I love Advent.

There's something about the embrace of waiting that feels to my spirit, so often in constant motion, like a relief. Advent tells me to wait. To remember that God is the one bringing his kingdom of justice and peace, and that often--like a tiny baby born into scandal to a no-name girl from backwater Nazareth--it looks nothing like we might expect.

Yet, Advent waiting is a particular kind of waiting. It is not passive. We wait with expectation for what new, shocking, unexpected thing God will do in His world. We expect God to move in powerful ways because that is who God is, and it's how He has always acted. Perhaps most especially, when He freely chose to take on the stuff of his world in order to rescue it all from the grip of sin and death and despair.

We at ASJ are waiting; waiting for the fullness of God's justice and shalom to cover Honduras and the whole earth as the waters cover the sea. Yet, we wait with expectation and hope.

Why?

Because over the past 27 years since the founding of ASJ-Honduras, God has given us more reasons to expect the unexpected than we can count. Because that's just who God is and how God works.

Because Advent reminds us that, though we wait, there is something coming worth waiting for.

As we gather around the table this Christmas, we also want to share with you a few of the traditional foods our Honduran partners and friends will be enjoying with their families.