Christmas Eve in Mazatlan

In the morning Lydia, I and Raquel’s (a friend of Lydia’s) 2 daughters set off for Stone Island loaded with Christmas presents and food bags for some extremely poor families. All 4 of us were very excited to be playing Santa to these children that were not expecting us. We had to conceal our treasures in back packs and black plastic bags otherwise every child on the Island would have been at our heels. Our first stop was Dona Sofia (that older lady that is slowly going deaf and blind) we gave her a food bag and a nice thick blanket, she had commented the week before that she was always cold and when we would hug her she always commented on how warm we were, and how she liked holding our hands when we prayed for her because they were so warm. She is such a sweet sweet lady (picture above). From there we headed over to a lady that has 2 boys with Muscular Dystrophy (MD) we dropped off blankets and some toys and children’s Bible story books. Off too Chuy’s house from there, Chuy also has MD but is still able to walk as long as someone holds onto him, he is such a cutie and such a sweet heart...he is so calm, polite, gentle and always with such a smiley face. We dropped off blankets, toys and again a Children’s bible story book which seemed to impress him the most; he keep commenting that it was new, these kids are used to always having to made due with other people’s hand me downs, getting something new is fairly special to them. As we made about 6 more deliveries like this the 4 of us kept commenting on how this was the best Christmas ever for us and how we are so fortunate to be able to do something like this....on the boat ride home my heart felt much lighter leaving the Island this time, I did however wish that I could have shared this with my family and friends at home.
Candlelight Service and a Christmas Eve Dinner
At 6:00 pm I went to the candlelight service at the Vina Church, the service was wonderful, music was awesome and Praise God the church filled up completely.
After the service Lydia and I were invited to Chalize’s house for their family Christmas supper, which is about 7 doors down from us. Chalize and her husband are elders in the Spanish Vina church and their whole family is very involved in all church activities. The party was rather lively with quite a few kids, and laughing singing teenagers, and of course music. Then the Piñata came out for the kids and it got really lively, and then the piñata for the adults came out and then it got out of control...pretty much. The food was awesome, turkey, Mexican mashed potatoes (different than ours) 2 different kinds of shrimp, some mixture made with hamburger, carrots, green pepper, walnuts, almonds and prunes, in a tomato based sauce...very different but very good, Chalize promised to teach me how to make it. Once again I was very frustrated at my lack of Spanish; I had to follow Lydia around like a puppy because I always needed her to help me communicate. Other than that is an awesome night, the party was far from over when we walked home at 10:00.