Christmas Program

Like most churches at this time of year, we in Mexico City had a church Christmas program. It was as good as any that I have ever seen at churches in the US or Canada. There were Christmas carols sung by the choir and the congregation; tunes traditional to the ear but sung in Spanish. The words might not be translated identically (for example, "Silent Night" in Spanish is "Noche de Paz" or "Night of Peace") but beautifully sung and Christ centered. The children's skits were well done and, as the second picture indicated, contextualized to Mexico. The little shepherds look more like Mexican shepherds from years past than middle eastern shepherds. Jessie, pictured below with a little girl, played the part of Mary. She has tremendous dramatic talent and has great potential with this gift. Some of the Gateway teams that helped with the VBS program "Hecho A Mano" this last summer might remember her as the squeaky bird in the skits where she also did a great performance. After the program, the children received bags of candy (chili pepper/mango lollipops in the shape of a whole BBQ chicken, mini marshmallows, Japanese peanuts, fried onion ring type chips and Lunetas - candy coated chocolate drops similar to Canadian Smarties or American M&M's). We all had a hot drink called Ponche which is a tea vaguely like apple cider with pieces of mango, apple and sugar cane in each cup.