Ode to my Secret Santa

Every year the missionaries do Secret Santa during Christmas. Each person is supposed to do three surprise things for their secret person and then a final big gift on Christmas Eve. My (Rocio's) secret santa was amazing! My first gift was a beautiful painted glass ornament. Problem was Todd and I decided not to get a Christmas tree so we had nowhere to put it. My secret santa soon took care of that by getting us a Christmas tree. Then a few of us had mentioned we were bummed by the lack of snow this winter. My secret santa then left me snow balls (made of the ice from defrosting her freezer!). It was so fun! Then my final gift was amazing. She looked up a funky new restaurant near my parents' house back home, printed out the amazingly yummy menu, wrote out the directions so I wouldn't get lost, and gave me some spending money so Todd and I could go have lunch there. She rocked! Thanks so much Kelsey! You made my Christmas super special.

The Beautiful Ornament

Our Christmas Tree

Please note: all real trees in Romania look like they were grown especially for Charlie Brown

Christmas Cookies

One of our favorite Christmas activities is baking cookies and decorating them. We really wanted to share this tradition with the children we work with but the frosting here is too runny and it would not work. Thankfully, my brother decided to spend his Christmas in Romania with us. He packed up all our cookie cutters, frosting, sprinkles, etc. and made it possible for us to have the kids share in this tradition. Enjoy the pictures below!

Georghe cutting out cookies

Matias (my brother) helping Diana frost her cookie

Alex discovering that frosting is just as good on fingers

Gina, the master decorator

Don't they look good!

Jesus Birthday Cakes

Kelsey and I do a Bible program for the kids at Casa Alba. As Christmas time approached we wanted a fun way to tell them about the importance of Christ's birth. After much searching we found the Jesus Birthday Cake. Each part of the cake building process tells a different reason for his coming. It's quite a neat project. Below is a picture of the finished product from all four groups of kids.

St. Lucia

As many of you know, the organization we work with in Marghita was founded by Swedes and the majority of the missionaries are Swedish. During Christams time, one special tradition they have is the caroling of Santa Lucia. Yet this tradition is not only for the Swedes on the team. Everyone must partake. I can barely hold a tune in English, so you can only imagine what my singing is like in Swedish.

The caroling is to commemorate Santa Lucia (St. Lucy). It is usually celebrated on December 13th, although we did not do it on that day here. St. Lucia is an Italian saint who has been "adopted" by the Swedes. She gave her dowry to the poor. Her fiancee denounced her for this. She was blinded and burned. The flames didn't touch her so she was stabbed in the heart. She is associated with the idea of light. It is said that she appeared during a famine in Sweden in the middle ages carrying food to the farmers across Lake Vännern. During Santa Lucia all the girls dress up in white robes with gold sashes around their waist and hair and go around caroling while holding candles to represent Santa Lucia. The boys also dress up as "star boys," wearing white robes with a cone-shaped hat decorated with stars and also carrying a star wand. We then all walk around caroling in all three languages (Swedish, English, and Romanian). It is quite a sight to see and hear. What an experience!

St. Lucia with Star Boys

Singing Swedish, English, and Romanian Christmas Carols

Picture Perfect

This week the leadership decided to take the Casa Alba kids' annual picture in front of a Christmas tree. When my friend, who was in charge of getting the task done, informed me of their plans I changed my afternoon plans to help her out. Any parent knows how painful it can be to take a child's holiday portrait. Now imagine 21 of them at the same time. It was not easy. We bribed them with everything imaginable and even busted out the candy. Here are some of the takes. I must admit that we had a blast looking at all the pictures we took!

Take 1....not so hot

9 takes later...things started to look up...yet still not perfect!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

As Christmas time nears, we asked these little reindeers to help us turn our Romanian apartment into a winter wonderland. A few stencils and a can of spray snow later we created a pretty cool scene. And the kids loved to wear the reindeer antlers (thanks Jamie)!

Nati

Georghe

*Our Masterpiece*

Interview of the Century

For those of you who do not know, although Rocio has lived most of her life in the US, she is not a citizen.  For the last few years she debated whether or not to become a citizen but decided not to because she couldn't have triple citizenship (Argentina, Spain, US) and wasn't quite ready to say good-bye to her Argentine citizenship.  Everything changed, however, when we decided to move to Romania.  You see, as a permanent resident she cannot leave the US for more than 1 year.  This became quite a predicament went we became missionaries.  There was no way around it she had to become an American.

Before we left the states we began the process thinking we wouldn't have to be back for the interview until late spring or early summer of 2009.  Yet the Lord works in strange ways and not too long ago we received an interview date of JANUARY 2009!  This means the Stophers are headed back to the states for a bit.  Maybe the Lord knew that we might not survive the first winter here....who knows!

The next part of the process includes a pretty demanding interview.  We will be asked regarding our marriage, our ministry in Romania, and Rocio will have to take a test to prove she knows American History and Government.  Please pray that she can learn all the information and that she gets easy questions at the interview.  If she doesn't answer the questions correctly she may not get to become a citizen....seriously.  Then, assuming the interview goes great, she will be assigned a date when she will be sworn in as a new American citizen.  YAY!  After that off we go back to our work in Romania.  A little hectic, we know.  Please pray that everything goes smoothly and that we can make it back to Romania as quickly as possible.  Just for fun here are some of the questions she might be asked.  Would you pass the test?

1) Who makes the federal laws in the US?

2) What were the original 13 states?

3) How many amendments are there to the Constitution?

4) What are some of the requirements to become the president of the US?

5) Name the amendments that guarantee or address voting rights?

Answers:

1) Congress

2)Connecticut, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Maryland, Rhode Island

3) 27 

4) Be native-born, not a naturalized citizen, be at least 35 years old, and have lived in the US for at least 14 years.

5) 15th, 19th, 24th, 26th amendments

IF YOU MISSED MORE THAN 1 QUESTION YOU FAILED!

Putting Christmas in Perspective