Cookies Anyone?

As every good Christian knows, an important part of Christmas is Christmas cookies. At least in our house. And we think that is one tradition worth sharing so on Saturday we invited the wives of our Santa Cruz pastors to our house to make Christmas cookies. Niki and Lisa Hoffman had prepared the dough ahead of time so it was ready to be rolled, cut, baked, decorated and eaten. I, being a male, was not invited to the party but I managed to crash it every little bit to take pictures and hassle the ladies a bit. (They love it.) However, no one offered me a cookie!

These ladies are a special group of women who love the Lord and love their husbands and stand by them in the pressures of ministry. We thank God for them and pray for his blessing to be especially felt by them during this special season of the year as we celebrate the birth of Christ.

Niki had prepared plenty of dough not knowing for sure how many ladies would come. so we have some extra for lots of cookies to share. So, if you're in our neighborhood, stop by for a cookie, a conversation and have a Merry Christmas.

Big Bird Goes To Graduation

This last weekend (November 26-29) was the national congress of the Bolivian Evangelical Holiness Church, our denomination here in Bolivia. As usual, the missionaries were there to be a presence. The congress is when the business of the church is taken care of and church officers are elected. Also it includes an ordination service and the Bible School graduation.

James, Kevin and I arrived late at the graduation and so the first half of the event was over. They were getting ready to begin the actual graduation ceremony. Now Kevin was sort of dressed up as he was escorting one of the graduates down the isle. But James and I were far from our Sunday best. It was cold (all this took place in the Alto of La Paz) and since I am a cruzeño (Santa Cruz person) I was cold. I had on an old heavy coat and jeans. Under the coat I had a bright yellow and black fleece. Under that I had my shirt. Well, we were standing in the back when I heard, will Pastor Gordon please come to the platform. I thought, Oh no! I'm not in the program and I'm not dressed for this occasion. The people on the platform were all dressed in lovely suits. So there I sat on the platform looking more like Big Bird than a missionary.

Now Bolivian custom is to invite different people to hand the diplomas to the graduates. So, after a while when it was time to hand them out both Kevin and James were invited to join me on the platform. Now, as I said, Kevin didn't look too bad, but James wasn't much of an improvement over me. He had on jeans, tennis shoes and a Nike windbreaker. We were quite the contrast to the rest of the men. And then it seemed to me that I was invited to hand out more than my fair share of diplomas and have my picture taken with each graduate that I handed a diploma to. (Unfortunately I do not have a picture to show you.) Those poor graduates will forever be stuck with a graduation picture of them with Big Bird.

Now, you might ask, did I learn anything from this experience? Nope, except stay away from Bible Institute graduations.