Whenever I think of Christmas, I think of warmth, candle lit church services, family, traditions, and of course great food. However, I don't think of Asia, schools, karaoke, the beach, or Pad Thai. But now I do.
On Christmas Eve, we had the day off. We were planning on going to go to the Cambodia border and possibly into the country for a big market. But that plan changed, so we went to another province in Thailand and ate Mcdonalds, drank Starbucks, and went to the ocean. We were out swimming and saw a man with a boat and behind with a banana boat. And you better believe we got on that banana boat, screamed, laughed, and fell off a couple times. It was the most fun a lot of us had had in a while we said. Until Christmas that is….
On Christmas we woke up, opened cards our original squad leader, Ashely (who is in the US now) left us. Then we all exchanged our own gifts. Then we headed out to our first school Christmas program. The first school was the same school we had English camp at a few times and also taught at for a few days. There was around 800 kids. We played games, sang Christmas songs, played "How He Loves", and the Pastor shared the Christmas story. Personally, I was a little discouraged because it didn't look the exact way I thought it would. We had other plans that didn't work out. And the kids just didn't seem as interested as I hoped. But when we got to the second school it was completley different. All of the kids had smiles on their faces and little Christmas hats on and they were doing karaoke. It was just a room full of joy and laughter and fun. We were also able to play games and just love on the kids and dance with them and hug them. That's when a lot of us said that is the most fun we have had in a while…..
After that we had a Christmas service at the pastor's son's church. I was able to Skype my family once we were finished and I thought it would make me sad or jealous but really I wasn't. I'm glad that I got to experience Christmas the way that I did. Giving. Honestly, I focused more on the Christian aspects of Christmas. You know the "reason for the season" and all that. I really did think about it more and was able to be thankful that God gave me this trip and life!
Of course, it wasn't what I always had in my mind as "Christmas". But there are a lot of things that we think will look different than they actually do. I never had the slightest thought in my mind that I would be moving to Honduras next year, but God changes things. He changes our thoughts, desires, and plans. Plans change. Simple as that.
