Last night, I was with a newer friend from the neighborhood and with a brand new friend from Belarus. We were at a neighborhood pub and they got me all inspired. I sat across from two young men in their mid-twenties who are devoting themselves to youth, for Christ. Josh works with "inner-city" kids in Denver for Young Life, and Phoenix the Belarusian is a multilingual young man devoting his work toward young lives in Eastern Europe. By the way, is "inner-city" derogatory to inner city kids and their families? Is my kid an "inner-city" kid?
So Phoenix, a bright and talkative dude with a very European accent had a lot of great comments and questions. He asked me why I hadn't yet been to Europe and why wouldn't I visit Belarus, learn Russian for a year and teach English camps in the capital city Minsk to reach their "inner-city" kids. I didn't really have an answer to any of his questions. But it was Phoenix's comment on Christmas in America that caught me most by surprise. He said Christmas in the States is a much bigger deal than it is back home. I thought, is that because we market Christmas in our homes, stores and media so well? And because we have so many churches in the US? And because tomorrow night's Christmas Eve services across the country will honor Jesus' birth as we sing Silent Night? (Silent Night is a weird song. Phoenix didn't say so but I think so. I don't think the night was silent when Jesus was born. The baby, the new parents and all the bewildered animals could not have made for a silent night. How could it have been a silent night, all calm and bright? It wasn't silent or calm when our baby Elliot was born. There was yelling and crying from all of us and I cannot image a baby, tender and mild and sleeping in heavenly peace on the first night, as the song implies. It took our boy months to find sleep in heavenly peace. I believe Jesus was crying most of the night in that stable and there was not a silent night for months. The song and the season have been marketed very, very well.)
I imagine African Christmas, similar to East Europe, has not been hit by the marketing people just yet. My friend Lauren bothered to mess with my Christmas this week by referring me to a blog of a girl named Katie from Brentwood, Tennessee. Katie left Brentwood a few years back to visit Uganda. She now has a few kids, she is not married and she is still in Uganda. See her blog at http://www.kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com/. She is now a young mother to her fourteen kids (not a typo). You should take a couple hours and read through her writings, her blog is infinitely better than mine. She has given up just about everything in her former life to love the unloved in her new life in Africa. The Bible encourages believers to look after the fatherless so Katie is actually taking the Bible literally. Correction, the Bible commands us to care for the orphan and the widow. She must be crazy. And she really truly believes God and his Word. What am I supposed to do with crazy Katie's story? And what will her African Christmas be like this year? Is she teaching all 14 of those kids the story of God coming to earth to take on flesh, crying like a baby on that first, not-so-silent, night and is she telling them about his ministry as Jesus, about his criminal death on a cross and his resurrection? She probably is. Can't she just bombard her kids with gifts, tell them about Santa and have good old family time sharing a few gallons of egg nog with everyone?
Now when I consider what Christmas looks like in Africa, what does Christmas look like in Denver, in my home and in my heart?
For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
Matthew 16:25
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