Merry Christmas!!!

It's been so long since I have updated this... so sorry and so much has been going on!

Just before Christmas, I stayed up at the Fridsro Children's Home in Bokavala. It is about 45 minutes outside of Kandy and in the most beautiful countryside. The head maitron of the home, Luxmi, walked me around the complex and I got 2 leeches on my feet. That was a first in life! I screamed and pulled them off before they had a chance to suck away. Eek! Luxmi showed me all of the dorms for the children at the home and I cant describe the feeling in my heart. Having lost my own mother at a young age, I know the feeling of losing someone special and non-replaceable, but I was blessed to have a wonderful father to grow up with and a beautiful home and school. These kids have so little and Frisdro is giving so much to them so that can live a normal life one day. There were two new boys who had recently come to the home in the last month. They were 1 1/2 and 3. Pathum is the name of the 1 1/2 year old. SO CUTE!!! I didn't hear their entire story but it was something like their mother is 19 and the father left, and she has absolutely no money to raise the children. None of us would ever be in that position.

Luxmi also showed me the home for 3 mentally disabled people who have grown up at the home: Barti, Rosy and Bella. Bella was sexually abused as a child so now at 30 years old, she isn't all there completely. She was so in love with me and kept holding on to me and holding my hand. She didn't want me to leave. :( She says that Julie is her best friend. :)

We also visited the elders home which has 3 elders. I attached a picture of Achi knitting. She sells handmade lace for 10 rupees a metre, which is 10 cents a metre.

Fridsro is truly amazing. The word 'fridsro' means peace in Swedish. The complex is gigantic with so many facilities. If anyone wants to read Anna Greta's story and the history of everything, I have the book which you may borrow.

I was also asked to judge, alongside Maria visiting from Sweden, the dorms' nativity scene competition! This was fun! They had to use no money and use objects from nature to construct the scene. These adorable little boys won - their prize was a bike for their dorm! I also had to judge the staff workers' scenes which involved walking through the jungle to their homes. For those of you who know me, and how much I hate snakes and any large animal, this was a massive challenge for me! I was so nervous. I had already seen those 2 six foot rat snakes dancing together in Julie's front yard! I didnt need to see more. But it turned out that the walk was animal free and I really enjoyed visiting the homes and felt so unworthy to be there. The homes would always offer sweets and tea. One home offered me a cold drink made from water which I really did not want to drink, but I knew if I refused it, that it would offend them. So I said to God, "If I'm going to drink this, you better not let me get sick." And I didn't get sick! :)

That night I had to go through all the names of the children (74) and make sure that they each had a stocking for candy. The stockings all had names written on them, but we had to cross out with a pen the old names, and write new ones for some cases. And, they were all spelled in different ways because it's difficult to translate from Sinhala to English. This probably sounds like a simple job but it actually took 3 hours. But by the time I was finished, I had memorized all their names. And then in the morning, when the kids were playing, they'd yell out names and I could remember where they were on the list. It was cool! I keep thinking that I will bring the list of names home and we can divide up their names amongst our family to pray for each of the kids as they grow up.

Christmas Eve, Jake's back went out. So he had to stay at home with Julie and the baby, while the rest of us went up to Bokavala to celebrate Christmas. Fridsro celebrates Christmas on the 24th as Sweden does. First, they had a little celebration to honor the staff, some of which have been with Fridsro for over 20 years, then we had Christmas lunch. Curries, rices, salads, yum yum and George Michael singing 'Last Christmas, I gave you my heart...' super loud on speakers!! :) After lunch, we went back to the chapel to wait for Father Christmas!!! The kids all had to stay seated with a pile of gifts under the tree while the 3 Santas danced with the kids and passed them their gifts. The kids had made gift requests before so they got what they wanted along with the toys Paula had sent over. It was so cute to see the kids go up to the Santas to receive their toys... I started crying.

On the way home, Rajiv, Jade, Asia and I yelled out Merry Christmas to every kid we saw along the way. It was so funny! Many smiles along the way!!!

Christmas Day, we woke up early to make the turkey which we had picked up in Colombo. This frozen 19 pound turkey was from Minnesota...too funny. Rajiv, Julie and I made stuffing from scratch and it turned out so yummy. I even carved it, which I've never done. The Swedes brought their Christmas treats: Christmas omelette, pickled herring, weird cheeses in tube, Swedish cookies.... and tea and coffee. I think there were about 30 of us: tons of Swedes, a few Americans, 1 Dutch guy named Piet (craziest guy ever), 4 South Africans...

It was a lovely Christmas.... warm but lovely.

The next morning, the whole crew, most of the local missionaries who are friends with the Perera's, left for Colombo and the beach for a week of holiday. In Colombo, we ate fun fancy food, went dancing, got the most amazing foot massages at Dr Scholl's shop, more lemon meringue pie, played pool and went to Odel's (the Nordstom's of Colombo). Everyone in Colombo visits Odel's. I got Auntie Gerilyn a birthday present from there!!! Hee hee hee!!!