Wish You a Hopi Christmas

Last week Bryan and I went on a road trip with my family to the Hopi Reservation in Arizona.  This is something that my family has done every year for the past four or five years.  We have served as volunteers for the Hopi Outreach organization and with that comes the annual experience of going down every year for a Christmas visit.  This year, the organization brought down a whole semi truck and a few trailers full of stuff (bikes, clothing, potatoes, Christmas presents for kids, blankets, etc.) to distribute on the reservation.  Every year it has proven to be a very good experience.

The Hopi people have proven to me, time and time again, how truly humble and kind they are. I can honestly say that they are among the most goodhearted people that I have had the honor of associating with.  As we spoke to one of the tribe's leaders, one member of our group asked what Hopi meant.  His answer was simple and made perfect sense to me: "It means to be Christlike.  To be all things that He is."  Granted, these people are not perfect.  They have struggles and trials that we that do not live their life cannot understand.  But like I said, they are kind.

Because these experiences have come to mean a lot to me over the past few years, I was anxious for my husband to go with this year.  I was impressed by his willingness to help those that he met and to work as hard as he did.  He lifted and carried so many bags of potatoes, each weighing about fifty pounds each!  Yet, every time we came to a new village, he was one of the first to start unloading the semi and trailers.  Man, I love him!

Like every other year, my dad handed out gifts to the kids dressed as Santa.  It is always fun to see him fill that role!  We tease him about his tenor "Ho-Ho-Ho"s but he is truly very good with those kids.  Anyway! I just wanted to post something about our trip because it was such a fun and uplifting one.  And even though I doubt that anyone is reading what I write here, I still feel that these experiences are worth recording and sharing.  Merry Christmas!!! Only eight more days!!!

Dad put an awesome slideshow together of our trip! Take a look!