It's already the fourth day of December, we have only four more days of classes for this term and in 10 days we leave to spend 2 weeks in Kentucky with family and friends! We are so looking forward to some "down time", especially for our brains, even though we'll need to keep practicing so as to not lose any ground with learning Spanish so we can come back and be able to finish our last term well.
As promised, here is an update following Roblealto Christian children's home party we helped sponsor at our school last week. The rain and cool temps didn't dampen the spirits of the children, or the staff and students of our language school one bit! The gym, festively decorated with a manger scene, a Christmas tree and several piñatas filled with dulces (candies), was definitely full of 130 Robleato children excited to be there! 
They very attentively listened and watched as children of missionaries from our school presented a Christmas play, and then enjoyed a meal of hotdogs, chips, and juice boxes, played games at various booths, took turns at breaking the piñatas, and last but not least got to open their Christmas gifts!
Each of us did our best to get them the item they had requested so there were a lot of happy and excited children and lots of soccer balls! I was blessed to be able to see 2 of the 3 little boys for whom we bought gifts, open them and they grinned from ear to ear, while my eyes filled with tears of joy for them. You can see us with them in the pictures. One of them had asked for a baseball glove and let me just say they're almost non-existent in Costa Rica! After a day of seven hours of shopping, walking from one side of downtown San Jose to the other ( a very long walk) and 4 bus rides later, finally finding one was totally worth it!
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| Remote control car |
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| Baseball and glove |
These beautiful children have very little and look forward to this party all year. My heart just melted as they were leaving and some of them ran into my arms and gave me hugs and said "gracias."
For this night, they got to be kids just having fun; not thinking about family issues or past abuse or that their parents just couldn't provide for their basic needs. I pray that the love of Christ they were shown will make a lasting impact on their lives and that each will become a part of His family one day. I know they made a lasting imprint on my heart!
~ Beverly
P.S. Sorry about the picture quality. I'm not computer savvy enough to know how to "fix" them. The lights in the gym caused the "green" tint.
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| Pin the tail on the CAMEL! |
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| Sweet little boy... |
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| They loved face painting! |
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| Beautiful little souls hearing about how much Jesus loves them |
