Up Close And Personal

For starters, sorry for the late blog post. I’ve been without internet for over a month now, so I wasn’t able to update you all with how my holiday season was going/went. At this point, I’m just going to paint a very brief little picture of what Christmas here looked like. There were very limited Christmas lights, and the houses that chose to put up lights put up two strands of them at best. My house did not put up Christmas lights, or any other type of Christmas decorations, inside or out. Yes, that means no Christmas tree as well. There was basically no baking of holiday goodies, besides the natilla (a Colombian holiday sweet) that we made last minute on Christmas Eve. There was no Christmas nativity scenes, no Christmas show watching, no Christmas caroling, no Christmas songs, no Christmas plays, and no Christmas presents. It goes without saying there was no snow here, the weather is still the same as when I arrived, rather hot.

And it’s not like my typical Christmas traditions were replaced with new “Colombian Christmas Traditions” that I could learn and partake in. Instead, life here just trucked along like it were any other plain old time of the year. With the absence of anything and everything that is normally included in my holiday seasons, I must admit it didn’t seem like Christmas to me here, and I didn’t feel “The Christmas Spirit.” Rather, I felt what I’m going to call a figurative “Christmas hole” that needed to be filled.

Finally, in my search for Colombian Christmas Traditions I found one: thankfulness. In turning to this great Christmas tradition I filled my “Christmas hole” with thankfulness and gratitude for all the wonderful graces God has filled my life with.

One blessing that I’m especially grateful for is the opportunity to serve as a missionary and volunteer worker in Colombia for a year. This year wouldn’t have been possible without the amazingly awesome YAV program that I’m serving here with, or without the overwhelming support of so many wonderful people that I’m extremely fortunate to have in my life. So here’s a little shout out video to my great program and all of you:

I tried many times to capture how thankful I am for all of you in that video, and ultimately came up so very short. This experience that you have all provided me with means the world to me (cliche, I know), and will forever change my world going forward in life. So while I can’t tell you all exactly how great I think you are, I can tell you that I’ll continue to pay back all the generosity, support, and love I’ve received, with interest, to all those around me, and all throughout my life.

At about this point in time you may be wondering: where is all the nitty gritty insight into the personal life of Alex Meyer that’s implied with a title like “Up Close And Personal?” Don’t you worry, you shall have it yet! … In my next blog: “Up Close And Personal Pt. 2,” which will debut just a week after this bad boy. I had originally written one behemoth of a post with both parts together (hence the title), but I really wanted to dedicate this to all of you and everything you’ve done for me, without taking away from that by following with a long winded story. That, and I’m getting a kick out of myself knowing that I’ve built up some suspense and then leave you all hanging with a: to be continued…