Ladies Christmas Dinner

I understand that this post is a bit past due, but I wanted to share one of my favorite Christmas activities.  Each year my church hosts a Ladies Christmas Dinner as a way to start off the holiday season and also a way to minister to ours friends and neighbors what the meaning of Christmas is all about.

For the past several years, I co-host a table with my mother-in-law.  She has all the dishes and most importantly the serving dishes we need.  The church provides a table, chairs and dinner, we bring the table setting, a gift for each lady at our table and the serving dishes for the dinner.

The day starts out with two hours of glorious, free baby-sitting to let the mommies set up the tables without little ones to "help"  My MIL and I have done this so many times and usually my husband's grandma is in town during this time so between the three of us, we can set that table in about 30 minutes.

The theme this year was Let Heaven and Nature sing, so our table had a burlap table cloth (nature) and the dishes were blue and silver (heaven).  It had a very Swedish feel to it.  Our gifts were silver, glittery ornaments and it was just a wonderful evening.

This is just a few pictures of other tables that night.  This event is special to me and I always enjoy seeing the other tables, seeing friends that I only get to see once or twice a year and an evening out with girlfriends celebrating the birth of our Christ, our Savior.

Messianic Passover Seder

Friday evening, Mike and I had the privilege of attending a Messianic Passover Seder with some friends from our bible study group.  One of the gals in our study knew someone from our church who knows the Jewish couple who started the Messianic church.  I only heard bits and pieces of the testimony of the couple, but wow.  Brought up in Jewish traditions, culture and way and then in the 60s during the time of discovery for most people, this adorable couple found Jesus as they were searching.

I wish I could tell you in great detail what everything means, but I'll give you my cliff notes version and hope I don't get it all wrong.  From the very beginning, God had a plan for salvation for mankind.  The Jews celebrate Passover as a remembrance of God delivering the Jews from the land of Egypt.  Each step in the celebration represents life, both the sweet and the bitter, the harshness but also our salvation through Christ.  The Jews of course do not believe that Jesus was/is the Messiah, so they will refute my last statement, but all I have to say is I would love to experience the Seder again in a more intimate setting than a hall with almost 300 people.  I want my boys to experience it and to be able to grasp what Christ did for us.

*my little side note* Because the Seder was at a school, we couldn't drink wine and I've had my fill of grape juice for a very, very, very long time.  Let's just say, I can deal with the shot of juice once a month for communion, but 4 glasses of it was a bit much.