The Blessings Keep Rolling In

Have I mentioned lately…God is Good, All the Time! We received a call this week from a family who have become good friends of ours in our community. My friend called me, who works at Delta, and offered us, all of us, buddy passes to travel to Colombia. She issued us 4 for now and said she would give us 2 more when we got the referral (because they have to have the legal names on them of the person traveling). All we have to do is change the tickets with the right travel dates and destinations and pay the international taxes! So each ticket will cost us about $200 instead of $700. She also explained that if something happed we couldn’t use them to travel to Colombia, to use them for a vacation once we have the kids home. Whoohoo! The only negative, which doesn’t worry me at all, is that we will have to fly standby. Now, if God has made prevision for this trip to be funded and to have someone offer us tickets at more than half off, then I can believe that our flights and standby status will be taken care of too.

On a different note, but still positive, mine and Eric’s anniversary is Monday. We will be married for 13 years. Every year Eric says, “Let’s go somewhere for our anniversary” and I always say, “no way, it’s Christmas time and I have so much to do…bad timing.” So this year he got smart! Eric said, “Surprise! I made reservations, you can’t say no!” So we are heading to Niagara Falls this weekend for a nice weekend with just the two of us. He felt we really needed it and we were sure not to go anywhere alone after we bring our Colombians home…smile. So I took a weeks vacation for next week to give me time to prepare for the mass company starting next Friday. Plus the college is closed (I work at a college) the week between Christmas and New Year, so I have 2 ½ weeks off for the holidays! Can you tell I am just a little bit happy?

Now, here is just a bit about Colombia and their Christmas traditions:

Since Colombia is about 90% Roman Catholic, the Christian aspects of Christmas are the most celebrated. The Christmas season in Colombia starts on December 7th when families light candles in honor of the Virgin Mary. The church celebrates the 8th of December as the day of the Immaculate Conception. This is a Colombian National Holiday and a day of Obligation with the church. It is celebrated with a display of lights as each home will light approximately 100 candles on the curb and sidewalk area. City streets and parks are illuminated with large Christmas lights as well.

On December 16th Colombian families typically start setting up the Christmas tree.

From December 16th through December 24th, families usually gather together at night around Nativity scenes to pray and sing carols in the Novena. On Christmas Eve family members and neighbors gather to eat and dance. (Traditional Colombian foods include: Ajiaco - a soup with potatoes, chicken and natilla (like a custard) a dessert and buñuelos (like small elephant ears.) Everyone waits until midnight to wish each other Merry Christmas and to exchange gifts.

I may try to make the natilla for Christmas Eve this year. It depends on how much I get finished throughout the week. Also, there will be two candles in our front windows this season as we await the call to bring our children home.

Many blessings to all of you during this holiday season!