The true meaning of Christmas

I get to talk to TJ a lot, it's wonderful. If you would have told me 12 years ago (when TJ was on his first deployment in 1997) that I would be talking to/seeing my husband on a computer on his deployment 12 years from then (in El Salvador for heaven's sake!!) - I would have thought you were nuts! But, we do. We use Skype and our webcams, and we talk A LOT. In fact, I don't get much else done around here because we talk so much.

Yesterday during one of our many conversations I asked him what he had been doing. He casually mentioned he had gone to an orphanage. This is so totally my husband - he never, ever will brag about himself or bring any kind of attention to anything good he has done. He is a very humble, modest guy. I asked him what he did at the orphanage. He said some of his squadron had gone there and delivered Christmas presents to the orphans. This touched my heart in a big way. Here are some pictures (that I had to cajole him to get from another guy who took them):

The Orphanage. Tin roof, no a/c in very hot weather. It is hard to imagine people live like this! TJ said a tin roof is a good house, some people just live in the bushes.

He said there were "lots of cuties there." He was right:

My husband doing something he does well: playing sports!

The part that broke my heart was that they didn't have enough presents for all the kids. I guess there were kids visiting from other orphanages. So, there were more kids there than they thought there would be. TJ said they will be going back when they celebrate Three Kings Day in January, to deliver more presents.