A Very Merry Vickery Christmas

     This past Thursday night my roomie and I had a Christmas party in our apartment. We might have invited close to 90 people (and that was just on Facebook) and by "we" I mean me...Rach invited folks of course, but I just hate the thought of leaving anyone out so I kept adding people to the list. Thankfully as I told Rach would happen, not all 90 people came. But a lot of kiddos came. Several of the teenage boys that used to live here got a ride with one of our neighbors and came which was so great to be able to see them. There were people from Nepal, Burma, Africa and the United States. 

(Some background info-I live in a low-income apartment complex where many refugees are re-settled upon arriving in the United States for the first time. I live here on purpose. And I love it! There are several reasons why I choose to live here which I will go into more detail about in another post, but I just wanted to put that out there so my posts make a little more sense.) 

                             Sa Ron and some of her children. Such a sweet woman. 

     So our Christmas party was a little bit like a tiny United Nations or something to that effect. Several of our friends from small group came as well as neighbors of ours from church that also live in this apartment complex. My next door neighbors came for a little while-they are from Nepal and so sweet. We had cookie decorating going on and fun snacks to eat. At one point we had a friend who offered to play guitar. He played a couple of Christmas songs and ended with the song "Mighty to Save." It was beautiful. Especially the part in the song that says "Everyone needs forgiveness, the kindness of a Savior, the hope of nations." I teared up a little during that part of the song, thinking of all the nations represented in our apartment in that moment and knowing the opportunity I have on a daily basis to love others like Jesus and to tell His story to them. Do I always do that? No, definitely not. But I am thankful that he shows me his grace and grants me more opportunities. The Christmas party was full of games of Uno, Go Fish and even ended with a flute solo by one of our eighth graders. (He was awesome!) It was a really great evening-so worth all the spills and cookie crumbles. My small group girls were amazing-they provided tons of candy so we could give those out as goodie bags, which the kids loved! I am super blessed to have friends (and my roomie especially) who love on these kids and provide a great example to them. 

                                    Cookie Decorating!! (a little messy...)