Our dearest friends:

What a precious gift is to have friends and family that love you and care for you! We are not able to respond the many letters and cards you sent us right away, but we do try to keep you update at least once a year! This is the time to do so!

For us, 2005 brought many changes and challenges. We already have a full year and a half here at San Cristobal de Las Casas, Chiapas, México. A year where we saw our two older children, Yerís and Ricardo depart and stay back at PR. A year where we moved, (again) and started a new assignment working with indigenous Mayan people. A year where María entered a new school, we met new people and learned the basics of two new languages, Tseltal and Tsotsil! It truly has been a year full of changes!

Ricardo moves a lot among the communities, ministering, preaching, teaching and organizing the zones for the work. Doris, keeps a low profile at home with María (our youngest daughter), receiving visitors, giving some workshops and guiding a development project with Tseltal women. We already have an ongoing Mayense Diploma program at Maravillas; Simojovel (eight hours from our place!) and we plan to extend this program to two other areas as well.

Our brothers and sisters are beautiful people, strong people. People full of dignity and a deep sense of living in harmony with their land and community. Yet, they are also people set aside by the government, excluded from the processes that decide who gets what and how much. They are the peasants that struggle to keep their families alive but cannot compete with transnationals, your brothers in Christ emigrating to find a job there in your place, the expendable ones. Women, that grapple to keep their children healthy with corn tortillas and beans. Yet, they are also those with a profound spirituality and a unique vision of the world. Like Jesus, they challenge us to seek a different world. Theirs' is a deep faith; theirs' is the dignity and the yearning for justice. We are honoured to serve them.

We just came back from a short time at PR where we saw our children. It was good for all of us to be together again and share the changes and challenges of our lives during this time. Yes, we made it twice to the beach! And María revitalized her missing ‘sis and bro' relationship. Yerís and Tito are working to help with the university living costs and going well in the process of gaining autonomy from ‘mami' and ‘papi.' Our extended families are well and we enjoyed days of encountering each other, of talking late, of laughing and crying together, although a time too short for our liking.

However, Christmas was also a conflicting time. While in PR, the stress of finding the right gift (or any gift), the massive amounts of people at the shopping malls, the continuous commercial propaganda, saturated and muffled our senses and I believed almost our hearts. People were so immersed in the dynamics of "Christmas" that they barely look at you. In our encounter with different peoples, our perception of Christmas has changed. For when we shared Christmas with Pastor Antonio and his Tsotsil community at El Jardín, was as quiet and warm, as we believed might have been at the manger. Christmas was singing to Christ, evoking God's love, embracing each other and sharing tamales and coffee. Under the zinc's roof of the pastor's house made of wood with soil floor, with only a table, some chairs and a hammock for furniture, there were no malls, no gifts, no hurry, no Christmas lights, and no Christmas tree. There was only the bonfire to warm and light us, the Milky Way shining out the night, and the serene sharing of our own selves.

Jesus Emmanuel, given to us, shares his life with us. He belongs to us and us all to him, and to one another. This is the true gift of Christmas. Jesus made us one people; we belong to each other. By sharing your lives and resources with us and with those whom we serve, you all have been gifts to us.

May all of you have a wonderful year and become gifts to each other!

Ricardo, Doris and María in Chiapas, and Yerís and Tito in PR.