Greetings and VERY MERRY
CHRISTMAS!!!
Here in Haiti we don’t have this situation of not being
able to say Merry Christmas or Christmas Blessings, but it gets me a bit upset
when I see so much of the controversy in the US over a holiday that started and
is centered on Jesus Christ being fought over.
I mean, why don’t people get a grip and realized that CHRISTmas is what
it is. A celebration of the birth of our
Savior? No one, including us, seem to
get upset with the Jewish people celebrating their holy day, or even the
Muslims or other religions celebrating their special days. No one has said these people have to
celebrate OUR holy day if they don’t want to.
But why try to put a stop to it?
Well, that is really a rhetorical question isn’t it? But I will say, no one will stop me from
proclaiming Jesus, be it at Christmas,
Easter or any other time. I am proud to
be a Christian!
Starting this Sunday, Haiti will celebrate the Christmas
season. There will be plays and services
from now until New Year’s day. They DO
celebrated Christmas but not as we do.
Their church services are really Christ centered and filled with love
and laughter. You see some decorations
around, but nothing like America. Few
people have the money for these extra things.
But they celebrate by having family and friends over for a small
meal. It’s more of a time of fellowship
and sharing. And this follows through
until New Year’s which is their independence day. On January 1st, it’s pumpkin soup
and family time. If you’ve never tasted
pumpkin soup, you are missing a lot. I
know some Americans have tried to make it, but it’s simply not the same. I tease the kids here that I love the soup,
but not the “weeds” in it. Their spices
are right from the garden, not from a small container from the store. That may be the reason for the difference in
taste. But they use whole stalks of
different seasonings.
We’ve been busy, busy, busy these last few weeks. Working on Vero’s house, and trying to get
food and water out to the hard hit areas from flooding are just a couple of the
situations. We are still having rains,
but not the overwhelming ones we had before.
It’s just hard to get the ground to dry out at all right now. But gardens are starting to grow and people
are starting to see an end to the over-wet problems. But it takes time for a garden to grow, so
there is still the problem of food, and also for decent water.
I’ve been leading service at English Bible
Fellowship. This year I was trying to
get people to consider not only the birth of Jesus, but what Mary, Joseph and
their families faced with the whole situation.
Mary was NOT married, but pregnant.
Joseph could have had her stoned to death. The whole family had to face public criticism
and all that went with it. It was a
GREAT time, but a hard time, too, for them.
One of my really favorite Christmas songs is “Mary Did You Know”. This Sunday I will be playing the song and
sharing from a book by Mark Lowery, who first sang that song. DID Mary fully understand just who her
“special heaven sent baby” was? And what
He would do and what He would become. My
favorite line in the song is, “When you kissed your little baby, you kissed the
face of God!” Wow, what an awesome Baby
Mary held!! We are also doing something
special this week in the service. We
will be giving everyone who comes a small bag with “Happy birthday Jesus” items
in it. And challenging them to use some
of them to reach others with the real reason for this season! And with each bag, they will get a
Bible. We have a fairly small congregation,
but we are praying we will encourage them to share the Love of God with others.
I have also been working on flowers for a wedding this
weekend. It’s for one of the girls who
had been at the EBAC orphanage. Then the
week between Christmas and New Year’s we have a team scheduled for the
dorm. Not our team, but for another
mission, but it’s still preparation time to get it ready. And we really enjoy
the team leaders so much.
Of course our volunteer work with MFI is challenging this
time of year, too. Especially with the
airport situation now. We have had some
huge loads of cargo and once American Airline comes, we have to take a back
seat to them. Wish there were some way
to get around it, but…we just keep praying.
When American lands and comes in, it’s a zoo. There is no room for anything. Today one of our planes came in, went to
another city here (Pignon), then returned to Cap to clear out of the country
and clear out the passengers both from here and from Pignon. Normally not a big deal. But when our plane came back, it was while
the people from American were trying to clear their baggage at customs. I had to climb OVER baggage to get out to our
plane. Then we had to try and get our
passengers (and their baggage) from Pignon, who were flying out, through that
mess and into the other area of the airport to clear immigration and back out
to the plane. I still kept smiling and
tried very hard to be polite. But it IS
a challenge. Looking forward to be back
to our normal hectic schedule.
We were also able to send the last of the paperwork (we
think) that is required for the adoption to Port today. Got the medical report and 16 passport photos
done and sent down with the MFI plane.
The lawyer had told me a year, but I was shocked…then he said he’d try
to get it done by May when we leave for the states. We’ll see.
I know the Lord could get it done sooner, but I am laying it totally in
HIS hands and simply praying it’s sooner.
Savanah needs to be with her new family soon.
Savanah can be a real stinker, but she can be a real
charmer, too. Then when you combine the
two… well, here is one instance. She
does like to help me with housework. But
in HER way. She was being a real stinker
the other day and threw her blanket on the floor. I told her to pick it up and put it on the
couch, so it wouldn’t get dirty. (My
mistake). A bit later, she took my hand
and said, “come, see.” She had taken her
blanket into the laundry room, put it in the washing machine and STARTED the
machine. It was half way through the
cycle when I got in there. When she does
something she shouldn’t, she makes sure we know it. She can run the DVD player, and she can work
ANY phone. She finds the camera on a
phone with no problem. And she takes
pictures. When someone comes to visit we
have to warn them to NOT let her have their phone. She also likes games on the phones. I have NO idea how she does it or where she
learned it. She is a bit too smart for a
3 year old.
Well, I had better close out. We have had major problems with internet and
have gone through so much trying to find the problem. And we finally did. It’s the cables outside that are the problem. So, until we can get new ones, we are using a
“stick” from the cell phone company here for internet. These are NOT fun. But we can get on once in a while with it
anyway.
So, blessings and sincere Christmas wishes. We are praying Christ is the center of your
holidays. And that you share the real
reason of this season with others who do not realize what the true meaning of
Christmas is.
