Three Kings Day...Blessing's in a Box

While Christian Americans enjoy a big celebration on Christmas Day, Christians in Mexico have their celebration on Three Kings Day or El Dia de los Reyes. This holiday is celebrated twelve days after Christmas on January 6th. It commemorates the day the Three Wise Men (Melchoir, Gaspar, and Baltazar) arrived in Bethlehem to bring gifts to baby Jesus. Mexico, as it inherited its culture from Spain, quickly adopted Three Kings Day January 6 and since then every child waits for the arrival of the three travelers. The tradition has its rules: the children should write a letter with their requests (they are not going to continue delivering incense and myrrh) and specify the good work they have done throughout the year along with the problems they are going to correct in the coming year. The letter will be tied to a balloon with string and will be allowed to fly, or they will burn the letter (because the king can also read smoke; they are very wise!) or simply put the letter inside a shoe that should be placed at the base of the nativity, or now also the Christmas tree. The night of January 5th all the children go to sleep early and on the 6th, the toys appear next to the shoe. This Janurary 6th Our Church, Thomas Martinez Church and some other people in the community, have committed to a God sized task. We want to bless 1000 children with a shoebox of gifts,a party and a time where they can hear the message of the gospel in word, drama and song, in one of the Chichimeca Indian villages. So far God is blessing this event. We need to raise over 5,000 dollars for this to happen. We know God will show up and come through as He already has. The beginning of this process was to buy 1000 shoeboxes and assemble them. We pulled together a group of people and had a night where we put the boxes together. All of the boxes came flat and we had to assemble them. We had a great night doing this for these precious children. Here are some photo's of the evening.

Tammy, Scott, Kelley, Adina, Rebecca, David, Brandy and Larkin

We are so blessed!

Made it without falling!

Rebecca and Adina goofing around!

Mark, working hard on the boxes!

Our next task is to raise the money to fill the boxes, then go shopping and wrap the shoeboxes. Samatrian's purse was at this village last year and we thought that that this year they were coming again, but that is not the case. They have other sopts to visit this year. That is a wonderful organization that blesses children all over the world. We wanted these kids to have a special Christmas. If you find it in your heart to bless these children and want to give, please email us at: antiochsma@gmail.com and we can give you all the information. Thank you!