Category Archives: Holiday

Becca’s 9th Birthday Party (2018)

Becca, Holiday

Becca made a huge clown pinata. We were planning just to have a round balloon shaped pinata, but somehow it evolved into a clown and we were both very pleased with it. Becca requested a horse brownie cake.

 

We played pin the tail-on-the-horse, did the pinata, sang our Khmer Bible verse songs, and had cake. Our friends brought stuff to face paint and were kept busy the entire party painting kids’ faces or arms. We’re so thankful that the Hodgsons could come. They were a big help with the party and with Clara (Ezra slept through the entire party).

The pictures to the right and left are of our friends from our church.

The best part of the day was Becca’s delight at the end of the day. She was so happy with how everything turned out and that was the best present for me!

Holy Week 2018

Holiday

We enjoyed celebrating Holy Week this year. It was very similar to last’s years celebration, except I took less pictures. We really enjoyed reading though Piper’s Lenten Lights each night. You start out the day before Palm Sunday with seven candles and blow out a successive one each night until the last one is blown out on Good Friday. Then on Easter you relight all the candles. The visual element makes the readings more meaningful.

Palm Sunday we decorated our Resurrection Tree and reenacted the story of Palm Sunday. The tree is just a dead branch Becca chose from outside. The ornaments are all handmade.

Monday we reenacted the story of Jesus clearing the Temple. We also started our Resurrection Countdown Calendar, which had a extra treat for each day counting down to Easter.

Wednesday we had a family outing and went to Ban Lung and spent several hours and a pool that has watersides. It’s one of the nicest pools we’ve been to for little kids, since there are two large shallow areas for children  and three different sets of slides varying in height.

Thursday we had a Maundy Thursday service, with feet washing and a reenactment of the Last Supper. Friday we had a Good Friday service with readings and singing.

Saturday was craft day and an Easter egg hunt. Clara was especially excited about finding eggs, it was adorable. I’m so thankful for the plastic eggs we got when in Bangkok when Clara was born.

Sunday afternoon we visited a young widow who recently lost her unsaved father. Nee is one of the people who is training to work on the Jarai Bible translation. After we returned, we had a dinner of buffalo roast, mashed potatoes, salad, and bread. Then we reenacted the Easter story and watched a few clips of the resurrection from different movie. Then we exchanged gifts. The kids are always so pleased with their gifts and with giving gifts. Afterwards we had apple pie and did our last Lenten Lights reading.

Thankful for the Holy Week we were able to have – thankful that our lives are changed because Jesus is Alive!

Christmas 2017 (pt. 2)

Amy, Cambodian Adventures, Holiday

Sunday, December 24th, was a very full day for our family. It was the day our Jarai church held their special Christmas service and the day we had a special Christmas Bible Club in the afternoon.

 

The day before we bought our kids Khmer school uniforms, which is what children usually wear to dress up for church. Our kids were so excited that morning to put on their new clothes. Some said they had never before been excited to go to church, but THIS Sunday they said they couldn’t wait to get to church. They were so cute and it made this mama’s heart so happy.

For a few weeks I’d been working with the children and junior high to prepare a Christmas program. Unfortunately the accident interfered with my rehearsals and it wasn’t all I had planned it to be – but it was fine. The children sang the gospel with tunes I`d composed for Bible verses (Genesis 1:1, Exodus 20:2, Romans 3:23, Romans 5:8, and another original song I wrote). Afterwards the junior high and some youth read and acted out the Christmas story. Several other groups sang for the service and Josh preached. After the service we had a meal together. Many unbelievers came from the village to the service.

We bought 10 pieces of candy for each kid at church. The kids helped me fill all the bags with the different kinds of candies. We did over 100 bags.

We got home and had a short while to prepare for Bible Club. First we played games outside, then we had the kids come in our house (we usually meet out on the porch) so they could see the Christmas tree. Josh finished telling the Christmas story (he’d told the first part two weeks before). Afterwards we had the kids decorate Christmas cookies.

After that we had supper and went to bed! It was a good way to celebrate Christmas with our Jarai brother and sisters and share the real meaning of Christmas  to our neighbor kids.

Gingerbread Cookies 2017

Holiday

It’s our tradition to make large gingerbread cookies and decorate them on Christmas Day. I wasn’t able to get them ready for Christmas Day, so we made them this week.

Each child made his own pattern (some with help). Clara enjoyed eating her cookie while decorating it. I can tell I’m a less controlling mama now…you want to eat your cookie and the toppings before we get a cute picture…have at it!

It was a fun project and I’m glad we still got to do it, even though we were a week late.

Girls’ Retreat 2017 (Becca Grace)

Becca, Holiday

Last month we celebrated Becca’s eighth birthday. The last official thing we did to celebrate was to have a mommy-daughter retreat. The Tuesday after Becca’s birthday’ Becca and I headed to a hotel to spend the night. Becca was so excited and filled her backpack full of activities for us to do together.

We arrived at our hotel around 1pm and had a full schedule until Josh and the kids joined us the next morning sometime after 10 to enjoy the pool for an hour.

 Our first activity was swimming. I usually don’t get to swim with Becca, since I’m usually watching the younger kids. Becca was delighted to have a racing partner.

After swimming, we took advantage of the hot water and both took long hot showers. Then it was on to crafts. During our retreat we started making friendship bracelets and pom-pom animals, I taught Becca how to play Monopoly Deal and Phase 10, and we did face masks.  We had dinner at the hotel – Khmer sweet and sour. This year we finished reading The National Velvet (340 pages) and so we watched the movie (starring Elizabeth Taylor when we was a kid). Becca was thrilled.

In the morning we woke up and had tea in bed while we read the Bible. Then Becca wanted to take another hot shower (ah, the small pleasures of life). We ate our breakfast by the pool. Then we played Phase 10 until the rest of the family arrived.

Every year Becca and I usually have a sleep-over for her birthday, but it has always been when Josh was away and was only during the hours the other kids were in bed. Becca was thrilled to have so much extra time to spend together. She was thrilled that when she woke up in the morning, I was still in bed and not off helping someone else. We had a wonderful time.

My hope is to continue doing this each year and to someday have a yearly Girls’ Retreat with all our girls. I told Becca someday when she’s 35 I hope to still be doing this with her. We’ll give the husbands some extra funds to watch the kids and me and the mamas will go off for a night. 🙂

Resurrection Week 2017

Holiday

Last year, after reading Noel Piper’s book, Treasuring God in Our Traditions, I started thinking about how I could make Easter more meaningful for our family. Why is it that we spend so much time and energy celebrating Christmas and often only rely on the church for celebrating Easter? The resurrection of Christ changes everything for us. This year we started a new family tradition that we hope will grow and last – Resurrection Week Celebrations.

Our week consisted of special readings each night,  a resurrection tree complete with homemade ornaments, a countdown calendar with special activities for each day, and plays on the nights we could do them. We really enjoyed doing John Piper’s Lenten Lights readings each night with candles.

We started the week off with a Palm Sunday  party to decorate our tree. We also acted about Jesus entering Jerusalem.

Monday we acted out Jesus clearing out the temple. Anna was quite upset that her table was overturned and kept trying to set it up.

Tuesday was Anna’s birthday so we were busy celebrating that all day. Wednesday we took a trip to visit our co-workers in another province. Four families got together to celebrate Lydia’s 40th birthday. It was a three hour drive each way with a flat tire on the trip out and a broken air conditioning on the way back.

Thursday we had a Maundy Thursday service, remember the Lord’s last Passover and we washed each other’s feet.

Friday we read through the crucifixion story. Saturday was just a reading day. Saturday morning we decorated duck eggs and in the afternoon we had a egg hunt with plastic eggs.

Resurrection Sunday we had a special breakfast with eggs, bacon, and a pumpkin roll. The day before Josh brought home some bulb flowers he dug up from some Jarai people who live near out church. We attended church with our Jarai brothers and sisters. After church we rested and had a water balloon fight in the afternoon. We ended our celebration with a party which included a play (yes, the globe ball is the stone rolled away from the tomb), gifts, games, and our last reading. We had hoped to do a Bible club with our neighbor kids, but April 14-16 was Khmer New Year and all the kids were busy at the Wat with carnival activities all weekend.

We were very pleased with how things turned out. It ended up being a very busy week for our first celebration.  We had Anna’s birthday. Josh taught a Khmer Bible school Tuesday morning and taught at Jarai Bible school Thursday through Saturday. But we’re thankful we started this year and look forward to keeping and adding to this new family tradition every year.  Christ is Risen – He is Risen Indeed!