The children in one school also hugely benefitted from a Scottish volunteer teaching English for a couple of months. She also gave music lessons to children in a neighbouring village. These opportunities are never usually in the reach of these children. They will never forget the experience and the self-confidence that was built.

A big thank you to all the sponsors, volunteers and donors who make this possible. 

Life after an earthquake

Life after an earthquake is a little boy running out of the house like an arrow shot from a bow, every time the wind rattles the windows. It is a young girl crying when she remembers the dead children she witnessed, wrapped only in sheets, lying out on the hillside lit by flickering candles.

Life after an earthquake is a teenage girl sobbing and screaming in terror as an aftershock hits some weeks later.

Life after an earthquake is a grown woman seeing the lamp wobble above her on the dentist´s chair, trying to get up and out of there.

Life after an earthquake is a 94 year old lady literally shaking in her bare feet and collapsing cane hut for days on end after another aftershock asaults her shattered nerves. 

Life after an earthquake is grief, orphans, loss, survival.

Life after an earthquake is an inertia of the soul, a closing down, a huddling inside oneself in search of safety. It is a feeling of everything else somehow being on hold, despite the hive of activity on the surface. It is treading water until you can start to believe life is going to carry on. 

Life after an earthquake is families living under plastic, exposed to the mosquitoes, without a toilet, running water or electricity. It is delivering food parcels to these families left without jobs. It is giving them clothes to cover themselves and toys to brighten their day.

Life after an earthquake is building and repairing. It is knocking down and clearing rubble, leaving once crowded areas bare. Slowly the sounds of sweeping cease, the dust settles and blocks begin to be placed upon blocks once again.

Life after an earthquake is a sense that solid ground is no longer firm. The future is not predicable. The foundations of life have shifted sending out ripples into every area of life.

And yet life after an earthquake continues, as it did before, resting in the loving arms of the Saviour who is the same yesterday, today and forever. He is the solid rock on whom we can rely and rebuild our lives. He is our hope for eternity.

God is with us

Our hearts are heavy at the images of destruction and the stories of death that people have to tell everywhere we go at the moment. Yet the generous flood of aid and donations keeps hope alive. We mourn with those who mourn.  We also know that "God is with us" - words spoken by 4 year old Matias, while trapped under the rubble. 
The Ecuadorian Christians are sharing this message of hope, while they distribute food and water. When Jesus was asked if people suffered disasters because of their sin, (Luke 13), he replied that those who suffered were no worse sinners than anyone else, but that all needed to repent. The Christians here are telling those they help that they were spared because the God of love is calling them. He does not want them to perish.
In our church this Sunday there was a woman who became a Christian following the earthquake, and who has now asked for baptism. I am sure there are many others who have done the same.
For many, the natural reaction to witnessing an early death is the desire to make every second count, to seize the day. "Life is short," we say. This is true and admirable, but it is also true that eternity is long.Living each day as if it were my last makes me focus on myself and my own desires. Contemplating the reality of eternity lifts my sights to things above and to eternal values. It calls me to live each day for the God of love, to love and serve others. It pushes me to invest in my relationship with God and my relationships with my family and frends. It is these relationships that are eternal.
On Sunday the preacher exhorted us to see the blessing that comes through suffering. He said, "suffering causes us to listen to God and means that we see Him at work." When all is well, it is so easy to take everything for granted and to forget our dependence on God. Times of suffering can draw us much closer to Him.
One day these disasters will be no more. Sometimes we wish that time would come faster. But God wants more of us to come into His family first, and so He waits still.
May that hope of eternity keep us serving, praying and loving, no matter what befalls us.

Earthquake Experiences

When Gabi, her husband and her family set off for a weekend at the beach, they had no idea what lay in store. Lesly, her 12 year old daughter, and Matias, her 4 year old son, were very excited about the trip, as they had never been away for more than a day trip before. The school holidays were drawing to a close, and they were keen to have a little holiday before classes started again.

They arrived at the beach on Saturday morning, found a hotel, and set off for the sea. They loved swimming and playing in the sand. As dusk approached, they headed to their hotel room to get showered. They were all naked when the earthquake hit. In an instant the roof collapsed on top of the four of them. Gabi managed to throw herself on top of her son, but she could not hear anything. She screamed for Matias or Lesly to answer her, but she could hear no reply. Finally she heard a whisper from her four year old, "Don´t scream Mummy, God is with us." Then she heard Lesly calling out that she was under a pile of blocks. She was so thankful to know they were both alive.

Gabi´s mother, sisters and cousins managed to get out of the hotel. They came to find their relatives and struggled to pull them out from the rubble by hand. Gabi was the last to be pulled out into the open. They were hysterical, but not seriously injured. They made their way up on to a hill, along with many other people, to wait out the night. They said it was pitch black and none of them slept. It was the longest night of their lives. Across the hill they could see a family setting up a makeshift wake for a relative.

They said they saw just one fireman in the town, trying to help the more seriously injured. Many were crying for help, and everyone was just searching for the members of their families. There were also thieves already looting, stealing from the abandoned stalls by the seafront.

At daybreak, they set off to try to find a way home. They tried many different roads away from the coast, only to find they were impassable. Everywhere they went, they saw houses fallen to the ground, and people sleeping outside under mosquito nets. Eventually, 20 hours later (a journey that usually takes 4 hours), they reached home. There were long queues in the petrol stations and they ate nothing all day. They arrived at 1am.

They are pale and bruised, but remarkably unscathed. So many others were not so fortunate. Aid is reaching the main towns, but not yet the smaller villages. Police and military are having to escort aid trucks, as thieves have attacked some en route.

Project Ecuador will buy food, water, repellent etc. to send to the victims with any donations we receive for the earthquake victims, and take them to the offical collection points.

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/charity-web/charity/finalCharityHomepage.action?charityId=1002812 

Please pray for those who are taking part in the rescue effort, and for those who have been left without loved ones and homes.

Girls

The Girls´ Brigade started in 1893 in Dublin, Ireland. Since then, it has grown to have groups in over 60 countries of the world. The aim of the Girls´ Brigade is to "help girls become followers of the Lord Jesus Christ and through self-control, reverence and a sense of responsiblity find true enrichment of life."

I am running a club for girls with the same aim here in rural Ecuador. Most of the 50 girls who come go to a church, be it the Catholic, or an evangelical congregation. The club gives them the chance to learn from the Bible together, to discuss their beliefs and ask their questions. One of the common errors in their thinking is that they believe they can earn their way to heaven through good works. We try to help them understand that salvation is the free gift of God, through Jesus.

The girls love playing games, working in teams and making crafts together. The club gives them the space to form new friendships and deepen existing ones. Often it is these friendships which lead to the opportunity to offer counsel and advice in their daily problems.

In a community where teenage pregnancy is rife, where girls are often not respected, and poverty abounds, it is wonderful to have the opportunity to speak frankly with the girls about self control, self respect and responsibility in the context of sexuality. Alongside giving practical support in the form of sponsorship so that they can attend school, the girls also need much guidance, encouragement and building up as they make decisions.

They also learn responsibility through activities such as the business badge the teenagers have just completed. I gave each small group $10, and they had the challenge of cooking and selling to make a profit. All the groups returned me my investment and made a profit. We celebrated by using the money for a trip to the cinema (something most of them had never done before). More importantly, the girls have realised they can take responsibility for their own lives. They can do something about their poverty. Many are continuing to make and sell things for themselves, alongside their ambitions to study and make something of themselves.

Only time will tell what the future holds for these girls. I personally owe a great debt to those who taught me as a girl in the Girls´ Brigade. Their example and encouragement played a large part in forming my faith and self confidence. I hope the new generation will similarly benefit from this and other similar initiatives.

Learning to wear glasses

Whenever I check the vision of children around here for the first time, I am always amazed that there are children with very poor sight, now aged 11 or 12, who do not have glasses. Some of these children do not even realise that they could see better. Others have noticed, but no one has taken them for a vision check or tried to help them. A few have been given glasses, but do not wear them.

The lack of sight has a profound effect on their studies. Often, they are not sitting near the front of the class, even though they cannot see what is written on the board. Those with short sight develop lazy eyes, or squints, with their vision worsening over time. One girl I met had been taken for glasses, but refused to wear them, because she was the only person in a school of 100 pupils with glasses, and the others laughed at her and called her "granny". Her vision had become so bad her eyes were permanently half closed, and the lashes were touching her eyeballs. She now needed surgery to be able to rescue the situation.

Those who have "lazy eyes" can have their vision corrected through the use of glasses and patching. Their vision can improve greatly. But they need the help before the age of 12. The mother of one of the children I gave glasses to this month never had glasses herself. One of her eyes is now permanently deviated and almost completely blind.

The first time I gave glasses to the children in the Garcia Moreno school there were 2 girls with lazy eyes. A couple of months later the teacher told me I shouldn´t waste my money on those children as they did not like to wear the spectacles. The real problem was that these children feel ridiculed when they wear them. They, their parents and their teacher did not understand the long-term consequences of not wearing them. Their reluctance to accept help was not a call to give up, but rather to provide more education and support.

Therefore, this time, when I recently gave glasses to 13 of the mostly older sponsored children for the first time, I did so along with some fun and games. I gave them out at the club meeting. All those receiving glasses had to out them on in front of the others. The girls with good sight tried them on and saw what it is like to have blurred vision. We played some blindfold games together. All the girls made some card glasses and I took photos of each of the girls wearing their glasses, be they real or fun.

I then printed the photographs and each girl had to decorate the frame with positive words about themselves, to improve their self-esteem. I also sent home reward charts for the mums to sign each day that the child wears the glasses, with the promise of a reward if they wear them for a month. Hopefully by then they will be so used to wearing them, the embarrassment will have worn off.

Certainly so far it seems to be working. The children in the primary schools now have their glasses on whenever I visit. The sponsored children have them on when I bump into them in the village, and one who was very reluctant to wear them, apart from when actually studying,  has now changed her Facebook profile picture to one where she is wearing her specs - and very good she looks too!

An insight into changing aspirations ...

One of the sponsored children came to give me her school report this week. She was about to accompany her mother, who is already in her sixties, to Colombia for medical treatment. We had an interesting conversation, which illustrates some of the ways people think around here.

Franci is seventeen, and about to start her final year of secondary school.

Me: How many brothers and sisters do you have?
Franci: I have 6 sisters and three brothers. The oldest is forty years old. My mother was 46 when she had me. I am the youngest.
Me: And how many nieces and nephews do you have?
Franci: Too many to count! There must be more than 20 of them. One of my sister´s just had a new baby boy. He is very cute with big wide eyes and beautiful curly hair. I¨m also a great-aunt.
Me: What do you hope to do when you finish school?
Franci: I hope to study nursing at University. I will need to work during the day and study in the evenings to be able to do that. My family tells me it is impossible. None of them have gone to University, but I would really love to be a professional.
Me: What age do you think you would like to be married?
Franci: Oh, maybe about 30. I want to complete my studies first, otherwise I won´t be able to. My sisters have all had children very young, and they are all trapped. It´s OK if your husband turns out to be kind, but most men are very controlling. They don´t let them out of the house. If they are mistreated they cannot run away because they have no means of making a living and providing for their children. I want to be able to have my own career and income.
I haven´t had a boyfriend yet. My sisters tell me not to until I have finished studying, because once you have a boyfriend babies come along! But some girls at school ask me if I am gay because I haven´t had a boyfriend yet. (Franci laughs). I just want to wait.
I do want to have a husband. I hope he will be very romantic and understanding. And I do want to have children, but just two or three. I want to be able to provide for them well and give them a good education.
I was talking to a woman the other day who has four children and wants to have a fifth. But I asked her why she was going to have another when she cannot even feed the ones she has. She doesn´t see the importance of educating her children. 
Me: What are you doing during your school holidays?
Franci: I have been doing a course at the evangelical church because I want to be baptised. Now I´m going to accompany my mother to Colombia because my sister lives there and can help her get free health care.
Me: I look forward to seeing you again when classes are about to begin again.

Recycling

Ecuador does not have cheap clothes and toys such as are available in shops like Primark and Tesco in Britain. Clothes are relatively expensive and making your own is still cheaper than anything you can buy ready made. Cheap toys are terrible quality - they would not pass safety standard test in the UK and often break in the first day or two. Toys of any quality cost money. Therefore I should not have been surprised that when I threw out my underwear as now too worn out for me to wear, I later saw it hanging on my neighbour´s washing line. Here people really do use things, mend things, and use them again, until they are completely destroyed.

Recycling is a way of making money. I walk past a large school on my way to check the PO box at the post office each week. Outside, they leave large sacks full of rubbish. Often, there is a little old woman sifting through the bags, hunting for anything that could be recycled that she can put in her cart. She takes these items to the recycling yard, they buy the items from her, and this is how she earns her living. 

Woman with recycling she has collected on her back at the recycling yard 

When I visit homes in Ecuador they are not full of clutter. People simply do not have many things. It certainly makes me stop and think before I purchase more and more. It makes me mend and reuse and recycle. It causes me to give things I no longer need to others who can use them, instead of throwing them in the bin. 
It makes me so thankful that I do not have to rummage through rubbish to make ends meet. It challenges me to hold on to less and be more generous with what I have.After all, "The earth is the Lord´s and everything in it, the world and all who live in it." Psalm 24 v 1. I should be sharing all that God has gracious given me with others.

Christmas Gifts

I have been silent for the last month because I was so busy giving out Christmas gifts.  First we held an event for the sponsored children. The children gathered, very excited, at the village hall, joined in the games with gusto listened attentively to the talk I had prepared, and then happily each received their bag of gifts.  Refreshments finished our time together.  

The next day, I held the nativity play for the Girls´ Brigade girls. They loved dressing up and performing for their parents. They also each received a gift and a bag of sweets. 

The following two days I visited six local schools giving out more gifts to the primary school children.  It was great fun to see their eyes light up as they received their gifts and tried them on or read them.   

The children valued their gifts because they receive very little at Christmas – or at any other time of the year. Some of their gifts, and the cakes and treats were made by the local sewing group. These women value the work I am able to put their way in this manner, and also the chance to learn new sewing and baking skills. 

 

My talk this year was about the gifts the wise men took to Jesus.  Hardly any of the children could tell me what the gifts were – let alone what they meant.  I explained the gold was in recognition that Jesus is king, frankincense in recognition of his divinity and that myrrh anticipated his death which brought us salvation. 

We then had a beautiful family Christmas, celebrating with our extended family and close friends.  We ate our ham, accompanied by rice, outside in the heat on Christmas Eve night, with the singing of carols in Spanish and readings from the Christmas story. Of course, there were gifts exchanged amongst us too, especially for the children. 

The festive season was tainted with sadness too, as is the way in this damaged world of ours.  I found myself writing the death certificate for an elderly neighbour and hearing of the tragic death of the son of one of the teachers in our most local school.  He died in a motorbike accident.

Often we ask, “What was your best present this year?” As I reflect on the gifts given and received this Christmas and indeed at other times of the year, I conclude the best gift of all is one I usually take for granted; the gift of another day of life.  

As we enter the New Year, may I remember to give thanks for that simple and yet most precious gift of God each and every day.