Beautiful Feet: December 25, 2015

In the end Christmas is a bunch of bull. We got up early , Charlotte to shower and me to turn the water on. Our sink to wash dishes in had broken and I had tried to fix it Wednesday but was still having problems so we were afraid to leave the water on all night. We got a neat skype call from Caleb at 6:30 and got to watch little Charlotte get her first Christmas present – a child size sofa. She really liked it. About 7:30 we got a skype from Charlotte's dad and stepmom. They were doing pretty good but he is having a lot of pain with his back and could use prayers. Then we spent the morning getting ready for Regina and her children and Erasmus (Suleyma's husband) to come to lunch. About 10 we got a skype call from all the family while they were together at Caleb and Della's house for Christmas breakfast. We got to watch them open the presents (most were for little Charlotte) and we had a great time. I spent part of the morning working on getting the sink fixed with the help of Jose, he is a real jack of all trades and had some tools. I think we got it but then I had to let it dry for a while. At one point we did have water spewing everywhere for a moment (plumbing problems are one of my biggest dislikes). At noon I went over and picked up Regina, Elizabeth, Kenya and Arnoldo, Suleyma and her husband walked down from their house about 30 minutes after we got back. Lunch was great as is everything Charlotte cooks- pizza, spaghetti, corn, salad, chip and dip and cinnamon roll cake for dessert. After lunch we had a good visit, but they did share some bad news. This past week there was an accident near Salcoatitan. A bus accidently forced a car off the road and the driver and passenger was killed. One killed was the father of two students we had taught for about 3 months. They would all ride their bikes to class and then the dad would leave until class ended. We understand they also had a 5 year old boy as well in the family. We are prayerful for this family. It was not too long before our visitors said they needed to get home to wash clothes. Several people had mentioned what they called the Bull Run that was always held on Christmas and we were interested but did not want to go by ourselves. Charlotte said we should invite Jose and Kelly and their family to go with us and us pay. It is only $3 per person and so that was not too bad. Anyway they said they would go on short notice. We rested some and visited some more with the kids on skype (it was a new record for one day, guess because it was our first Christmas apart) anyway about 6:30 they knocked on the door and everyone was all dressed up. They said we could just walk because it was not that far and parking would be bad. Kelly’s brother and sister who were visiting for the weekend went too. We had envisioned it to be something like the Bull Run in Spain we had seen on TV but actually it was an El Salvadoran rodeo. There was a really big crowd and a long line waiting to get in. It was also really hard to find seats but after a little while they brought around plastic chairs and everyone got one except Jose and Kiki and they stood the whole time. We were literally against the corral fence so we certainly had ring side seats. There was some singing and finally there were three bull rides then a long show by two clowns then three bull rides then a presentation of a man with a horse he had trained to dance then three bull rides then a lady sang for a while then three bull rides and the man came back with a different horse which he let loose in the ring and it did several tricks and dances at his direction (he was probably the best of the night) after the next three bull rides when they started another show we decided to leave since it was about 10 and we were tired. The man asked at the gate if we were coming back in and we were told it went on till 2 am. The bull riders all wore crash helmets and did not look like they were really very good (only a couple stayed on longer than a second after the bull was let out of the stand) and a couple of them got somewhat banged up but not really serious. We probably won't go back but still it was interesting and we also enjoyed getting to spend the time with Kelly and Jose and their family. We have been together every night now for the past 3 nights and tomorrow afternoon we have our regular weekly study. It was definitely a different Christmas day and over all a pretty good one.