Kids

Yesterday, I had a wonderful opportunity together with four other kins in faith, in celebrating Christmas with kids from one of our church's community outreaches. More and more I understand why they say that Christmas is for children.

The "little party" was in an improvised basketball court in one of the impoverished areas of the town. The court is about 30 square meters, surrounded by tiny houses inhabited by, I guess a family of five to six. It's on flat part of the hill so we needed to climb a good 100m of 30-40 degrees sloping terrain. We were also carrying the food and drinks that we prepared as we went up. It was a bit difficult and we had to catch our breaths as we trudge. When we got there, the kids were waiting and they were excited. I think there were about 60 of them, with age ranging from 2 to 14, who came.

My part of the program (I was actually forced to do it) was to tell the Christmas story. I refused to do it at first because I am terrible at telling stories. More than that, it's hard to tell stories to kids (I realized later that you just have to keep it simple. That's one thing grown-ups forget -- to keep things simple). But then, off I went. Thanks to the big book with pictures. I just have to nail down one point. That Christmas is about Jesus.

The kids had games after that then they ate. The ladies in our group prepared the food. They had spaghetti, sandwich and cake. The challenge is to have everyone fed, including some parents who were on the side watching. The food was just enough and I think the kids were most delighted with the cake.

It was such a joy watching the the big smiles from the kids when they got their little presents, which is not so much actually. The girls in our group put biscuits, curls and candies in tiny little white pouches sealed by a red ribbon. In all honesty, when I was on their age, I wouldn't really appreciate that, I mean the content of those pouches. But those kids, oh... I saw the kids beamed in joy as soon as they opened it. It was golden. Very heartwarming in my part.

The experience just reminded me to be thankful. Sometimes I have much, sometimes I have little or have nothing at all, but just the same be thankful. It's an issue for me because I'm a whiner. Those kids, they were happy. I was playing one of the kid's toy gun and another kid approached me. He's a bald little 3-year old boy wearing a red shirt and a red shorts. He wanted to play with the toy gun and I let him. He was very happy. It broke my heart when I need to get the toy and return it to the other kid who owned it. But the little kid was still all smiles. He may have been delighted to just being able to play with the it for a few minutes because he haven't got a toy gun ever. I don't know but he was still happy.

It's an afternoon well-spent...