I’ve written about Christmas, now it’s time to write about the holiday right after it. New Year’s Day. A lot of things happened around that time, so it’s going to be hard to write about it. But I’ll do my best.

As some of you know, my mom and we kids went to Brazzaville for New Year’s. We left on Thursday (New Year’s Eve). We had had plans for a party here in Impfondo of doughnuts, games, a movie, and countdown to midnight, but due to circumstances, we had to change that rather suddenly.

Thursday was kind of a bummer. At least the 12 hours of waiting for the airplane weren’t very pleasant. We eventually got to Brazzaville and thing got better. Very good missionary friends, the Julians, were having a party at their house, so we went there after dropping off our bags at our base in Brazzaville (we call it Bravo). Then we joined the party. Leticia (Julians 3^rd oldest) is very good friends with us and she was home from boarding school for vacation. And the Phillips girls came after a while. We hadn’t all been together in a long time so when all of the “Girls Of Congo” were there, we all started talking. There was another family that we hadn't seen in a very long time—the Howells. It was good to see so many people all at once, but also a bit overwhelming.

There was some food left when we got there so we snacked and talked and snacked and talked some more til midnight. As usual we counted down from “10” and yelled HAPPY NEW YEAR! on the hour.

Soon after that, people started to leave. And then it was time for us to leave too. Claire stayed and spent the night though. So we drove home, and all took turns taking a shower to get off all the dust and sweat left over from our day of travel.

The next day we all slept in and didn’t do much. The Phillips (who live at Bravo), left for an overnight camping trip. So we didn’t have them to hang out with. And Claire didn’t come home from the Julian’s house until nighttime when both of our families were invited to the Howell's house. So I slept and read my book all day, and then met up with Claire and the Julians. There we had a really good meal. After we got our food, we picked a chair in the living room or a spot on the floor, and ate and watched the Rose Bowl on television. After we were done eating, some of us went and played a Bible game (I was in this group with most of the other girls), some played a video game in the boys’ room, and some kept on watching the football game. The game that we played took a long time. We also had coffee breaks so that made it longer. After we were done, we ate some snack/dessert things and watched the football game for a while. Then a few of us kids and Uncle Gary went back in the boys' room to play a soccer video game for a few hours with the a/c on full-blast. That was a lot of fun. The football game ended early morning, and then Mama woke up from the comfortable chair she was sleeping in and it was time to go. We said good night and drove home. Leticia was with us.

We all slept in the next morning. That day the Phillips got home. And Rachel came to Brazzaville too. It was really fun to have her there that week. Nothing really exciting happened that day. The GOCs just kind of talked a little bit but I mostly read my book all day. Sometime in the afternoon Leticia went home.

The next day was a Sunday. We went to a church called Bon Berger (which means Good Shepherd in French) with the Phillips, and the Julians and Howells were there too. The service starts at around ten, so we didn't have to get up early. We went to church and then my family, but not Rachel who was eating elsewhere, went to La Mandarine (a really nice restaurant that sells ice cream, pastries, and food). We all shared the delicious Sunday special and then headed home for a leisurely afternoon. Soon it was time for Sing and Share, a gathering of missionaries to sing and share in English. Afterwards, almost everybody went out for ice cream together. The Mandarin didn't have any cones, so we went to Noura (another good restaurant) to get ice cream and shawarmas (a sandwich wrap thing-y). We were going to give everybody a ride home, but after everybody piled in the Land Cruiser, we had to all pile back out. The truck had a flat tire. Rachel started climbing on top of the car to get the spare, as people got out the jack. It took a long time to change it. One of the problems was that after we got the spare tire on, the jack wouldn't go down. They finally just lifted the car up and pulled the jack out. We said goodnight and then all went home.

Monday, Leticia planned and prepared a five-course meal. But since she had cut her right thumb pretty badly while washing dishes, she wasn't allowed to do some of the work. So she called and asked for us to come earlier than we had planned to. So we flagged a taxi and went to her house and helped her all day. The meal was scheduled for around 6 pm. During our lunch break, we had mashed potatoes and watched a play Leticia had been in at school, and ate grubs. That might sound like I did that disgusting thing, but I didn't. Brave and a little bit crazy Claire, Chantal, Olivia, and Dr. Brantly did though. Yuck! If you'd like to know more about it, you should probably ask somebody else. I was in another room eating food that was more enjoyable to my senses!

At around 6 my mom and Rachel joined us for the meal. The food was really good. There was an appetizer, salad, soup, roast beef and dessert. I especially enjoyed the lemon meringue dessert. The adults talked for a while after the meal while we girls got ready for bed and talked. All of us kids stayed for a sleep-over.

The next day, we hung out a bit at the Julians, and then all went back home. At lunch time, my family and Rachel went to Aunt Barb's house at SIL for lunch. When we came home to Bravo, it was time for our mini re-entry seminar with Aunt Sharon, Brandon Julian, Jessica Howell as the speakers. That was really good. Afterwards it was doomsday for the Phillips' poor male cat Oreo. Since Olivia has done this procedure a few times on other animals here in Impfondo, the Phillips had asked her to castrate their cat. She agreed, and Tuesday was the appointed day. All went well in the surgery. The hardest part was giving him the shot of Ketamine for anesthesia. After that everything was fine and Oreo slept deeper than a baby. After the surgery, we played a few games led by Uncle John Phillips, and Jessica and Leticia spent the night.

Wednesday, we went on a treasure hunt created by Aunt Elisabeth and Uncle John. It was actually more of a memory and goodbye trip around Brazzaville because Miriam and Chantal were going to be leaving Congo forever that our human eye can see. SO we went all over Brazzaville to memorable places, remembering. That was really good and fun, but also a bit sad. The rest of the day we just hung out.

Thursday was a day of goodbyes. The whole Julian family except Brandon, the two Howell boys, and the Bellamy kids from Pointe Noire all left to go back to barding school. It was a very sad day with lots of tears. That night though, we finally got to record some more songs for our first Album. You see, Tuesday, we girls were sitting in a traffic jam and we started singing. We joked around and someone suggested we start a band called Traffic Jam. So we now had 3 songs recorded so far.

Chantal and Miriam left Congo that Friday. It was a very sad day, but we didn't cry that much. We had already used up our tears for that week. We did manage to see the happy things about that day and that was good. At night Rachel went out with somebody to eat, and we watched Mr. Bean's Holiday with the Phillips. Mama and Olivia had to leave in the first half hour of the movie though, to go pick up Joana new missionary at the airport. Joan is going to be in Congo for a year. The movie was really funny. We all loved it. At the end of the movie Mama came home with Joan and Olivia. We all introduced ourselves, bombarding her with names all at once. We then showed her to her room, talked a bit, and finally left her to take a shower and go to bed. Uncle John started showing us pictures on their computer around then. We all lost track of time. It was soon close to midnight. But we didn't got to bed yet. Are you kidding me! 12 is too early! Mama, Olivia, and Rachel (she had come home by now) wanted to see Mr. Bean, so we watched it again. We all, again, loved it.

The next day was Saturday and we were supposed to leave early that day. Instead we slept until noon. The flight had been canceled. Yes! We had pancakes for lunch, and slept the whole afternoon. At night when everybody woke up from their afternoon-long nap, we went out to eat with the Phillips and Joan at a Vietnamese restaurant called the Hippocampe. We had the buffet and it was SO good, I couldn't help stuffing myself. I played on the swing set in the restaurant yard with Noah for a while until it was time to go.

The next day was Sunday and we ended up actually leaving. The flight was early morning, before church, so Uncle John and Aunt Elisabeth drove us to the airport. Thankfully we never had to wait long at the airport or in the airplane. It was actually comfortable in the waiting lounge! Amazingly, the air conditioning was working! That made our morning much better.

We arrived at Impfondo at around 12:00 pm, Sunday the 10^th of January, 2010. We had been in Brazzaville a week a three days. It had been a very special, fun-filled vacation, and a good start of the new year. “Thank you God for my wonderful week and a chance to see my friends one more time. It may be the last time I'll see them; but I hope not. Thank you God very much!”

So, another Christmas has come and gone again. It’s amazing how quickly a day can pass that people have been preparing for, for weeks! No matter how hard we try we can never make one day last a single second longer. That’s kind of depressing, but I’m not here to depress anybody so I’ll stop talking about impossibilities!

Okay back to Christmas. I had a happy and good Christmas and I’m very thankful for it. It was also kind of sad, because this will be our last Christmas with my older sister Olivia before she leaves for college. It’s hard to think of the future and not see her here with us in Congo. It’s going to be very sad without her. I’m going to miss her a lot.

It was a kind of crazy and tense time for the grownups, (and us kids) so it was a little bit hard for everybody to relax. But we finally did. Because of starting our school year a bit late, we kids didn’t have a lot of time off from school around Christmas, but it was enough time. The grownups didn’t have a lot of time off either. But we still had time to have fun, food, and presents!

Like every other year, my family and I all thought, “Maybe this year I’ll actually have my Christmas shopping and wrapping done before Christmas Eve!” We were all prepared to put up our tree and decorate for Christmas on the Saturday before the start of Advent, but we hesitated, since it seemed like November 29 was too early for us “Christmas-Eve-Shoppers” to get started. We said we should wait until December. Bad mistake. It was December when things started getting tense and busy around here. It was hard to focus on Christmas. We did try to though. We would go around and say to each other “Wow! I can’t believe that there’s only two weeks till Christmas!” and “It doesn’t feel like Christmas at all.” But it never really sunk in what time of year it was. So despite our efforts, when it was less than a week before the 25^th, none of us were really ready for Christmas. But we did finally realize it was Christmas just in time. It amazes me how quickly time can elapse under our very noses without us noticing! Thankfully, time wasn’t so sneaky that it found us without our faithful fake pine tree! So we weren’t totally unprepared for Christmas.

We actually did a lot more of Christmas-y stuff than I make it seem like! For example, we:

· sang Christmas songs,

· had a special Christmas Chapel service,

· made and ate Christmas cookies,

· had our traditional breakfast meal,

· had a party and a gift exchange,

· changed computer desktop pictures to Christmas-y things,

· decorated the house,

· put our tree up,

· said Merry Christmas to people,

· watched all the Christmas movies we could think of that somebody owned and that we had time for,

· listened to Christmas music,

· read the Christmas story,

· pondered Jesus’ birth,

· laughed,

· and I even practiced Silent Night on the flute!

We had a lot of fun.

The Christmas chapel service turned out to be very nice. It was held on the Sunday before Christmas day, which was the 20^th. During the service, people who had signed up did what ever they signed up to do, and some people came up and shared something that was on their heart, or sang a song. Everything sounded very pretty, (especially when my mom played “The First Noel” on the recorder with Danielle Ralston, we played her flute, and Rachel Maurais who played her clarinet,) but it was hard to concentrate at first when I was so nervous. A group of our Congolese friends and my sisters had prepared a song to sing. Everybody was very nervous, but we still did a good job. But even with that over, I wasn’t able to rest yet. I shook so bad when my sisters and I were announced. I was even more nervous for our second song. We had barely practiced our song twice, and we were singing it without any instruments so it was even more scary. But somehow, we got through it without me falling over.

When the service was over, there was some food for everybody. I and a few others helped pass out the napkins, peanuts, juice, little cakes, and banana bread. There were a lot of people there so it took a while to give everybody everything. By now my feet were starting to hurt some.

After everybody got some, I helped Dr. Wegner give the remaining food to some of the mothers (and children) in the hospital wards. As we did so, we wished them all a Merry Christmas.

The other party we had, was on the 23^rd. Wednesdays, the grownups usually have a team meeting to talk with each other about what's going on. Instead of doing that the week of Christmas, we had a Christmas party. We had a meal (mostly really good traditional African food), than sang some Christmas songs and than we had our gift exchange. A couple weeks before, when almost the whole team was together, my mom had written down all of the names of our team members and put them in a hat. Then we all drew out a name and whatever the name was that would be the person we had to get a present for. So on the 23^rd everybody gave each other their gifts. It’s really fun to see the reaction on people’s faces. We also put the last ornaments on our Jesse Tree and lit the last candle in our homemade Advent wreath. Everywhere you looked there was laughter, joy, and peace, even though there was also fatigue. It was very pleasant to just forget the worries of this world and think about Jesus, the one who matters the most.

Christmas Eve started out pretty much the same as every other day, except for a few things. One was that in the morning two of our friends, Octavie and Yvonne, got baptized. It was a blessing to be there, and wonderful that they got baptized. That is a very special memory. The rest of the day nothing else really happened. We just went about our business, finished wrapping our presents, and so on. So we all went to bed fairly early.

The day had finally come. It was December 25^th, Christmas Day. As usual my brother Noah and older sister Claire were the first ones up and the first ones to open their stocking and wake people up. J Noah got up at around 6am and then guess what he decided to do first? He rode around on the scooter and sang, “IT’S CHRISTMAS, IT’S CHRISTMAS!” Thankfully he only woke up one person, which was not me. But then Claire and Noah were rough housing, and that did wake me up. Once the house was awake, we had a breakfast/brunch of green eggs and ham, yogurt, granola, papaya, bananas, mango and guava juice, rolls, and muffins. After we cleared the table, we started opening presents. Some very good friends in America, the Kelleys, had given Christmas presents to my mom to bring here. There was a gift for each of us, given with love and we are all very thankful for them.

Once we were done opening presents (and taking little naps), we dressed up a little bit, and went next door to the Galipe's house for a party celebrating Jesus’s birth and the baptism that took place the day before. There was more really good food and dessert, and then Olivia took pictures of everybody dressed up. After that Noah started a game of monkey-in-the-middle with the football he got from the Kelleys. At first only the teen boys were playing but then others started joining in. I didn’t join in though. I was too full of food. J

After it got dark we gave our gifts the Galipes. With their smiles and words of thanks they left to watch a movie they had borrowed from us. It was really good to see their reaction to what we gave them.

The rest of the night was peaceful. Claire played a computer game that we had gotten from Rachel, and Noah and I watched her play. We never had an official supper that night. But that was okay with us because we were still stuffed to the brim. We still grazed on the leftovers from our big meals (to fill in the empty cracks in our stomachs) and we watched the movie It’s a Wonderful Life.

When the movie was done and it was late, we all slowly drifted to our beds. It was hard for me to fall asleep with all the excitement and joy from the day swimming around in my head. As I lay there in my bed, trying to sleep, I would be thinking about nothing in particular and the sudden memory of a happy moment from the day would fill me with such joy that I had to let it out somehow. So I smiled a huge smile to the dark. Somehow I think I got all the happiness of that day in that smile. I’m so glad God sent his son for us. That was the best Christmas present ever.