Tico Tuesday, December 10th

Happy 2nd Tuesday in Advent Greetings to you!
So much is going on, and I wish I had time to tell you so many things. But, I didn't have supper until 8:30 tonight since it took me so long to get around to making bread (a New Year's resolution was not not buy bread anymore and I've kept it!) and I didn't feel like cooking anything else. The last of my leftover turkey with gravy on a thick warm slice was worth the wait! But anyway, my room again looks like a light tornado came through, and dishes are piled up on my sink and stove (those will be taken care of in the morning though).
In more interesting news, yesterday was the Annual Christmas and Thanksgiving Service at the Bible Home. It was wonderful! The school chorus sang, we all sang, and then we told the story of why Jesus came to earth. Each house put on a different scene. In between scenes, a small group of personnel sang a related song, and I lit an Advent candle and explained what it represented. Doña Magali, the director of the HB, narrated the rest. We concluded by having cake and fruit nectar (not juice) boxes. Overall, it went really well, and everyone did a great job. A couple people and I sang the first part of "Mary did you know?" after the announcement to Mary and it sounded really nice. The kids all did a great job and the costumes were adorable but:

-I didn't know I had to say anything while lighting the advent candles until doña Magali (who got there late from her morning appts outside the HB, so we started late because we couldn't start without her!) arrived. I had to go and make photocopies of her script as we were starting. And of course I forgot the last page, so I had to quickly copy what I said for the Christ candle by hand.
-I didn't tell our asst director, who was our M.C., to not introduce the school chorus since da Magali's daughter who had been out with her, hadn't arrived yet. Oops. Magaly the daughter is the soloist in the school chorus, so they couldn't perform without her.
-Da Magali had me ask the kitchen staff to help get the stuff together to cut and serve the huge cakes. They weren't prepared for that. The 180 nectar boxes that da Magali supposedly ordered had not been purchased, so our driver had to dash out and hurry back... he made it in time though!!
-Da Magali made the program in a hurry and accidentally paired the shepherds with the announcement to Mary instead of with Jesus' birth. That made for a bit of confusion. But, oh well. We can't turn back time, and we know Luke got it right!
Even in spite of the wild stuff, I still loved it. And I loved how  12+ people came together in the cake serving process: as soon as we brought the cakes back to cut them, many helpful hands appeared and worked together well and efficiently. And, I felt really good that da Magali had taken me into consideration and given me so many responsibilities, even though I blew a couple of them.
And yikes, I just wrote you over twice what I normally do on a Tuesday. Sorry!! I hope it's been entertaining and a blessing. Oh, and THANK YOU so much for your prayers for my studies. Saturday I read about 500 pages and wrote 3. That was only possible through God's grace! I averaged over 10 pages/hour faster than my normal "fastest" reading pace! Now all I have left is to finish one more big assignment due Saturday! Please keep praying!
Muchas gracias y buenas noches!!!
Carrie