Ok, well I’m still in Managua and although there are Christmas trees and lights going up, and the grocery stores are playing Christmas music, it’s not looking like the type of Christmas I’m used to. For us northerners Christmas means cold weather, tons of houses with tons of Christmas lights, snow if we’re lucky, the same 4 Christmas songs playing in every store and on every radio station, sales, sales, and more sales, Salvation Army Santa’s ringing bells, work Christmas parties, secret Santa gifts, food, fudge, cookies, etc.
I’m amazed at how much of that stuff I didn’t like when I lived in the states, and how much I miss it now and look forward to being surrounded by it for a couple weeks when I get to go to visit my parents and friends in SC this year. And, bonus, there might even be snow!! I have the added privilege of being able to travel with my fiance and introduce him for the first time to my parents, my younger brother, my friends, my church, my grandma, and my country! Oh, and hopefully snow, if there isn’t any in SC we’re going to drive north until we find some!
I’m extremely excited about this trip to the states, but it’s still hard to leave Nicaragua, even for two weeks. I absolutely love it here and God has done such a work in me that I am forever bound to this country, and would be even if I weren’t marrying it’s best man! Yesterday we had our final kids service and final youth service of the year. It was bittersweet.
I’ve shared before about Pastor Antonio and his wife, Yanisela, and how they live in the church and have been, without knowing so, great blessings to me when I had needs. Well for the past few weeks or months Yanisela has been asking for the soda bottle tops from the refreshments that we give to the youth. I’ve gladly given them to her and figured that they must be doing some kind of promotion or that she had a creative art project that she was working on. Last night Yeril and I were sitting at the contact table before youth service like we do every week and she came up to me and said “it’s just a little thing, but this is what I got with all of those bottle tops I’ve been saving” and she gave me this awesome Christmas present:
I absolutely love it! And now Yeril and I have two glasses for after we get married! This awesome Coca-Cola cup with the Coca-Cola Polar Bear which has special meaning for Yeril and I, and the beer mug that has my high school logo on it that I got as a graduation present from the school. We’ll be happily sipping our gasiosa (soda) from tall glasses together sitting in rocking chairs on our front porch, growing old together (that’s assuming we have a front porch and rocking chairs)!
Merry Christmas everyone!!
I’ll be sure to blog about Yeril’s first Christmas in the US. He’s already excited that he won’t have to hear the consistent sound of fireworks and bottle rockets that are typical here in Managua throughout the month of December.
Traveling Katie 