Our family spent the holiday together here, and that alone made it splendid! We definitely spent it differently than Christmases past, but different is sometimes a good thing.
We shared Christmas Eve dinner with Julie (NICU nurse Julie), Janet (Dean of the University), an Australian missionary family and a French missionary family, both of whom had many small children who were filled to the brim with that Christmas wonder that only children can feel. Their 6 children came to dinner in their cute, footed pajamas and watched Veggie Tales Christmas specials while the adults sat around the dinner table visiting after our dinner of roast beef, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, green beans and multiple pies.
Christmas morning dawned and after Tim's rounds, we enjoyed opening presents around our tree. Tim did have one patient with a rough cut from falling out of a tree and onto a machete ~ but other than that, not too many new patients at the hospital.
After presents, the girls and I went down to the hospital with Julie and gave beanie babies to the children who had to spend their Christmas Day in the hospital - and toy cars to the older boys in the surgery ward.
 |
| This little guy is so small, he isn't much bigger than his beanie baby! |
 |
| This is a little boy who was born with a myelomeningocele. Tim operated on him when he was 2 days old, and the operation went great! |
 |
| As you can see, all the beanie babies found very good homes! |
Later in the day, we all went swimming in Lake Kivu, which was so nice, even if a bit strange to be going swimming on Christmas!
We ended the night with a hamburger cookout with Julie, the night guards at the mission, and our good friends Jeanne and Deste from Congo. What a wonderful meal that was ~ so full of laughter and joy!
Hoping your Christmas was a special one - ours was one we'll always remember, even though we did experience some homesick moments off and on throughout those two days - our hearts now live in two places, and I guess perhaps we will always miss one place or the other wherever we are.
 |
| Two Christmas Beauties |
 |
| Deste and his Aunt, Jeanne, got all dressed up for the dinner! Deste was in his new suit we got him for Christmas - he looked so handsome! |
 |
| The Gang's All Here! |
No comments:
Post a Comment