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.
On a higher note, we were blessed in a BIG way when Dan was granted permission to use one of the regional vehicles when it is not otherwise needed. With the prospect of the compound being virtually empty over the holiday season, it is hard to explain what this means to us, but to all those who helped make this possible, thank you! 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!
Tuesday, Dan spent part of his morning
in a Skype Spanish lesson, and I kept tabs on Marcy’s Facebook
communications while in the Finance office. Marcy and John’s son,
Tucker, had a cyst surgically removed from inside his mouth (under
the tongue, behind the chin area). By the end of our morning, the
surgery was over and he was in Recovery. It was great, later in the
evening, to see a photo of him at home, wearing a special shirt we’d
ordered for him. The shirt read, “Eat. Sleep. Nintendo DS.”
Marcy quoted Tucker as saying, “It’s perfect!” (Makes a
grandma proud!)
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…
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…
Saturday, Christmas Eve, we slept in and fixed a nice
breakfast, then reviewed our Christmas list regarding ordering
anything more over Internet. (All the shopping, except some gift
cards, had actually been done before we came here in October!) Dan
called both sisters, Denise and Diane, and caught up with them and
their families. It was good to connect! I spent time in the kitchen
baking cinnamon bread, chicken breasts, and a large turkey breast
we’d found at Carrefour! It was a pretty day, so we did a little
sitting outside in the sun, enjoying all things in the sky - the sun
and the orange butterflies and lots of dragonflies now! Neo joined us so we spent some time brushing him (it’s summer and he’s shedding).
The evening was spent looking at emails and Facebook as we waited to experience the first moments of Christmas at midnight that we have heard so much about. Since we don’t have TV, I’ve
also read several free-downloaded Christian fiction books on the
Kindle software on my notebook computer.
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
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!)
Christmas Day, I fixed a nice
breakfast, and we relaxed in back yard, read, and watched the
butterflies and dragonflies some more. Gorgeous weather with blue sky,
feathered clouds… I prepared some plates with cinnamon bread and we
walked up to the guard house to share with Juan, the guy stuck with
Christmas Day duty. He seemed quite surprised and appreciative! We
took another plate to the only family still here, my coworker Mirna
and her husband and daughter Luana. The only reason they’re here
on Christmas is that Luana has bronchiolitis; they can’t expose her
young cousin to this illness. Later, we found Pablo (the oldest
employee here, who lives in the back corner of the compound) and made
sure he had some cinnamon bread slices too. It was nice to Skype
with Derick and Nola late morning. Later in the afternoon, we caught
up with Marcy and her family before they went to their Christmas Day
celebration with John’s side of the family.
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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