Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Hope You Had a Nice Christmas!

We had a very nice Christmas yesterday at the van der Merwe's farm.  All the missionaries were here except for Uncle Piet and Aunt Hester.  (They are in George {Eastern Cape} visiting their children.)  We got here about 10:30am.  I think everyone else was already here.  The ladies worked on getting food ready, and the guys sat around, talked,  and played with the children.  We had a DELICIOUS lunch of mostly cold foods.  There was ham, turkey, meat balls, tossed salad, a bean casserole, fruit salad, maccaroni salad, peach jello salad, trifle, pecan pie, fudge, rocky road fudge bars, cookies, cheese ball etc. etc.  We're so glad for our "family" here! 

After lunch we rested, visited, and played with the children.  Around 6:00pm we opened presents.  Steph gave everyone strawberry bread, lemon cranberry bread, cookies, etc.  Kaitlyn got a doll and a toy baby stroller.  I can't remember what Micah got, but Issac got a kite.  He and his dad flew it a little even in the dark. 

People snacked for supper, and we visited until about 10:00pm We spent the night here at the farm and are having a relaxing morning.  I'm writing a few e-mails, and getting this ready to send.  Steph has been helping around the kitchen, but I think everything is pretty much done. 

The Christmas Conference in Lesotho went well.  This was the first year that we had the youth conference at Christmas time.  I think by Sunday morning there were around 100 youth.  I think in the past attendance has been a little higher than that, but I suppose some couldn't come because of family obligations, etc.

The new tabernacle was a great blessing because it rained quite a bit Saturday and Sunday.  The place where we normally pitch the tent was very wet and soggy.  It looks like all the hard work digging drainage ditches paid off.  The tabernacle was dry, and there was plenty of room for people to relax and visit between services.

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