Holiday Season in the Finca
Merry Merry Christmas and Happy New Year all! I hope your celebrations were full of love and joy as Our Savior was humbly born. December was a busy month for us missionaries preparing for the festivities and all but we for sure made time for beach days and fun adventures!
We started off the month with a bang with 3 of our kids, Tia Krisian, and Teddy getting confirmed by Monseñor Henry Ruíz! It was a beautiful mass and we had a nice dinner and a piñata for the kids to follow.
To continue on, we prepared our home and hearts for the Advent season by decorating while drinking hot chocolate, eating cookies, and jamming to some classic Christmas songs! It felt so homey I could almost feel the cold weather from Minnesota :)
Holiday Celebrations!
Christmas is the biggest day of the year and is the source of probably every kid’s favorite memories here at the Finca. 9 days before Christmas we began the “Posadas” which translates to “inn”. We begin 9 days before Christmas symbolizing the 9 months of Mary’s pregnancy. A posada consists of 2 people (often the kids, but sometimes tias or missionaries) dressing up as Mary and Joseph and processing to 3 houses within the Finca. The rest of us walk behind the two of them while singing hymns. The first two houses turn them away but the third house welcomes them with great joy and singing. Next, once the jumping and singing is finished, the daily Gospel is read, a prayer is prayed, and then the kiddos favorite part - the snack is eaten! Some of the snacks were donuts, pastelitos, ice cream, and variety of juices. My favorite part of this tradition was being able to enter into the Gospel scene with Mary and Joseph. All of the Finca praying in this way made me appreciate the familial union we have here.
We celebrated on Christmas Eve beginning with a 5 pm mass and then the party to follow. The festivites began with a delicious pork dinner followed by a competetive game of bingo. Next, was the talent show. Every missionary prepared an act with one of the houses and then performed it. I was assigned to the oldest girls (12-15 years old) and we danced to ‘‘You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch’’. Other performances were mostly dances but the Sors sang a song as well as the Tias. Following the performances, Santa came to town! Teddy dressed as Santa and we had a gift prepared for every child and employee. Santa called up everyone indivually for a picture and to recieve their present. Every child ran up beaming with excitement except for Enoc (3 years old), who was inconsolably crying of fear. Next, we ate cake and drank coffee to keep us awake for the remaining activies. Then, we had minute to win it games and next, we blasted some music and danced! Finally, the night ended with a beautiful prayer in the church. It lasted about 30 minutes and then all the houses went off to bed. Only us missionaries remained in the church in silence before our beautiful nativity scene. No words were said but such joy and peace overwhelmed our hearts in that moment.
The New Year’s Eve party was very similar to the Christmas Eve party only instead of Santa coming, we prepared a scavenger hunt for the kids. We also ended the night with fireworks. We have some pyromaniacs on our hands here (yes the kids, but I am mostly talking about the security guards)!
Random Joys
Small Mission Outside of the Finca
Theresa and I have been a part of women’s group since we first arrived. We meet every wednesday for 1-2 hours to chat, read the Gospel, and simply share in the life here. Pictured here is when Theresa and I had the women over for a Wednesday afternoon this month. We had some cake and coffee to really embrace the Christmas season. It is a great joy to be able to get to know each and every one of them. Doña Josefina (red shirt and pink skirt), I am particularly close with and she is such a motherly prescence here. I have also learned a lot from the way she holds herself with openness and joy. Regardless of how she is feeling, she always welcomes me with a warm embrace and listening ear.
This month was full of a lot of joy, exhauastion, and also laughter. A little bit of everything! Next month, school begins and Theresa and Teddy will be stepping into their teaching roles - please pray for them! I am excited for a little bit of normalcy and consistency in the schedulue after the chaos of this month. Please continue to pray for our mission here and I am praying for you as well. God bless!
