the work of Christmas begins

When the song of the angels is stilled, 

When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,

The work of Christmas begins:

To find the lost,

To heal the broken,

To feed the hungry,

To release the prisoner,

To rebuild the nations,

To bring peace among people,

To make music in the heart.

-Howard Thurman

"Truly he taught us to love one another, His law is love and His gospel is peace."

obsessed

A Christmas obsessed with Jesus: That's what we're going for.

As the girls get older, we're spending more time thinking about what that means Christmas should look like at our house, especially while they are young, especially as we have the advantage of little to no influence from the media/malls/etc.  

We've spent so many years saying that Jesus is the reason for the season--but acting like a hundred other things are.  

We say He, and the things He stands for, are what it's all about, but we sure do throw a lot of competing factors in there, especially ones that are, let's face it, going to be WAY more appealing to three year olds.

If you had asked me as a child "What is the true meaning of Christmas?"  Yes.  I absolutely would have told you "Jesus."  But as magical and fantastic as my Christmases were growing up, the amount of time and money and energy and excitement we spent on Santa and reindeer and presents FAR outweighed what was poured into the "true meaning."  

So while you can tweak or borrow or throw out these ideas, here's what our efforts to obsess the season with Christ look like...

1)  If you were to drop in anytime in the next few weeks, you'll see that we just aren't spending time on Santa.  I know.  It takes a nasty mean couple to rob toddlers of a jolly present-bearing man.  

We're NOT anti-Santa, banning him from our home nor teaching in any way, shape, or form that he is bad.  On the contrary, we're sharing with the girls St. Nicholas from the 3rd Century and of his devotion to Jesus and the poor.

We're not obliterating Santa.  We're just not focusing on him.  We realize from our own childhoods that the glamour of Santa and the idea that being good leads to more stuff for yourself is captivating and exciting...and often makes the true meaning of Christmas somehow seem dull.  

The desire to focus on self and on receiving is already IN our children.  I don't want to encourage and promote that in them...I want to work AGAINST that in them and in myself, from the start, even at Christmas.  

Especially at Christmas--when God sent His Son to work against self.

We believe in and have experienced such wonder and majesty and holiness and excitement to be found in the gift of Jesus!  As we sing through "O Holy Night" and "Angels We Have Heard on High" each season, our hearts are THRILLED with His coming, with His life...for what He represents. 

And while it might be more challenging to creatively share that with our children, we believe it to be possible, and that's our focus this Season.  

We want Christmas to be His...ALL His.  About Him.  For Him.  Full of what He represents.  Giving.  Laying down your life for others.  Light in the darkness.  The unexpected.  Reverence.  Awe.  Worship.

Don't Miss This:  We are NOT judging you and whatever you're doing!  We are always learning from others and trusting that God is doing all kinds of different things in all kinds of different people at all kinds of different times.  We've been all over the spectrum on this, and we're just sharing where we're at right now.

2)  To work on putting the sparkle in the Reason for the season, we're creating some new traditions, buying a few new kids books, and our Christmas countdown this year is leading us through the Word to His birth.  

For the second time, we're pulling from "The Truth is in the Tinsel", daily sharing stories from the Word and diving into Christmas crafts and ornaments to commemorate each day.   A few of the special Christmas books by our tree are Room for a Little One, Humphrey's First Christmas, The Jesus Storybook Bible,  The Advent Storybook, The Legend of St. Nicholas: A Story of Giving, God Gave Us Christmas, and The Tale of Three Trees.

A few years ago, Uncle Don got Lily this nativity set, and instead of playing through countless stories of reindeers and chimneys this season, the girls are already glued to playing through the Word's Christmas stories...those of Joseph and Mary, of the evil King Herod and his plotting, of the radiant angels appearing to shepherds, of glittering kings bringing gifts.    

Lily can't wait to watch Rudolph.  But she's just as excited to watch Veggie's Little Drummer Boy, and The Nativity Story.  

3) You know where this is going.  If we're saturating the season with Christ, our spending has got to reflect Him, too.  My mother made Christmas SO special for us.  But my family will all readily agree...we went NUTS.  Way-too-much.  It was like everyone's birthdays on steroids.  

I readily admit that this would be much more difficult if we were in the States.  There will be no trips to Target, no toy commercials, no mall browsing for us this Christmas, which makes it way easier to bless loved ones and our children with a few small gifts or memories, and keep the focus on Christ.  But I do believe this is possible, no matter what culture we live in. 

Each year, we get the girls each one thing they want, one thing they need, one thing to share, and one thing to read.  Want, need, share, read.

So (please don't tell them :), the girls will each be getting a doll, new dinner sets, a new book, and they are (well, Lily is) picking a toy or gift to buy and wrap.  Together, our family chooses another family in the community who is really struggling right now, and on Christmas day they will get to take their gifts to the little friends they have chosen, and we get to share with their parents a gift from our family.

Matt and I are doing something for each other (I'm cleaning out his office, which could really use your prayers, by the way :), and we're working hard to gift extended family members and friends something meaningful, memorable or useful (read: reasonable).  We want our credit card statement to reflect what Christmas is all about.  (read: not ME.)

We want to bring delight and joy to those around us, to our children...but all with the focus on His Gift.  



I want the real meaning of Christmas this year to be obvious, central and to be invited to impact us profoundly.  Two thousand years ago, His birth changed everything.  And it still can.  It's still supposed to.  

Have any creative ideas or thoughts?  Please share!!

As always, we remain your eccentric, out of touch, frumpy, slightly weird, "extreme" friends down South who want very much to love others and Him better, and live Him better each day.  

Merry Christmas Season, with a God worth celebrating!

more than enough.

Every vacation picture should look like this.!..your family having a blast in front of you, warm sun and sand and ocean, baby sleeping in your lap...no dishes! no papers! no laundry!  Ah...

The 23rd was Adam's birthday, and we had a special party for him with sparklers and cake and guitar music...so much fun, and so grateful to have such a thoughtful, caring, hilarious and positive brother-in-law!

Sofie wanted some cake :)  Sofie ate a LOT of food she shouldn't have this vacation...which could be said of all of us, I guess :)

Somebody got her mama's ice cream gene.

We swam, read, walked and talked for days on end, and had an ice cream float any time we wanted, which for me, is pretty close to heaven :)

We also celebrated Lily's 3rd birthday (January 2nd) while we had Aunt Lee and Uncle Adam with us...They got her a wooden birthday cake, and she has thrown at least 50 birthday parties since then.

So thankful for such a fantastic aunt and sister!  While Lily admits that I love her the most, she says Aunt Lisa is her very best friend.  

 We finished Lily's month of the Christmas story and ornaments yesterday with a bead cross, because, as Lily says, "Thank you Jesus came to die for my badness!"  Then we opened Christmas presents in Lisa's room and had another nice relaxing day together.  At bedtime Lily cried and cried, saying, "I'm so sad because Christmas is over!"  Ah...we were all sad for this much needed and much appreciated time away and together to be over :(

...though none quite as sad as Sofie :)

As Lily said today as we got in the car to drive home:  "My face feels sad!"

Tonight we are safely back in Haiti after a few hours on the road.  This picture was taken right as we crossed the border in a moment of complete insanity.  We'd just come over the border, and there are thousands of people milling around, coming and going, selling and buying, waiting and watching.  Matt had to park right in the middle and run to offices on both sides of the border to take care of our paperwork and fees.  

He goes to do that, and I pulled a sobbing Sofie out of her car-seat to give her a break and release Lily from her buckles.  Lily climbs in the front with me, I lock the doors, and realize that the major smell is Sofie...whose pants and shirt (and now my skirt) is soaked in an exploded dirty diaper.  

A moment later, a huge semi-truck was trying to pass us, I'm trying to change Sofie on my lap, digging through the bag at my feet for wet-wipes, there is baby poop literally EVERYWHERE, Lily is climbing back and forth with a 100 piece puzzle scattering everywhere and asking "Mommy, why does that man only have one leg?  Why, Mommy?  Why?", there are a dozen people outside my window just watching, and every two minutes someone was tapping at my window to beg for money.  

oh man.  It was such a "welcome back to reality" moment. 

"Father, help me!" I prayed out loud, overwhelmed, and Lily immediately says, "Mom, grandpa is not here.  He's at the airport!"

We both laughed, and I was so thankful, I am so thankful, that my Father is always with me, and is enough...for vacation, for Christmas, and for everyday life.  More than enough.  

fèt

I don't think there are many places in the world that do Christmas like Emmaus Biblical Seminary.  Let me just try to condense for you the 4 hour Christmas party this afternoon!

It started and ended with a praise service and prayer time, a really beautiful way to open.  I don't think I'd ever been to a Christmas party that started with a worship service before coming to Haiti.

Then came the speeches, which are always a very important part of gatherings culturally.  Matt shared a short devotional, Pastor Elizay (almost fully recovered from his surgery) shared a few words, and Belo thanked everyone for a great week of Christmas festivities.  

Then, of course, the very important soccer championship win was announced, which included speeches by several team members, bestowing of the trophy, slo-mo re-enactments of key moves, etc.  Third year took the title, in case you were wondering.

Then started the talent competition, in which three different competitors would share their talents, and everyone would vote for a winner, then move onto the next three.  (Lots of prizes like this :)

This year, Freny busted out some sweet break dance moves, winning for his group.

A lot of what qualifies as "talent" at EBS is whatever makes people laugh the hardest, even if there is no real talent involved :)  There was a LOT of that today!  Everyone had SUCH a good time.

Voting

 giving out prizes

 And the reigning champion of the day for the talent contest: Brave.  With a pillow in his shirt.  With music playing.  Dancing like an old man.  

From the moment he walked out of the bathroom with the pillow until he sat down at the end, everyone just LOST it.

We dunno.  

Then there were several very serious rounds of musical chairs (TRY this at your office Christmas party and see if it's better as a grown up :)

 Then, the "button shirt" game, which involved four students putting button-up shirts, with the exact same amount of buttons, on over their shirts, and having to button all the buttons faster than the other three.  LOVED it.  Five rounds of that.    

Confession: all I could think the whole party was, "WOW,  imagine if there was drinking involved?!"

Even Sofie and Lily had a blast (for the first 1.5 hours).  

Tomorrow is our big Christmas feast, with goat (which we sadly greeted this morning right before...yeah, right before.), fish, rice and beans, Cokes, and vacation good-byes (while staff members will be frantically grading final exams before leaving).  

Yesterday, we were blessed to attend the Christmas program at Cowman School down the road.  It was as cute, crazy and creative as it looks!  It was a really great time, and Lily loved seeing all the kids!  Sometimes I think she forgets that she's a kid and not a seminary student!

What a great day following a GREAT week!

Christmas games

I don't care WHO you are...you would have had fun today at Emmaus Biblical Seminary!

 As Belony shared while DJing the event with the sound system normally used for  chapel services: "Here at Emmaus Biblical Seminary, we don't just teach the Bible!  NO!  We don't just teach English!  NO!  You don't just learn Hebrew and Greek!  NO!  You don't just learn to preach and teach and evangelize!  No NO!  Here at EBS we learn how to have FUN!"

Lily is proving to be as good of a student in this as any.

There were about a dozen kids hanging in that tree the whole time...see 'em?

The mid-match game today was, "The Game of Water" (in French) or "The Spit the Water in the Coke" game, as Lily called it.  

 Contestants started at one end of the soccer field by drinking water out of these bowls without touching them, then running to the other end, and spitting all the water they could into a Coke bottle without knocking it over or touching it, over and over again, until somebody filled theirs (which as you can see from the first pictures, was like winning the million dollar lottery).

 The use of the sound system to 'broadcast' the whole game brought in dozens of members of the community, which made things extra fun (and was good for the community to be a part of, too.)

The DJ's took the broadcasting very seriously, with sideline interviews, play by play commentary, and creative cheers.  These guys are grown men with such heavy burdens and responsibilities on their shoulders.  But give them Coke bottles to spit in and a microphone and we were able to see the boys :) I was laughing so hard :)

By the end, there were another dozen community members hanging over the wall, all young men, "too cool for school" as Matt says...I was touched by what a great example Emmaus' men were.  Kind to each other, respectful, clean, uplifting.  His light shone so brightly in the students, today, intermingled with the community...what a great way to honor Christmas.  

Tomorrow, musical chairs, which I HATE that we'll be missing.  The elementary school down the road is having their Christmas play, and Lily is anxious to go!  

community and Christmas

Have to admit that we're a bit depressed today with Dodo and Bubba!  Yesterday they headed out, and the girls aren't the only ones who didn't want them to go!  Having true Christian community has been such a gift...We visit in the afternoons, we swap lacking ingredients mid-baking, we eat together several times a week, Lily runs next door several times a day to "Gonna go see Dodo and Bubba!  Be right back!  Don't come with me!"  

We've been very blessed to have so much help and so much family in Dodo and Bubba.  

Living together in Christian community, giving and taking, sharing and serving, ministering and encouraging, praying and helping, is how it's supposed to be!  

Other members of our Christian community had me laughing out loud last night...I was just taking a Calzone out of the oven when I heard Lily squealing outside.  I headed out in the yard with Sofie only to see a hilarious line up.  

First ran Junior down the road, carrying Lily, who was laughing deep belly laughs.  A few yards behind them ran Giselaine and Roziane, in their dresses and tennis shoes...(Granny Giselaine has diabetes and is trying to lower her sugar or something like that).  Then a few yards after them ran Matt and Boone, who is terrible on a leash.  

Lily and Matt had gone to fix the generator, so I don't know how we got from point A to point B, but if I had a lawn chair, Sofie and I would have sat and thoroughly enjoyed the sport :)

Tonight is Christmas Movie night at our house with the weekend students, so the fifteen of us will be enjoying Home Alone or Elf or It's a Wonderful Life.  

Meanwhile, we're working through a GREAT Christmas advent program with Lily that she is adoring.  (If you have a little one at home, we'd absolutely recommend it!)  Each day we read a passage from the Word that throughout the month shares the whole Christmas story, then we make a special ornament together that highlights the story.  

Yesterday we kicked off with a passage from Isaiah, then made a candle ornament with melted yellow and orange crayons.  When Matt came home hours later, Lily ran to the tree, grabbed her ornament, and yelled, "Poppy!  Jesus it the light of the world!"

Merry Christmas, Stacey!  I don't have words to describe the joy of hearing my baby proclaim His truth and begin to hide it in her heart.  I've never experienced any joy like it, a continual reminder that she really is just "on loan" to me from Him.  I'm so glad she is His, and so glad that she's beginning to know it and beginning to love her Father.  For over three years now I have prayed ever day, "Lord, help Lily to know and love you"...

Life is a bit crazy these last few weeks of school trying to get things from this semester sewn up, trying to prepare for next semester, working through student billing, registration, courses, etc.!  But, despite a lack of cold weather, Christmas decorations, and our home culture and traditions that come with Christmas, the joy of what this season means is ringing deep lately to Matt and I both.

Long lay the world

in sin and error pining

till He appeared

and the soul felt it's worth

the thrill of hope

the weary world rejoices

for yonder breaks

a new and joyful morn.

on the first day of Christmas...

We may have been in shorts, and the tree might have come from a garbage bag full of roaches, but it is the weekend after Thanksgiving, and we decorated!  Lily had SO MUCH fun!

 She INSISTED that Matt try on "Santa's Boot" (a Christmas stocking).

 Sofie loved the lights, and has officially mastered sitting by herself...being a Haitian reindeer...and wearing Lily's shorts on her head.

Lily "re"opened her favorite Christmas thing of all time, a nativity set Uncle Don got her for her first Christmas.   The entire rest of the day she lined up the wise men, fed the donkeys, napped with Baby Jesus, and made the angel sing...it was great.  We caught Sofie gnawing on the camel, so the love for the Fisher Price nativity set lives on!

Tomorrow Lucner's daughter is being presented at church (similar to a dedication in the States), so we're heading to Vaudreil for that and stopping at Gertha's to see how Thalia is doing.  The last visiting professors of the semester left today (Jim and Sue S., Jerry C.), and we're soaking up our last few days with Dodo and Bubba before they head back to Canada on Thursday.  

Monday, Matt starts back into teaching Romans and Intro to the Old Testament, and we're heading into our last 3 weeks of teaching for the semester!  You can now follow Matt on Twitter at matthaiti.