I have had the great joy of attending some studies led by local followers this semester and this season they had a worship and outreach service that I went to. It was an incredible party filled with singing, drama (shown below - it was about the things that stop us from really giving our whole hearts to the Lord - our masks that we put on), a sermon, testimonies, and dinner afterwards. Quite a few people chose to follow that night because of the impact that it made by Father moving in their hearts!
these are the girls that are all roommates at a local university. we had a party on Christmas Eve (Ping An Ye in Chinese) where we shared about Christmas, watched a movie, and gave some special gifts! they were very interested and we are excited about connecting with them again after they return from the winter holiday
after movie-watching, we ended up singing and dancing...and we pretty much went all out - ballet, Jackson's thriller, line dancing, and you better believe it, the Texas 2-step :)
on Christmas day, celebrated with some special friends here in the city. we had a time of worship, advent candles, and prayer. this below is my friend's beautiful tree that was packed-out underneath with all of our gifts to each other
after presents we had a big feast, a celebration of group traditions, and then hung out together the rest of the day playing games and chatting, ending the night with none other than Its a Wonderful Life! this picture is of one of the traditions of giving everyone a pair of leather slippers because leather is a characteristic symbol of some of the local minority people. mine are the red ones...too bad I didn't get the maroon ones :)!
this is a picture of the massive amount of goodies that the winter team brought over for us as gifts! what an incredible blessing!
this one is of me in front of our Christmas tree with the stocking and hat that my mom sent over with the winter team! you can't really tell in the picture but the hat is a chimney with santa's feet sticking out of the top - when the group first gave me the gift, I was thinking that it sure was strange for my mom to send over a cheesy santa decoration to put in my house but when I opened it up, I realized that it was a hat...which while it still was a little cheesy, was much more appreciated because of my love for hats thanks mom! :)
the day after christmas, me and my roommate, Rebecca, had a party at our apartment with some of our Mongolian classmates! we have all become good friends this semester and so this party was real relaxed and we had a really sweet and fun time together! this first one is of us teaching them some christmas songs (please check out the girl on the left....you would never guess that she doesn't know how to play because she has mastered the rocker face!)
some of the girls found my A&M little baseball set that I got as a gift this summer in my room and they wanted to know more about baseball...so then I proceeded to pull out the real gloves and we played a little mini game so that they could learn :)
Father was so gracious to provide a wonderful and blessed holiday season in spite of being away from my family. He also allowed my family and I to continue to celebrate together, even if it wasn't exactly like we would have preferred, but still a joy and a gift from Father. He is so faithful to His children!
how were your holidays spent? what were the highlights?
1 comment:
<3 this post. so good to see how He blessed your holiday season. Love you!
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