Celebrating Christmas 2008 at Refugio Internacional de Niños
Our first official Christmas fiesta was the morning of Dec. 13th. Several cell groups from Mr. Steele’s church – Palm Valley, in Mission, TX. got together and presented each child with a beautiful stocking, filled to the brim with goodies! They also gave a beautiful jogging/track suit to all residents of the Home.
The group picture (above) was taken that day and the children and staff were all walking a little taller in their lovely new long sleeved red Christmas shirts- donated by Wilfred & Ethel Sandridgeís congregation, First United Church of Christ, in WI. and the Word of Life Church in Le Sueur, MN.
That same afternoon, “Dibujando Sonrisas”, a great organization from Monterrey also had a party for the Kids. They gave them some very nice gifts, had delicious food, and brought the “toughest” piñatas any of us had ever seen!
The following week our elementary school held itís celebration. Teacher Gloria and the instructors went all out – the children had a terrific program, each grade participating in some way. A group from Bibleville had collected numerous gifts, which we decided to let our children hand out to their classmates from the outside community.
The following day, was RIN’s Christmas Party; 73 volunteers & child sponsors made their way across the Rio Grand- using 3 vans and a charter bus, to spend the day with the children. Our program began in the auditorium with a special song and dance by the children. Next was a scrumptious turkey & pork loin dinner with all the fixings, catered by VIPs- much to the delight of our volunteers and the staff at RIN.
After dinner, you could feel the excitement in the air as the children eagerly awaited to see themselves up on the big screen. This year, instead of a live performance, we decided to do our very own DVD presentation of the Christmas Story.
Everyone at the Home, from our youngest “Heavenly Hosts” to the Tios and Tias as the townspeople of Bethlehem had a ball. Though the sound wasn’t the greatest, this really helped us make Christ’s birth more realistic for so many of our children who really hadn’t given it much thought before.
DVDs are available from our office for $7 and virtually all songs & narration were done in English no less!
Once ready to move from the Auditorium to the Gym, we were met with an unexpected surprise! Malena, as her personal Christmas gift to the kids, had arranged for us all to be transported in style by a miniature train which the children adored.
Since the sight, and time it takes to open, multiple presents for fifty-nine children, plus house parents and staff, can be somewhat overwhelming – to visitors, to the children and especially to a single Christmas tree …we decided to do things a little differently this year!
Each Casa brought their tree to the gym the day before the party. (The children and Tios had been working since November on homemade decorations in the hopes of winning a pizza party for the house with the best decorated tree.) Then each person’s presents were carefully placed into large plastic bins, around the home’s tree!
Child Sponsors and guests joined the Casa of their choice and the house parents made sure everyone got their presents by turns The new system seemed to work well and was as ìintimateî as it could be considering our numbers.
Each child received 3 toys or personal items thanks to groups like Pharr South, Danny Hickman’s Spanish Class & Emmanuel Lutheran Church – Sandy Beyer’s group in Menominee, MI. -which have been doing this for over 20 years!
In addition all children received a pair of pajamas, new sneakers, a brand new change of clothes for church or special occasions and they got to keep their plastic bin for extra storage under their beds. These additional gifts were either provided by the Child Sponsors or purchased from our Christmas Fund – which is used to make sure all children, fully sponsored or not, (like the new ones or the house parents kids) received comparable gifts.
Those who had parents or relatives that were able to take them for a few days left later that afternoon. But we were all together again to bring in the New Year, with even another gift for everyone – courtesy of the members at the Club at Cimarron and an amazing party, thanks to the Klassen Family from Manitoba Canada!
- B. C.
