Sunday, December 28, 2008

Christmas laughs

On Christmas, all the missionaries gathered together to share Christmas dinner this year. Following dinner, we started into the entertainment part of the program. For some reason they asked Becky if she would head up the entertainment. Becky has been here for 5 wks now, apparently they wanted some fresh ideas. So Becky, Kim and Lawrence (volunteers, also here for 5 wks) and myself were in charge of entertainment. We put our heads together and came up with telephone charades and a Christmas themed Family Feud.
Telephone charades is much like the game telephone - one person says something to the next person and they repeat what they heard to the next person and by the end it doesn't sound anything like what was started. It is the same, but as charades. So for example, my group was suppose to act out the wisemen coming and bringing gifts to Jesus. I started and took a gift and walked up and knelt down and laid the gift down and continued to bow in reverence like you see the wisemen doing. Emma followed me. She walked up with the gift and then turned around and walked back. So everyone after her did the same thing. As you might be able to imagine, it is a lot funnier to be in the audience for this, than to be doing it. We enjoyed lots of laughs as people tried to remember what they saw, and then passed on wrong things to the next person. Lawrence did a great job of building a snowman, which was successfully passed on to each member of his team.
Family Feud was also full of laughs, mainly at those who were surveyed - Becky, Kim, Lawrence, and I. Since our answers didn't always match up with what everyone else was answering, everyone was giving us a hard time. One of the questions was what do PNG missionaries send home to family as presents - one of the first answers from the team was coffee. Since none of the 4 of us drink coffee, and 3 of us have only been in the country for 5 wks, coffee wasn't on our list. This didn't go over so well with those playing, but it started the laughing and jokes that continued throughout the game as to having to think like one of the judges who is younger and doesn't know or think of things like everyone else did.
It wasn't just the surveyors who were laughed at. One team decided on Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer for a popular Christmas song as a steal, but when Judy got up to say what they wanted, she said Jingle Bells. Her teammates were yelling at her wondering what she was thinking and telling the judges not to accept her answer, while the other team was telling us to accept her answer. The judges were laughing too hard to really deliberate, so we let them have it, since we knew they wanted Rudolph. We also had to watch so no cheating occurred, yes at times even missionaries cheat when playing games. Despite being told numerous times folks would continue to try and give answers to their teammates. One team even tried to say they get to cheat 3 times, just like 3 wrong answers. It was quite funny.
Christmas wouldn't be complete without the visit from Santa. Olivia was fun to watch, as she was somewhat scared of Santa despite being told it was Uncle Bill. After he left she told me he wasn't the real Santa. I said, "Well, who was he?" "Uncle Bill," she said with a smile. The Dooley girls enjoyed their gifts from their missionary aunts and uncles.
Judy shared with us the gifts that we have received from Christ - hope, peace, rest, love, and much more. Praying you embrace the gift of Christ this Christmas season.