Caroling

This Friday afternoon we loaded up three school buses full of people and set out to go caroling. All the staff and their families split up into groups and set out to spread some Christmas cheer. We each had at least one guitar player and we sang our way down the dirt streets, through packs of stray dogs, over streams of flowing sewage, and into some of the poorest neighborhoods and migrant labour camps in the area. We came prepared for the event with bags full of stuffed turtles made by the women at our home church and stuffed by the kids this summer at VBS. We also came to Mexico with many small toys cleaned out of the toy boxes at home, saved for this purpose.

Once Aili and Roman figured out what exactly we were doing they got really into it. Roman was determined to give every person he saw one of those turtles...even the 14 year old gangsters on their bikes. He was so cute. It was their first real experience being in the camps and in these slum type neighborhoods. They have seen and smelled poverty since being here but this was one step closer to it.
I think it was very eye opening for them both. They talked about and processed everything they experienced for hours afterwards.

Some precious little ones getting Christmas gifts from some singing strangers.