Christmas on $160

Four children, two adults, presents for everyone and dinner for more.

Can you make it happen on $160?

Somehow we did.





We met this family through a friend who was already working with World Relief.

They came to the United States from Iraq by way of Lebanon five months ago.

Emily has spent lots of time with them, visiting them about twice a week before we moved here and I had visited them a few times as well.

After moving in we were talking about Christmas and Emily asked if we could take the children to our church's Christmas program. Surprisingly, they said yes! So Sunday night we took the three youngest children (4, 8, 10) to our church Christmas program and dinner.

When we returned home we were talking about it and Emily and I decided to have them over for a Christmas party before we both had to head home for the break.

We thought about what we could do on our tiny budgets: we had a bag of potatoes. We had leftover tamales from the church (but we can't eat those, because they're pork and this family is Muslim).

But may all glory be given to God for how he as so graciously provided for us!!

A few weeks ago a girl at work told me that she felt like God was leading her to give me $100. No stipulations. Just use it for ministry.

Sunday another person at church gave me more money, some for Emily (who didn't even have gas money to go home for Christmas) and some for the family.

So we decided we would use the $100 from work and the $60 from church to make Christmas happen for this Iraqi family who has never celebrated Christmas nor even heard the story.

We went to Target where we thought hard about what each person would like:

For the father, a tool set and flashlight.

For the mother, a photo frame and perfume.

For the oldest son (14), a chess set.

For the youngest son (10), a soccer ball and air pump.

For the oldest daughter (8), a beaded jewelry craft kit.

For the youngest daughter (4), a baby Snow White doll.

We made mashed potatoes, roasted vegetables, and I got two roast chickens.

We all drank hot chocolate while I spoke broken Arabic and English to tell the Christmas story, demonstrating with our Nativity set, drawing pictures, and making big and crazy motions.

Then we ate dinner, followed by the movie The Nativity Story.

After the movie, we opened presents.



They were all so thrilled to receive each of their gifts.

The father said in broken English mixed with Arabic, "I am so thankful to God for my friends Emily, Laura, and Matt, and for dinner and the movie and the presents, and everything you have done." (rough translation)

The poor 4 year old girl fell asleep during the moving and couldn't wake up to open her present! We tried so hard to wake her up but she fell limp on the couch again. It wasn't until they got home that she was finally awake enough to open it, and then she walked around the house holding and kissing the doll.

The children were all so happy, the parents were so happy, and we were amazed and so thankful to God for allowing us the opportunity to share their first Christmas with them.

This is why we moved.

Pray for this family, that they would hear the Gospel and understand what Christ's birth truly means.