Christmas in BRAZIL!

This year I celebrated Christmas with my Youth With A Mission family here at the Light House Community Center!  Enjoy photos of our special lunch on Christmas day!

My two Brazilian friends preparing some yummy food!

A family from England serves here at the Light House 

with us!  Here is a photo of Felipe with the men from this family.   It was so nice to celebrate Christmas with a family with children!

(Josiah, Felipe, Gideon-being silly, and Dave)

Gideon snuggling with Lady before lunch!

The table, set up nicely and me preparing a special salad in the background. 

Cool table shot...

My beautiful and fruity salad!  It had strawberries, apples, raisins, walnuts, and two different types of lettuce!  

Notice the Christmas tablecloth!  Our table of food beginning to fill up!

We even had TURKEY!!!!  This is not a common meat to eat in Brazil!  Dave had the special honors of carving the turkey.

Everyone getting ready to pray and eat!  We celebrated with an international mix of the following nations; Brazil, United States, Holland, South Africa, New Zealand, and England!

Beckie, my friend from England and her son Gideon enjoying Christmas together!  It was so fun to celebrate with her kids!

Having fun playing with spoons!  We all started playing with spoons after our Christmas meal.  Josiah started with just 2 spoons, but soon managed to have more hanging off his face!

Playing the Christmas present game- white elephant in Dave and Beckie's house!  They had Christmas decorations and a nice tree so it was really a special treat to celebrate as a team there!

After opening gifts, a white dove got trapped in Dave and Beckie's home!  Gideon saved the day and rescued it. Pretty cool!

Felipe and I on Christmas Eve all dressed up, riding the bus to visit his family!

MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

END of the YEAR - OPEN HOUSE PARTY!

To celebrate all the kids groups and soccer groups coming to an end, we as a staff threw a big end of  the year event here at the LIGHT HOUSE Community Center.  It was a RAINY day, but the kids had a blast! 

Felipe welcoming the kids and explaining the various options of all the FUN stuff the kids could choose to do during this OPEN HOUSE day!  We offered many different types of games and fun activities.

Here is one of the girls who participates in my morning girls group.  She dressed up SO NICE for our party!  We were all a bit surprised and many people asked, "Why is she so dressed up?"  She just wanted to be!  Isn't she beautiful?

In the classroom I played hang man with Valeria from my afternoon girls group.  I first wrote a message saying, "I love Valeria a lot!"

  Then she wrote the same message back to me, "I love Laura a lot!"  Read it below in Portuguese!

Swimming in the Rain, Just Swimming in the Rain...

I have never seen the Light House pool SO FULL of kids!  The children LOVED swimming in the rain!  It was actually a little chilly too, but it did not phase them one bit!  The pool was FULL! 

COTTON CANDY!!!  Each child received a FREE cotton candy!

Waiting patiently in line for a cotton candy treat!

Checkers in Brazil!  Great rainy day game!

PLAYDOH!   PLAYDOH!  PLAYDOH!

Many of the children from the slum have NEVER had the opportunity to play with PLAYDOH.  I received several boxes full of playdoh, sent to me by my parents church (Bethesda Presbyterian Church located in York, SC).  Thank you for the donations!!! The kids have LOVED playing with the playdoh, and it is a great rainy day activity!

We were AMAZED at how the big, tough boys reacted 

to the PLAYDOH! They loved it! 

 It was great to see them enjoying and playing and being kids!  Usually kids get playing with playdoh out of their system at a young age, yet these boys have never had the opportunity to really play with playdoh... Here they have arrived at 10, 11, 12 years of age and are loving every moment of playing with playdoh!  I think that the boys spent MUCH more time at this activity station than the girls.

Concentrating and mesmorized by the COOLNESS of PLAYDOH!

I love it!

At the end of the day, kids were heading home in the rain!  Now that the rainy season is here, it RAINS and RAINS and RAINS for days on end.  Although it was  rainy day, we still had fun and the kids thoroughly enjoyed our end of the year event!

My GIRLS of GREAT WORTH and VALUE!

I just officially ended my girls groups here at the Light House Community Center!  We finshed the year with fun activities and a BIG party which focused on celebrating the GREAT WORTH and VALUE that each girl in our group has!

Enjoy the photos below!

At our party, each girl had the opportunity to sit on a special throne and be crowned as a princess - a precious daughter of GOD!

Beautiful PRINCESS CAROL!

Singing, dancing, and worshipping the Lord with my girls!!!

Dancing FREELY!!!

My girls giving me a BIG GROUP HUG!!!

I love this photo! 

One of the girls who has really touched my life this year.  She has a special life!

I love to see her smile!