Just What Our Village Needed

Every year Asherel and I go hunting for a clear ornament for our elegant Christmas tree. We try to find unusual ones, that most people don't have. It is not easy, but it is always fun going to various Christmas stores, searching for just the right ornament. Our other tradition is that Asherel, with her incredible artistic skills, arranges my little "Christmas village". We have collected little village pieces over the years, but now the narrow shelf our village goes on is full, so we only pick up little figurines if we find something irresistible. I just have a cheap knock-off village, not those collector villages where each piece can be hundreds of dollars. Usually we use cotton for snow in our village, but this year I bought real fake snow to sprinkle on our little villagers.

Yesterday was our day out to find our Christmas ornament. There are plenty of adorable colorful ornaments, but very few clear ones. Last year, we rejoiced to find a squirrel ornament. We both knew as soon as we saw it that it was the one. This year, we went to both Black Lion, and KMart, and no luck. At Peppermint Forest we found a bird that didn't knock our socks off, but we both liked it well enough, so decided it would be this year's choice. And then we wandered to the little village set-ups.
"Oh I love this!" I said, picking up a village horse.
"We could use a horse," said Asherel.
Then I flipped it over and gasped. The little fake horse cost more than our entire Christmas tree. I could build a REAL village for the cost of that little horse.
"You can get them on e-bay," whispered a fellow shopper conspiratorially.
Then Asherel sighted a package of 4 small pink flamingos.
"OH, let's get these!" she cried, "Wouldn't they look great in our village?"
A man glanced over and shook his head, "Pink flamingos in your Christmas village? No, that just isn't right."
I laughed, and checked the price. I guess the pink flamingos weren't designer flamingos because they were priced reasonably.
"Pleeeease," begged Asherel.
Since she is my village builder, I felt she ought to have a say in what went in our village. So we left the store with our chrystal bird and 4 pink flamingos.

Asherel and I built our village together when we got home. I placed everything on our little display shelf, and left the artistic arranging to her. She carefully placed the 4 flamingos. One was near the ice pond with the little skaters, one was crossing a bridge over a river, one was by a village home, and the last one, my favorite, was in a circle of Christmas carolers. He stood there as though he belonged, as every Christmas village should have a population of flamingos, as though bright pink in all the reds, and greens, and snowy whites were just the proper accent. They stood happily in the village, and I smiled at their long spindly legs, and realized they were exactly what our village had needed.

Earlier that day, we had dropped a painting off that I am donating to a fundraiser for a young man with no legs. Joey was a Romanian orphan, till his future Mom found him, and knew he was the son she was meant to have. She brought him home, got him the operations he needed and two prosthetic legs. Asherel and I met Joey three years ago in a homeschool class. He was then, as he is now, a delightful, engaging, and optimistic happy young man. But now, as an older teen, he has outgrown his prosthetic legs. He is too tall for them, and is falling frequently. He needs new legs, but insurance won't pay for what he needs. The legs cost $125,000. I reconnected with Joey when I saw posts on Facebook about him sitting outside local Walmarts selling donuts to raise money for his legs. By the time I saw him yesterday, he had raised $25,000 selling donuts. So, a friend of the family is organizing a fund-raising auction. I saw that on Facebook, as well. The gallery where my artwork had been just closed, and I had many paintings in my attic. I knew there was a special place for them, but I didn't know where that would be, at first. When I read Joey's story, I knew.

We pulled up to the church where we met Joey and his Mom to hand off the painting. Joey was, as I had remembered him, smiling and laughing and greeting friends exuberantly as he walked towards us. He always wears shorts, and his legs are not the fake flesh looking kind. They are clearly metal, mechanical legs, long and spindly, and even I could see, too short for his tall physique. I wondered why he wore shorts. Did pants interfere with the legs mechanisms? Or was he perhaps just proud of them, of how far he had come from an abandoned orphan in Romania with legs that didn't work, to the people that realized Joey was exactly what our village needed?

Joey is not discouraged that he has so much money yet to raise. He realized that by selling donuts, he met hundreds of people, was able to share his faith and trust in God and His goodness with an audience he might otherwise never have reached.

If you would like to contribute to, or attend the fundraiser in Charlotte, please contact me and I will put you in touch with Joey's mom.

Isaiah 52:7 (NIV)
How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, “Your God reigns!”





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