Last Sunday was our church's family Christmas pageant.  We schedule it early in the month so that we can have a snow date as necessary.  This year it happened as planned, and the script was actually pretty cute.  The youth group performed a play that focused on the inn keeper's family, and Rose was one of the daughters.  Before they went on, but after the elementary kids' chorus, I did a routine to an instrumental version of "I Saw Three Ships".  It's from a Michael W. Smith album, and features beautiful flute melodies.  My routine included a combination of contact juggling, kendama, illusion and narration. 

I had a chance to speak at my school's high school chapel recently.  I was presenting the school's Christmas gift project.  In lieu of gifts for the teachers, we are asking the families to give a comparable donation to Gospel for Asia.  We are going to pool the money to buy water purification systems and Bibles for dalat  (typically called 'untouchable') families.  As I spoke to the teens, I challenged them to take it one step further and to give beyond what they would do normally for a teacher gift: consider giving what you set aside for a new outfit or video game.  After school that day, a girl named Kat came up to me with a wad of bills for GFA.  She gave $17 of her own money - all she had in her pocket - to help some of the one billion people who do not have access to fresh water.

Our show at Fryeburg Health Care scheduled for December 6th was postponed to January 24 due to snow.

My appearance in the Bridgton Holiday parade was cancelled.  The parade went on as scheduled, but many floats cancelled out, too.  By then the snow turned to rain.  Since I was walking, and juggling in the rain makes props very slippery, I decided it was best not to participate.  There's always next year.

After our benefit concert (see previous blog), Rose suggested our class do a fund raiser for the family of the little boy with leukemia.  We will pursue this idea after Christmas vacation.