A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS

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 1^st, 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.