Christmas in Guyana

We had a wonderful Christmas day but very different than any other Christmas in our lives. We were asked by the mission president to help the Elders of Berbice area have a happy Christmas. There are 15 missionaries here. We made plans with the other senior couple, Elder and Sister Young, and the Zone Leaders. We decided to have a service project at the orphanage in the morning and dinner and activities at our home in the afternoon.

We woke very early because we still had many preparations for the Christmas dinner. We had spent much time in the past two weeks looking in many different stores for the ingredients for our dinner. We luckily found some in Suriname and others in Georgetown. It is hard when you have something in mind you want to cook and the ingredients are no where to be found.

On Friday I prepared two pumpkin pies and a banana cream pie and homemade rolls. I was very disappointed to find that the boxed milk they have here (they have no other kind) does not make wonderful pudding for banana cream pie. Even worse than that was the yeast for the rolls did not work and so my rolls were flat. So on Christmas morning I was preparing another batch of rolls. Larry’s job was to peel and cut up 10 pounds of potatoes for mashed potatoes. He made them a head of time and put into the crock pot to keep warm. We wanted to have everything ready when the missionaries came over after the orphanage. We have one Christmas decoration – a small tree and ornaments and lights left from a previous missionary couple. I was very glad to have a tree.







We all met at the Berbice Orphanage at 10:00. There are 55 children ranging from a few months to 18 years old. Most of the children are elementary age. They are beautiful children. They were so happy to see us. The missionaries planned group games. We had three groups and then rotated so every child got to play every game. I was in charge of the game, Fruit Basket Tips Over. They had a lot of fun. It was nice to see the missionaries enjoy the children too.


We then did the nativity with the children. They dressed up like Mary and Joseph, Shepards, wise men and an angel. We even had a missionary be King Herod. Elder Austin read the story as the children acted the parts.


Elder Clark put on a Santa hat and set in a chair to hand out gift donated by our church. We had homemade stuffed toys and balls and homemade wooden cars and blocks. They were very excited to receive a toy. The older children got hygiene kits which they were also excited about. It felt really good to be able to give to these special children. It may have been the only gift they received. Oh, they are so cute. I wish I could take one of these darling children back to Utah. They don’t let them be adopted because they feel like they are family and want them to feel secure and loved where they are.

We came back to our home for a delicious Christmas dinner. We had so much yummy food. The Elders loved it. We had Guyanese food and American food because we have both kinds of elders. We played games (I taught them Jenkins) and had white elephants and watched a movie. Larry gave a devotional. Everyone shared how the gospel has blessed their lives. We heard some great conversion stories of their families.

The last of the elders left at 6:00 pm. We were exhausted and wanted to clean the kitchen and rest and call our family but we had two more sets of visitors. Our neighbors, B.J. and Asha came over. They told us they didn’t have any money for Christmas gifts this year. They have two teenage sons, Immanuel and Josh. Their Christmas was cooking a nice dinner for their family. They shared the food with us too. They are so generous even though they don’t have much. I asked about their Christmas as children. B.J. said they never got anything for Christmas. Asha said she got very little. If she complained that she didn’t get as much as her friends, her mother would tell her to be happy with what she did get. Being happy as a family was more important than getting gifts.

After they left two boys came over. Devon is 16 and his brother is 11. Devon rode his brother on his bike all the way over from New Amsterdam – and it was dark. I was amazed that they would come that far and on Christmas. They had not had any Christmas. They are very poor. Their father had to work. Their mother had left them a while back. There are five children. Devon can’t go to school any more because he has to take care of his siblings and feed them and get them off to school. We set them down and fed them leftovers from our Christmas dinner. I don’t think they had had much to eat that day. They left after 9:00 pm. I hated to see them ride a bike home so late at night.

We finally got to skype. The only ones we could get a hold of were Aimee and her family, Danny’s family and Anne and Mitch. I was so tired that they finally decided to call the next day when I would be more alert. When I finally had a chance to rest and think about Christmas, I got a little sad thinking about my children and grandchildren that I missed and also this being my 1st Christmas without my parents. It was a very good thing I was so busy all day. I had three boys serve missions and I was always so grateful to the women who fed my boys a nice Christmas dinner. This year was my turn to try and bring Christmas joy to some wonderful dedicated missionaries.