New Hope Homes on a Green Christmas Day...

It was green on our first Christmas Day in Rwanda. It was windy, rainy and cloudy. Rain was good because now is the rainy season for Rwanda and it has not been raining for a couple of weeks.

The rain made all trees and grasses greener. It was a green Christmas, a beautiful one. Rwanda's Christmas is relatively quiet with less decoration than in the U.S. Some told me that it was depressing, but I did not feel so. It rather enabled me to observe the Christmas Day with the Christ central to the day.

Indeed, Christmas Day is the day of worshipping the Christ who was born to die for us all, sinlessly and blamelessly.

After the worship service in the morning, Kristin, Joyce and I joined a group of KOICA volunteers to minister to children at New Hope Homes, a family style orphan care place that we started ministering from November. We transported the volunteers and I shared the gospel. We praised together, played games and showed them a movie, like before. It was encoruaging to see them growing up with joyous hearts.

May the Lord bless these parent-less children with strong faith in the heavenly Father and adequate provision for all their needs until they grow up. As Mary confessed to the angel Gabriel who was telling her that she would give birth to Jesus, it was my message for them: "Nothing is impossible with God." Amen! - Jeffrey