Monday morning at staff devotions, we found out that, on Saturday, Liliana had 3 broken ribs as a result of a handyman falling from a ladder in her home, on top of her! She came into the office late, wearing a brace to hold her together as she heals, and she is very sore. Since it’s the last week of this working year, though, she must be here; lots of accounting and year-end payroll to accomplish! We’ll pray daily for her swift recovery, but we know it will take time.
That evening, with keys to the Toe-sho-tah (that’s how they say Toyota) HiLux truck, we drove to Carrefour to stock up on the weekly groceries, keeping in mind that more people would be shopping for their holiday meals later in the week!

Wednesday evening, there were lots of
high winds and lightning, a tormenta (storm), and Neo is
hiding! He just can’t stand the extra noise!
Friday, we woke to cool-but-nice
weather but, by afternoon, it was actually cold and later a cold rain
fell. Not a lot to do in the office today, but we understand, and
it’s actually starting to feel festive. The church Christmas dinner is this
evening, so we peeked in to see the set-up in gym (part of the CILP
building) – it looks great with tables set and decorations on the
walls.
In the quincho (an open pavilion on the other side of
the park from our house), a couple of asadors (grillers) were
cooking those 50 chickens that were delivered last week! The only wall in the quincho is the
back wall, and it’s all grill! They know just how to feed the
hard-wood coals and distribute them for slow, smoky cooking. We took
a picture of the two guys working and tried to tell them how good it
smelled – amazing! I don’t know if we can wait for the 9 PM
start of this party!
We went home and Skype-called Dan’s Uncle David; it was great to surprise him and to catch up! Finally it was time to change clothes and walk over for the party. A bit awkwardly, we waited near the wall for a while, trying to figure out if we should just claim a seat, or wait to see if anyone would ask us to sit with them. We finally chose a table where we could see the “stage” area, as we’d been asked by Thea to take some photos while she sang, as part of the entertainment for the evening. Some others joined us, but we didn’t make much conversation.
The evening was
very nice as we enjoyed empanadas as a first course, with
grilled chicken and a salad as the second course – delicious! The
entertainment was varied; beside Thea, there were a girl who did a
toe dance, film clips of last year’s Christmas play ("A Gaucho's Christmas"), and a group of the
young people with a new Christmas song. At the end of the
evening, Pastor Hernan played his guitar and taught us all a new
song, “Su Nombre Es” (His Name Is), using the text from
Isaiah 9:6. That’s a great song and I hope we sing it again soon;
I’ll have to write it down! It was around 1:00 AM when we walked a
few meters back home, giving Argentine cheek-kisses and saying Feliz
Navidad to all we passed…
We went home and Skype-called Dan’s Uncle David; it was great to surprise him and to catch up! Finally it was time to change clothes and walk over for the party. A bit awkwardly, we waited near the wall for a while, trying to figure out if we should just claim a seat, or wait to see if anyone would ask us to sit with them. We finally chose a table where we could see the “stage” area, as we’d been asked by Thea to take some photos while she sang, as part of the entertainment for the evening. Some others joined us, but we didn’t make much conversation.
Cracks and pops during the early
evening were the precursors of the noises to come… and, at
midnight, they did! All at once, fireworks started ALL around,
outside the compound. We rushed out to enjoy all the celebrating! We
could hear and see fireworks all around the compound, so we walked to
the front, near the gate, closer to the barrios
(neighborhoods) across the street. It’s hard to imagine if you
haven’t experienced this; in the States, we see fireworks generally
from a distance. And they’re noisy, but high in the sky. These were
all around and seemed to not be far up in the air. There were big, splashy
ones, all colors and so much noise!
Here a link to a video of what we heard and saw...Mid-Night sounds of Christmas
I think my favorites were the
lanterns that had small fires inside – looked just like the
lanterns from the movie “Tangled”! (Thea told us later that, at the Christmas Eve gathering she'd gone to, after the
fireworks was a large meal, then everyone went out to visit other
people. After lots of stops – there was a lot of traffic too, she
said she was finally back in her apartment at 4:00 AM!)
Here a link to a video of what we heard and saw...Mid-Night sounds of Christmas

We invited Thea over for dinner (turkey
and broccoli tetrazzini), and she supplied the cookies and ice cream
for dessert, before we used the truck to go to church. It’s been
strange for us not to hear Christmas music at church during Advent.
(In our house, though, we’ve been listening to Joy FM online and really
enjoying all the traditional and contemporary songs we love.) This
was a nice service, just not what we’re used to! Thea sang with the
band, leading us in 4 verses of Silent Night, in Spanish, of course,
and that was fun! It’s always easier (for us) to sing a song for
which we already know the melody even when the words are different.
We Skyped with Monica and her kids (and Darin was there too) after we
got home. The kids were blurs across the computer screen most of
the time since they were still pretty “wound up” from Christmas
events and having just returned home from their dad’s house!
Well, it was a very different
Christmas, emotionally tough, but looking up has been the key to
getting through it! God is with us, as always, through the
emotional ups and downs, as we encountered so many things this week,
UP in the sky!
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