Blessing because we have been Blessed

For Christmas this year, I did something entirely different than I've ever done on Christmas in my life!  I mean, yes I was in Africa and away from my family, so that was definitely different, but even more than that was different.

I always remember Christmas having this tension of trying to remember Jesus and the whole "Reason for the Season" thing while being pulled towards selfishness and greed.  I always felt a bit empty looking at all the crumpled wrapping paper and stacks of gifts that already seemed to have lost their shimmer.  I struggled to keep a happy, fun attitude with all the family around but all I wanted to was be alone and get clean...something wasn't right and I felt gross.

My family loves each other and the politics of extended family in one house doesn't generally reach a boiling point, so that's not really what was bugging me.  Even my lack of desire for stuff to fill my closet wasn't the culprit really, since I haven't been overloaded with gifts since I was young thanks to economy troubles.  Our gift giving isn't a disgusting display of wealth, but usually a generous display of love.  Plus, I mean Christmas dinner is stinking delicious!  So I never really got to the bottom of my discomfort, but just sort of braced myself for it every year.

But this year...I write this with tears in my eyes...I feel real joy!  I feel peace and I am content.  How unbelievable that one of the hardest times of my internship, one of the hardest Christmases of my entire life has been the absolute best I've ever had.

My Christmas began a few days early with some gifts and telling the Christmas story to the young ones (with me sitting there probably getting more out of it than the kids!) and eating good food together as a community of believers away from family.  Christmas Eve our team met to exchange small gifts and then we prepared for our Christmas day outreach.  We made bags of essential food items like flour, beans and salt and prepared other food to make a big meal.  The next morning, we headed out to the bush.

Oh, major side note, I was extremely blessed to open gifts with my family over skype Christmas morning!  Well, it was late at night on Christmas Eve for them, but early morning for me.  It was wonderful and I'm very thankful for the internet!!!!

So we drove a ways into the bush to a smaller village where we have some connections but we don't visit often.  When we pulled up, there was a group of men sitting and standing around under a big Acacia tree watching us arrive.  We all piled out and under some intense scrutiny, started setting things up.  It felt very awkward for a while, everyone trying to figure the situation out and not sure how to interact.

 Eventually, Esther and I walked over to where the women were preparing the goat to try to find our place in the socializing boundaries.  I mean, women talk to women, men to men.  The ladies had the goat all cleaned and were breaking the bones with a big machete, using a large stick as a chopping board, and then they had a knife between their toes and pulled the pieces of meat over it to slice it into smaller pieces.  Most efficient kitchen I've ever seen! haha!

So we introduced ourselves to a young lady with a baby on her hip and tried to get some conversations started, which was difficult because their first language is Somali and ours is English, and both of our Swahili is a bit rough! At one point, the woman went and sat down on one of the mats we had brought, which no one but us had been sitting on because the strange white people had brought it.  So I went and sat next to her and tried to continue our halting conversation about her child.

Slowly more people arrived from their homes further into the bush and things were getting set up to cook to food.  All of the mamas in their colorful dresses and babies tied to their backs would walk past me and my new friend, giggling and probably scolding her for sitting with the white lady instead of with them.  Soon there was a large group of women squatting on the ground a few feet away, but all refused to join us until two older ladies came and sat down, breaking the ice, so to speak.

In no time I was completely surrounded by ladies and their babies!  It was so funny!  For the most part I just sat there and smiled and tried to get them to speak Swahili, although they did teach me some Somali.  We cleaned the rice and passed the babies around for a while, but all in all it was pretty uneventful, but it felt amazing.

Bekah had brought a simple craft to entertain the kids, if only our kids at the least, and she brought that out and drew a crowd.  It was basically a nativity scene on a piece of paper and it turned out to be a bit much for one of the men of the community.  After some of the older boys had made one, he confiscated them obviously uncomfortable with the 'Christian-ness' of the craft.  He came up to me and asked in Swahili "Who is this?" pointing to Jesus in the manger.  So I told him honestly that it was baby Jesus because 'today is the day we have happiness for his birth', if you translate it directly.  So he kind of harrumphed and left to chase down more of the crafts.  I decided if it was that threatening to him, it would be better to just let it be, even though there is no contradiction between the depiction of Christ's birth and the account in the Koran.

When the food was ready, it was served in big plates and we ate communally, the way they are used to.  Sadly, the women drew away from us to eat, perhaps just too uncomfortable with going that far in one day, but we'd already gone so far towards friendship in that short time that I didn't push it and try to join them.

Later we got to watch first hand how they handle conflict there because Esther's cell phone went missing!  The men all huddled and talked and talked and talked while the women whispered to the side.  After some heated discussion, threats of curses from the witch doctor, finger pointing and a few close calls where the elderly men had to step in to control the younger feisty ones, a group of men walked into the bush and eventually the cell phone was returned!  Whew. It was intense trying to interpret what was happening with absolutely no idea what they were saying and no one to ask!

So after that settled down, Jaco got everyone together and gave a short explanation of who we are and why we wanted to give them these gifts on Christmas.  He focused on our connections and similarities with them and our desire to bless them without strings attached because of Isa al Masih (Jesus the Messiah), instead of drawing attention to the many touchy subjects between Islam and Christianity as tends to happen when we get a spotlight to speak.  Sometimes it's better to give a taste of the gospel and see who pursues it than to dump it all on at once and see who survives.  We passed out the bags of food, the men had some more discussions, we cleaned up, we piled into the cars again, and it was over.

Whew.

And that...that exhausting, stressful and, for all appearances, ineffectual act of service...is why I am filled with joy!  Not because I did my good deed to quiet my conscience so I can go back to gorging myself on Christmas candy, but because I felt the love of Christ as I sat among those women.  I feel content because in some small way, I reflected that incredible night when God humbled himself and came near.  Jesus was born so that those women could taste hope and love and be with him in eternity! 

This Christmas was so fulfilling because I actually celebrated the birth of Christ; I proclaimed his character, sometimes in really bad Swahili, sometimes in a smile where a woman expected a scowl of disgust.  This all sounds really high and spiritual as I'm typing, but it was messy and complicated and real in the moment.  I mean, I'm not a big fan of getting peed on by little kids, but my reaction will tell them who I am, and to them, who I am is who Jesus is.  I think that if Jesus were holding a baby and it peed on him, he would have laughed and kissed him on the head. :)

And so, I am glad to have experienced the good news that the angels spoke of and I hope never to go back to the empty Christmas I knew before.  It goes against everything we've been taught, but Christmas is about serving and pouring ourselves out...but I think if my mom had suggested we spend Christmas at a soup kitchen or hanging out with lonely folks at a nursing home, I would have had a horrendous attitude and hated it.  Man, humility and selflessness are so costly.  I hope this Christmas has brought me a bit closer than I was before.