Friday, December 18, 2009

First Annual Team Christmas Party

Our Food Table

John Mark and Mark boxing with the Wii

Mark is actually sweating I think :)

Last night we had our first Christmas party as a team (though we missed the Yoakems because Stacy had the stomach bug :( ) It pretty much consisted of a lot of food, a Christmas movie for the kids, a feable attempt at going caroling on our street and some surprise visits from some Peruvians.

I haven't quite gotten used to the fact that dinner or any other activities start around 8pm here. Restaurants really don't even open till 7pm, it's wild (ok, I guess I'm sounding really old now.) Anyway, we gringos started our party at 5 and we told everyone we would be done at 8pm. A guy showed up that night to talk to one of our teammates that was at our house and this is the guy that got us all of our visas (so we pretty much owe him our lives, haha) and we invited him to stay. He said he needed to go home and ask his wife (smart guy ah?) and he showed back up at 7:45 with his wife Lady (I don't know the spelling here but that's her name.) Around 8:30 another guy showed up that Lee and I met at a furniture place and who has played soccer with Lee and he stayed over until about 10:45. We had so much fun with our team and then it ended perfectly with us getting to know our Peruvian friends better.

We are having that same couple over on Wed. night for dinner and were really excited about getting to know them. They work with a pretty large church here, he's a lawyer and she works for a bank (he has been a tremendous asset to our team in EVERY sense of the word.)
Tomorrow night we are having Regis and Luz over (a sweet couple that own a photo shop down our street.) They love the kids and have already taken a small grandparent role for them (don't worry Mimi, Pawpaw, Nana & Soso, you're not being replaced.) It's been pretty easy meeting people with our 3 kids. We are like phenomenons here because first of all they never take newborns out in public till their around 3 months old and second of all everyone here has normally one child or two at the most, NOT 3! So we get stopped everywhere and are told "you need socks on your kids, the baby is cold, he needs to eat, etc.." They are so free with advice here its great.

Ok, so I totally went off on a tangent sorry!

Please be looking out next week for a FUNNY post entitled "Things I Didn't Know About Peru!!!" It will include a lot of pictures, you DON'T want to miss it (this one is for you Ann, love you girl.)

Hope you all have an amazing Christmas! Oh and a friend of mine wrote me an email and I wanted to share something she said: Do you ever stop and ask yourself what Jesus would have wanted for his birthday celebration? Do you think he would have wanted mega stress, going broke for the best gifts, 6 parties you don't really want to be at and yelling at family members because the food wasn't up to par?

Ummmm? Just made me think. Even in a third world country people go NUTS over Christmas.

4 comments:

Summer said...

So glad you had a great party! I loved getting to chat yesterday. Love you, Steph!

Unknown said...

Sounds like a blast! Wish I could have been there.;) We're having a big time here in Ozona. Everyone's been asking about you guys. Luvs!

Anonymous said...

So, so fun. We miss you guys but are so glad you're relishing time with teammates and new friends. :)

Ann said...

Can't wait for "my" post! I'm so excited!!