Dear Friends:
We all have strong feelings about the Christmas season. As Christians, we can focus on the celebration that God chose to come to earth as an innocent child to redeem us from our fallen lives and to restore relationship with Him. People who are not Christians nonetheless often have strong feelings about Christmas traditions—sharing family time, enjoying a meal with loved ones, exchanging gifts. But, I find that many people, even including Christians, do not feel joy at Christmas time. They feel loneliness, despair, abandonment, sorrow. Maybe they lost a loved one during the Christmas season, or maybe they, or a loved one, is in a very bad situation. Maybe they don’t really have family around, or maybe they see how the enticements/ravages of the world have destroyed family members. And now, we have isolation brought on by our response to covid-19, and the results are loneliness. If the focus is on ourselves, we can be sure that this Christmas is going to be very difficult.
I think of our girls at Casa, and how they have no true family to celebrate with. Fortunately, they do bond together as “sisters”, and they have the stability of caring parents with Ana and Adrian there, along with the support of Ana Tovar. However, one of the best remedies we have found for them to successfully get through the Christmas season with joy, is to help them focus on giving to others who are less fortunate. Every year, they spend time putting together “care” packages for poor families, and then they go around town distributing them! This is a great tradition, and they love doing it! Of course, we understand that it is modeled after God’s recipe for a “good” life.
Luke 6:38 Give away your life; you'll find life given back, but not merely given back — given back with bonus and blessing. Giving, not getting, is the way. Generosity begets generosity."
I have found that when I feel self-centered, maybe feeling sorry for myself, maybe downcast, nothing lifts my spirits like giving—I might give my time to help someone, or encourage them, I might give them a gift, whatever it is, it always makes me feel better! So, as we think about this Christmas season, let’s think about how we may give of our time, our talents, our treasure, to help others. God promises that we will actually receive back more than we give, and I find that receiving back gratitude, seeing joy, knowing that I have helped someone else, wipes out all of those negative feelings that can come in.
Not that we can really understand the joy of the Lord fully, but I do know that God is filled with joy as he exemplifies giving. God gives and gives. He sacrificially gave his Son, he gave redemption for all who would receive Him, he gives his Spirit, he touches people’s lives at their point of need. He never quits giving to us, and so we know that the measure of His joy is beyond our understanding! And yet, he wants to fill us with His joy! In the Book of Nehemiah, when God restored his people, and they listened to His Words from the Bible, look at what happened
Neh 8:9-10 Nehemiah the governor, along with Ezra the priest and scholar and the Levites who were teaching the people, said to all the people, "This day is holy to GOD, your God. Don't weep and carry on." They said this because all the people were weeping as they heard the words of The Revelation. (they were sorry for all they had done in turning away from God). He continued, "Go home and prepare a feast, holiday food and drink; and share it with those who don't have anything: This day is holy to God. Don't feel bad. The joy of GOD is your strength!" (Msg)
There is a special thing I think about not only with our girls at Casa during this time, but all who have lost members of their family, and all who feel isolated. No matter how small our physical family is, God has adopted us into His family if we have allowed Him to. His invitation is always there for us, “Come unto me…” Think about it—He has made us all His children, and all of His children have become brothers and sisters! We have brothers and sisters in Christ!
Gal 4:4-7 But when the time arrived that was set by God the Father, God sent his Son, born among us of a woman, born under the conditions of the law so that he might redeem those of us who have been kidnapped by the law. 5 Thus we have been set free to experience our rightful heritage. 6 You can tell for sure that you are now fully adopted as his own children because God sent the Spirit of his Son into our lives crying out, "Papa! Father!" 7 Doesn't that privilege of intimate conversation with God make it plain that you are not a slave, but a child? And if you are a child, you're also an heir, with complete access to the inheritance. (Msg)
I am hopeful that all who read this realize that our joy and our strength are not found in our circumstances, but in Him. When we feel lonely, isolated, unhappy, sorrowful, we can always talk to Him! If we focus on our Redeemer, whose birth we celebrate during this season, if we focus on bringing joy to others in whatever way we can, then we will feel the closeness of our heavenly Father who has adopted not only our girls at Casa, but all of us, if we have asked Him to let us be a part of His family. Even as we may remain physically separated from others during this time, let’s keep our eyes on Him, and let’s find ways to share His love even in our separation from others.
Please click on this link to see what God has done in the life of a young lady from the area of Mexico where we have been ministering for the past 20 years: https://www.santafenewmexican.com/opinion/commentary/eunice-herrera- showing-that-dreams-can-come-true/article_05bf10ba-30df-11eb-85b4- dfa6d642fc35.html?fbclid=IwAR0liPdChDjyNLn8n9QW9w02pxDARZuDf54QLYNJ5YM90JVshtQ_obWep1g
We do want to remind you that the end of the year is a great time to make any gifts to this ministry and get a nice tax deduction—it is one more way you can spread God’s joy to the widows, the poor, the orphans, as God has called us to do! (James 1:27, Deut. 24:19)
May God fill you with the peace and joy of our Savior this Christmas season!
I hope and pray that you and your families are well. This year has been unusual, and we’ve had to change the way we do things in our daily lives and of course, in the Alas de Amor program as well. However, I pray that God will continue to use this program to motivate our students in their education and bring all the families closer to him.
As some of you may have heard, the situation in the north of Mexico has worsened due to COVID. We continue to support our students and their families from a distance. In November, as in past months all the families and leaders of the church received a pantry kit. Our desire for the month of December was to have our usual Christmas party. The families we work with and community in Palomas come to Casa de Amor to hear the word of God, eat, and play. Sadly, this year we will have to break our tradition. Therefore, it was decided to move the distribution of pantry kits to the third weekend of the month. We will be providing all the families with the usual pantry kits plus, ingredients for the families to prepare a special Christmas dinner. We will be also be distributing all the Christmas gifts to the students and their siblings.
Thank you for your support by sending a Christmas gift to your sponsored student(s). We know that a gift won’t change the kids’ lives, but we hope that it comes to them as a representation of your support and love we have for them. I invite you write to your sponsored student(s) to motivate them to keep going. As I had mentioned before, all of them are receiving their classes through WhatsApp and their televisions. As you can imagine, school in these platforms can be very difficult and it adds an extra burden to their learning experience.
We translate many of their letters for their supporters here in the US each month, and the recurring theme we hear from all of them is that they feel lonely, and miss the fun with their friends, but they are enjoying their time with their families. Some report that they are not really able to do their school work because of a lack of a phone or some other way to access the internet. Also, the internet is so bad in Palomas that it can be very challenging to obtain the work and challenging to turn it in. We are blessed that a friend of Casa in Palomas, Ing. Jorgé Salomón Gutiérrez Maloof had dedicated many hours of his time to bring internet in from Columbus, NM, and now, at Casa, we have that internet available. So, kids can come by Casa if they need to use the internet.
As with all families, those kids with the most parental support are the ones who are doing the best. That can be very difficult when mom is trying to take care of all of her kids and feed them as well, and now with all of the businesses either shut down or on reduced hours, it is even harder on everyone! Our gifts of food make a big difference in many families. We are delighted that our girls at Casa are making the best grades they ever have in school with the support of our two Anas.
Thank you for your support! We hope that you have a blessed month and full of health.