Merry Christmas at East Florence Mission (after Christmas)

Well. Merry Christmas after Christmas!

I just want to say that really and truly I tried to type this post like two weeks ago. But 'tis the season, and the season 'tis busy! It's been crazy, and wonderful. Also, tonight as I start to type this (probably will finish in the morning) I just spent an hour and a half saving pictures and transferring them to my computer for this post, only to realize I did all of that last week. OH Alana.
I want to type a whole long post about my Christmas celebrations, and I will. But first I need to share about ANOTHER Christmas celebration.

Christmas at the East Florence Mission.

It’s a fun night. And this year, I really was kinda put in charge of planning it. We split up the kids, which we normally don't do and did my class on the Tuesday night, and then the older ones Wednesday night.

SO I was in charge of my class Christmas party, I guess you could say.

I was nervous but really excited. I mean it’s the same kids I teach every week but I wanted it to be special.

Specifically because this is their reward! The rule is that you have to come the whole semsester on Tuesday nights, and only miss 3 times. If you miss more than 3 times (excluding sickness/etc) then you can’t come to our Christmas night, and you don’t receive a present.

And to some of them, this IS their Christmas present. Most receive something from their parents, or an aunt or grandma. But there are a couple that I really am not sure if they got anything Christmas day.

So back to what I was saying, it was a special night. 

Everything was decorated. It looked absolutely beautiful. I tried to go over there the other day, to take pictures of all the decorations before they were taken down.. but I was too late! Some elves must've come and taken them down because they were all gone. However, the tree in my classroom was still up. So I'm gonna share a picture of it. Also, it was probably my favorite tree, since my kids decorated it by themselves. 

Notice that some spots are more ornament heavy than others. There's some random ribbon. And someone tied the bow at the top. But oh they were SO proud of "their" tree. Which is why I just love it.

Going back to the Christmas night though, I planned a few games, a craft, and a fun treat. 

First we did a craft I found off of Pinterest (seriously love me some pinterest).

I should've taken pictures of them doing it, but of course I forgot. But I did get some of them from afterwards, when they were drying. 

So basically it was just a print out nativity scene that they colored, and then they glued popsicle sticks around it to make a stable. It was pretty cute. I was pleased with how much they enjoyed making them.

Then we played two games. Both off of pinterest, because pinterest is just a wonderful place to find games, as well as crafts. 

The first was just a "snowball toss" using tissue paper and seeing which team could throw the most pieces into their respective baskets. I naturally forgot to take a picture of that game entirely, but they had fun playing it!

The second game was my favorite. Each team had a glove (yes, one glove, I totally didn't think about the fact that I should've brought two pairs…) and a scarf, and they ran from one side of the room to the other with a wrapped present in their hand. They LOVED this game. It was so neat for me to watch them cheering on their teammates and trying to win. I did take pictures of this one, so let me share a few.

This little girl is absolutely adorable. She is so sweet and tiny and just cute. And she won for her team! 

Cheering on their teams

He's funny, but AJ in the back clapping his hands is why I put this up. He has a hard time well, encouraging others. So I was so proud of him for cheering him on his friends.

After we played several games, we did the favorite activity of the night. 

Decorating sugar cookies. They had a really really fun time decorating them. 

So basically what we did was that we had about 30 pre-made sugar cookies, and then we set out like small cups full of your typical canned vanilla frosting. We gave them each a spoon and then set out a variety of sprinkles on the table. They got to decorate their cookie with their icing by themselves and then they all pretty much dumped sprinkles all over it. And they thought it was the best thing in the world. It made my heart so happy to see them so excited.

This picture shows the aftermath of sprinkles pretty well. It was like this on about 3 tables, all the way down. And event hough most of the time I'm really all about having control, letting them do this and create a mess was totally worth it. 

I asked him to smile while he was holding his cookie. This is what he did. He's a cute kid.

Alright before I go any farther, I need to explain a couple things. We had a very sweet lady donate some money to us to buy toys for our kids. It really meant a LOT to me, and of course I still have yet to write her a thank you note.. but it really was huge. She knew about EFM.. through my blog. It hit me that PEOPLE ARE ACTUALLY READING THIS BLOG. It was like a mind blowing moment. I am sharing about my favorite kids in the world and people are reading about it. Anyways.. so we had already bought the "big" presents for my class. But I headed over to Toys R Us and ended up buying a ton of smaller "stocking stuffer" type things and I literally stuffed stockings, 13 girls and 12 boys worth of stockings. 

This was my cart at Toys R Us. I mean really though. It was 24 of this, or 12 of that. I enjoyed watching people's faces as I just put carton after carton of crayons and play dough in my cart.

So then I had some sweet friends of mine come over and help me stuff the stockings. The finished stockings for the girls had play dough, crayons, a bracelet making kit, sunglasses, and a pack of stickers. The boys had play dough, crayons, toy airplanes (that flew great.. we definitely tried them out), a toy car, and a toy dinosaur. I ended up having money left over and so I used that to buy some board games we will enjoy using before and after class on Tuesdays. 

So back to the original point of this post. After cookie decorating, it was time to give out presents and take the first load of kids home. I was passing out presents and didn't think about the fact that maybe I should take pictures of them…. So I got this one of some of them halfway to the bus. Does that count?

It's safe to say that they all LOVED their presents. As far as my class goes, the girls all received the doll  heads that have really long hair that you can brush and style. If you've ever visited on a tuesday night, you will understand that this was an awesome present. The boys got these really cool remote controlled robots. And then they all got stockings. They also received some other small things in their bag with their big present, like slinkies.. pencils.. etc. 

It was a great night. To everyone that helped make that possible, whether it be donating money, giving your old decorations, or being there.. THANK YOU. My 25 kids had a really really great night. I wish I could express the way that being there makes me feel. But I can't. Because truly it is an awesome experience. 

I went over to EFM to do some stuff last week, and someone had written this on my board. 

I don't know who did it. But it hit me, in that moment, this is why I do this. This is why I come every Tuesday, this is why I stay up late preparing silly crafts, this is why I can't get these kids out of my head. It is because HE loves us, and I love Him. There are so many awesome serving opportunities in the world right now. There are so many hurting people, people who need help. And yet, God has seen fit that I should go over to a little place LESS THAN TWO MILES from my house, and minister to 25 children every week. It blows my mind every time I think about it. This season for me was full of business, full of fun, full of family and friends. It was also full of joy because I knew that I have made some kind of impact on at least one of my 25. 

In Matthew 5:14-16, one of my favorite passages of scripture, Jesus talks about being the light of the earth. 

"You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.  Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house.  In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven."

God has allowed me to shine His light in a variety of ways at and about EFM these past four years, and particularly this last semester. I just have this crazy feeling that this spring is going to be incredible over there. He is doing some awesome things. 

 If you've never read my blog before, or you just started, you should definitely go read some of my old posts about EFM. I'll put the links here.

The first one is just about EFM: http://hispurposenotmyplans.blogspot.com/2014/08/east-florence-mission.html

This one was just a update about the first week: http://hispurposenotmyplans.blogspot.com/2014/09/efm-week-1.html

This one is a tour of my classroom: http://hispurposenotmyplans.blogspot.com/2014/10/teacherstatus.html

And then this one just talked a little about Christmas at EFM: http://hispurposenotmyplans.blogspot.com/2014/12/dad-jess-and-christmas-at-efm.html

On a closing note, can I ask you to pray for some things in 2015?

Please pray for God to continue to work in the hearts of my kids as well as the older kids.  I wish I could name all their names, but for Joshua and Aaliyah, Camille, Jay'shawn, Glenn, Kamyia, and so so many more. Pray that He will work in them this semester. Pray that they all will know that we at EFM love them SO SO much. Please pray for all the "staff" at EFM, for the Key's (Charlie and Marilyn) who run the Mission, for George our janitor, for the sweet people who serve dinner every Tuesday, for Dee and Dan Temple who help to teach my class, and for me.. please pray that we will able to share what God wants us to share the rest of this year. Also please pray that we will all remain healthy. We've all been plagued with sickness and it's just not a good thing for anyone. Please pray that we will have all our needs met for the year, financial wise as well as volunteer wise. Please just pray that we will do God's will. 

Specifically… here's the big deal.. I am leaving in the fall. I will most definitely leave a huge piece of my heart at EFM. But we're gonna need someone to take my class. Charlie and Marilyn have their hands full with the older ones, and while I do have help, we really need someone who is able to be their on a weekly basis. When I begin to think about leaving I really start to cry, no joke, but I would feel so much better knowing that someone would be there to pick up where I leave off. Will you please pray that someone will feel led by God to take over my class next year? I will not sugar coat it, or lie. This is not the easiest volunteer job, nor is it always the most fun. But it is amazingly rewarding. I consider it a complete privilege to have seen some of these kids grow up for the past four years. PLEASE PLEASE pray for me as I already struggle with leaving, and that we will find someone to take my place. 

If you like kids and wanna come see what we do, please message me or call me. Anyone, any age. We would LOVE to have more friends come. 

With all that being said,  I have the utmost confidence that God is going to do some absolutely INCREDIBLE things at East Florence Mission this year. I just have this feeling that 2015 is going to be a wonderful year for them. 

And with that, I'd like to end with this picture of a coloring page that one of my kids did. I did explain that Jesus was born in a stable, not in a castle like a prince and he didn't have any fancy clothes or jewels.  It's just a really sparkly baby Jesus. 

Thanks for reading. I'm officially finishing this blog post about a week after I started. Merry Christmas, after Christmas everyone.