A Recap of the Christmas Season at Amigos!

Our Christmas celebrations started a week before Christmas with our first posada, a Latin American tradition that remembers the Holy Family’s search for a place to stay with a procession, carols, and a snack, typically as a novena every night until Christmas Eve. During our first posada, we handed out the Christmas estrenos, a set of nice clothes to be worn for the celebrations of the year, to all of the children and young adults. Normally we wait until Christmas Eve to give out the estrenos, but many of our adolescents had the opportunity to spend Christmas and New Year’s with positive outside connections (family, former caregivers, family friends, etc.) so we made sure all of them could take their estreno with them to celebrate!  

Christmas Eve started with a morning Mass celebrated by Fr. Jobel, our parish priest. We are grateful he was able to accommodate us in his schedule! In the evening, we had our last posada, followed by a nice dinner together as an Amigos family, gift-giving, and fireworks!  

The New Year’s Eve celebration started first with a Celebration of the Word for the Solemnity of Mary Mother of God, then dinner, dancing, a bonfire with roasted marshmallows, and lots more fireworks! We rang in the New Year together with a big fireworks display, and then we headed straight to bed after a long night of fun together.

The day before Epiphany, our final celebration, we welcomed back all of the adolescents who had been on their visits. Our teens really appreciated the opportunity to spend time with their loved ones and have new experiences; for many this was the first Christmas they remember outside of Amigos de Jesús. This experience was made possible for them because of the countless hours of work from our Wellness team, including social worker Jose López, conducting home-visits and communicating with Honduran Social Services.  

Epiphany closed out our celebrations of the season with another Celebration of the Word, and a visit from the Three Kings and their three helpers who brought our children a very nice gift. These special gifts, as well as the Christmas clothes and the Christmas gifts, are made possible because of your generous support. All of our children and young adults were very grateful and excited to receive their gifts, and they have used them every day since then!  Thank you for making our Christmas season especially bright and joyful for our children.

-- James Probst

Pastoral Coordinator

Upcoming in 2026

Ash Wednesday Mass & Lenten Luncheon | February 18, 2026

ADJ Annual Golf Outing | May 11, 2026

Amigos de Jesús
PO Box 476

Malvern, PA 19355