Happy Holidays!  Feliz Navidad! Geseënde Kersfees! Жаны Жылыныздар менен! 圣诞快乐! срећан Божић! Hristos se rodi! С Рождеством и Новым Годом! შობასგილოცავთ ! Merry Christmas! Joyeux Noël!  There are so many ways to express the spirit of the holiday season with colleagues from difference countries in an international school. In this Christmas dinner, teachers were sending their season greetings to each other, and communicated our first experience in this country. How do you celebrate Christmas and New Year in your country？ How is your first experience of seeing a doctor in China？

Christmas could not be without little gifts. The principal provided Holiday cookies. And our dear colleagues, Altynai and David, arranged their little surprise for everyone—red Christmas stockings with coffee, candy, and other goodies were stuffed in them.

There were a variety of cultures gathered in China, making this Christmas warm and special for us. It felt warm reminding us of the Christmas family dinner in our hometown. It was also special to spend time with our global teacher-family no matter the venue.

Donations to the Sun Village

The holiday season wouldn’t be complete without giving back to our community. With some publicity, teachers and students collected a total of 12 large boxes of clothes, stationary, books, and other items for the Sun Village in Beijing during the month of December. Some students even filled an entire suitcase with books. This was an opportunity not only to help those in need, but also to convey the concept of community service to the students. The sense of service and contribution to the society is like a small seed; we, as educators of students, help plant it, water it and fertilize it, hoping to see it grow into a big tree. On December 29th, nine students came along with three teachers to deliver the donations to the Sun Village, which serves children whose parents are incarcerated. While only housing 63 children right now, they are also sponsoring about 10,000 kids all over China in impoverished areas. Some items we donated will be used in the village, and some will be given out to others that need them even more.

After talking to the Sun Village representative who received us, BRFLS Junior High intended to continue working with them in the future in the following aspects: 1 – help tutor their kids on Fridays (their most urgent need currently); 2 – Help them with their fruit/vegetable farming—either labor work or help them sell (right now it’s strawberries); 3 – Fundraise for them (large amount of money is needed for daily operation).

We were pleased to see that our little student volunteers were quite attentive when listening to the village representative, and also asked questions and raised ideas for possible ways to help.  Let’s continue to share with our students the spirit of the community service, and the spirit of social responsibility for the rest of the school year!