Unexpected Guests to Decorate Our Tree

Sulmi and I agreed that Sunday afternoon would be a good time to put together our Christmas tree and decorate it.  They don't have cut trees here in Belize so we have always had one that comes in a box with branches labeled and color-coded to match the proper hole.  The whole experience is of amazing transformation because it looks pretty scruffy in the beginning. It's just a bare metal pole with evenly spaced green plastic circular rivets. Positively ugly, actually, but by bending a few of the branches and adding lights and ornaments it becomes eye-catchingly beautiful. It's a fast transformation, too.  These days when I'm praying for faster, permanent, holy transformation, tree decorating is comparatively very rewarding.

Manuel texting or
checking the internet or both

Well our "just us" plan became just us plus Manuel  He didn't have anyone to eat with and we invited him back to our house after church. When he stayed to use the internet, I sent Sulmi to invite Kristel to come help us decorate.  


We were just opening the box and laying the number 3's on one chair and number 4's on another when Juan and Angelica came to the gate.  Juan was offering to help me get rid of the huge leaf cutter ant colony that I have in the back yard.  We put that off for another day but I invited them in to join the growing decorating "party".  What fun!   With six of us, the tree went up very quickly and created a great memory of the day.

Gabriel likes to be in the middle of any gathering.

After the tree was finished, Juan asked to see the old photo albums that I made the first two years I was  in Belize (2005-2007).  It was fun to reminisce about friends in the photos.  Some used to live in OW but have moved away.  Many others are still with us but have become much older.  We laughed and laughed about how cute the now 15 and 16 year olds looked way back when they were 6 and 7.

















I thank God for blessing us with this Deaf community and Christian friends who just drop in now and then.

Note: A big thank you to Kristel for being the photographer!