We have had a lovely Christmas. Today we bought the last of our presents.

We twinned our downstairs loo with a latrine in Burundi, courtesy of Cord and Tearfund.

And we bought two other gifts from Oxfam Unwrapped–

A chicken (perhaps we can ‘twin’ this with one of ours too…)

And fertiliser (twinned with our compost bin? Or am I getting a bit twin-happy now?)

Before Christmas I wrote here about how we had asked our friends to think about NOT giving us a present this year- and many of them gave us money towards these gifts.

I should say that some still gave us gifts as well- and these were lovely too! Some people are so generous…

But the gifts above- they are a double blessing.

A flush of blessing.

A clucking blessing.

And a whole dung pile of a blessing.

Who knows how these things pan out (sorry- the puns kind of write themselves don’t they?) in places a long way from here. I only hope that there will be a little flicker of grace in a place much in need of some.

Because there is much grace in the giving…