Dia das Criancas

  wrote this a couple days ago:

This day is huge –or so I’ve heard.  Every time it’s spoken of (in hushed tones of course, and with s-p-e-l-l-e-d words) it’s portrayed to be an equivalent to Christmas.  And let me tell ya… Christmas was a huge day. Great day, lots of fun. New Years was –by far!– the most fun day yet, but Christmas was really close too.  So… Children’s Day… wooosh, it’s gonna be something else :-)  Well anyway, today Laura and I started prep for the gifts the boys will get.  Together we went through all the big huge wooden boxes in the middle room of the dorm and pulled out all the toys we have stored.  I should say that Iris runs completely on donations.  It’s amazing. From missionaries to children to staff, all salaries and needs are met by donations :-) Ahhmazing!  Well, we started organizing all the toys. All the many, many toys.  Any child’s heaven, in fact. I  love organizing, so I was in my zone, lol.  We had little grocery bags filled for each type of toy: bouncy balls, slinkys, action figures, army men, match box cars (which will forever remind me of Josh & Jason), arts and crafts, pencils, notebooks, and on and on and on.  It was really awesome, knowing we are able to give 30 boys a bag full of toys twice a year (Christmas & Children’s Day) and still even more throughout the year all thanks to visitors’ donations.  So in the next couple days I’ll decorate bags for the boys and then Laura and I will organize what goes into each one.  They’ll also get shoes and a whole outfit :-)  It’s gonna be really cute. 

I’ve posted up some pics of Christmas, one of the whole dorm and one with my uncle playing with their new toys. When I was looking back through my pictures for Christmas, I realized the Christmas card I sent home was of me, Laura and room 1. This is the room Naftal was in, he’s front and centre in that picture. With the best smile ever, he’s so beautiful. So strong and stoic, but he could have the greatest smile when he wanted to. I take great comfort in knowing I’ll see him again. Amazing comfort.. but I just wanted to let you guys know that –if you got a Christmas card, you also got a great picture of Naftal :-) 
(or if you just got your Christmas card, in May… like Jessica’s lol)