Last night I had the privilege to celebrate Christmas with the women of the EFC of Mount Morris, our sending church. Boy, do I feel spoiled!
About sixty familiar and unfamiliar faces gathered together to play games, eat, sing, and tear into white elephant gifts. After a game of finding out things like, which person has dressed like Santa Claus, who knows the twelve days of Christmas, and which lady has baked holiday cookies (overachiever), we dug into four different soups~Italian wedding, potato, chili, and one other I can't remember. Desserts followed, with yours truly stealing kettle corn from Marian.
Our second game involved unscrambling various Christmas words like Atsan. Satan or Santa? How about Ckignsto?
With Mary Hilty at the piano, we then sang several carols. Cindy was right, the words of Hark the Herald Angels Sing, contain precious words~"pleased with us in flesh to dwell, Jesus our Emmanuel." Well done, Mr. Wesley!
As our numbers were called, we each chose a white elephant gift from the table. Mine was a metal Christmas tree that leans to the right (intentionally). Other ladies' gifts included candles, a plaque with Christmas toads on it, teapot and cups, candy, and jam. My only regret is that we didn't get to steal from one another. Right, Tonja?
The pastors wives, Katie and Tonja, were then honored for the wonderful women that they are, with special gift baskets. Little did I know that the ladies had collected gifts for me~items that are unavailable in Zambia. Stuffed to overflowing was a basket filled with lotions, soaps, Hidden Valley ranch packets, Crystal Light, real maple syrup, tea towel, candy, and count them, TWELVE, bags of chocolate chips!
It was a great evening with "old" and new friends. Thank you EFC ladies for letting me be a part of your celebration, and for spoiling me!
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