Happy New Year from the Mahoneys!!

 Sunday before Christmas:

• What a blessing it was to celebrate Christmas with some other missionary families here!  We enjoyed exchanging gag gifts with the adults & the kids got to open one of their gifts from family/friends in America.  Also, we had quite the spread: chicken, awesome mashed potatoes, ham, yummy noodles, cranberry sauce, amazing rolls & several desserts (that we almost didn’t have enough room for)!
  

  Eli is wearing Andy's gift (the hat), & Waverly is wearing
Ruth's 'vomit poncho' (for when Alleluia spits up)!

Christmas Eve:

Zoey loving on one of the kids in the orphanage

Eli playing ball with one of the boys in the orphanage

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Our family really enjoyed getting to visit a local orphanage to share the Christmas story in Malagasy, sing Christmas carols (in English & Malagasy), pass out candy & stickers & love on some sweet, precious children.  It was so wonderful to see Eli & Zoey help pass out the candy & their stickers to these children; as well as love & play with the many babies that we saw at the orphanage.  There were 40 children that lived at this orphanage.  Please pray for these precious children that they will have a family next Christmas & that they would truly know how much God loves them!

Zoey & Eli before the Christmas play

The big kids got to take part in our church’s Christmas play!  Eli was one of the wise men & Zoey was one of the angels.  It was so great to see our kids enjoy being a part of this play & have fun with the other children.  There was a practice before the play began so by the time the kids were on stage, Eli was losing his costume & Zoey had lost her halo:).  
 

 

the kids trying on their new clothes on Christmas morning.

Christmas Day:

We had fun just spending time together as a family; reading the Christmas story & watching the kids open their gifts.  It was a very simple day, but somehow it was still special even though we still missed being with our families in America!

Moments with the Mahoney kids:

1. Homeschooling begins:
   Each week, Eli gets to learn a new verse from the Bible through song. Here is his version of the Romans 3:23 song: “All have sinned (echo), and fall short (repeat) of the glory of God that is the word of the Lord & it’s written by Bob in Romans 3:23.”  [Bob otherwise known as Paul!]
2. Imaginary dinner with Zoey: Yesterday, at “Zoey’s diner” I had pork, chicken, rice, French fries, carrots, smoothies & homemade donuts with ice cream (all imaginary, of course).  Here is part of the conversation we had:
   Ruth: “This pork is really good.  What’s on it?”
   Zoey: “Homemade sauce”
   Ruth: “What’s in it?”
   Zoey: “It’s homemade.”
   Ruth: “What did you make it with?”
   Zoey: “You know, I made it by myself.”
3. “You Got to Move it Move it”: Someone has been sending this subliminal message to Alleluia while she’s been sleeping because a few days after Christmas she became mobile; & she is only 5 months old!  She isn’t crawling, or doing the army crawl but she has been doing planks then lunging herself forward to get around wherever she wants to go!!  (We will try to post a video of this soon).

Allie at 5 months :) 

Thanks for your faithful prayers!  You are a big part of the work we are called here to do!!