Christmas is going to look pretty different for me this year. We are living in our tents in the middle of a displacement camp for families who lost their homes in the typhoon (the most recent one and last year’s). It is so unbelievably hot, and the definition of uncomfortable. There are toilets, but no toilet seats. We can take showers… with a bucket. The people around us have nothing… except TVs, which they blare until midnight every night, and then again at 6 am. There are roosters, mangy dogs, cats, more lice, and countless numbers of mosquitoes and flies.
As a fairly type-A personality, I appreciate structure and schedules. There is none. We have no mission but to do life with the people around us. We aren’t allowed to do manual labor, because we are girls. I also value my personal space, and alone time. There is also none of that here. Children are constantly running around our tents, and always sitting down with us while we are trying to have meetings and our quiet times.
Needless to say, this Christmas will be completely different. The people in the community where we live are baffled that we would choose to leave our utopian homes and our families to spend Christmas in a third world country, in the middle of temporary bamboo houses, with the poorest of the poor.
I didn’t have the best attitude about it at first. But upon further reflection, I’ve realized that this is probably the most meaningful Christmas I will ever have. Here’s the thing about Christmas, it’s a time to celebrate Jesus’ birth. He left his heavenly throne and chose to come to this Earth to do life among the poorest of the poor (of spirit). He left the perfection of heaven, and continual presence with His Father to come bring life to this broken world. Not only that, but He willingly left his home to be born in a stable in the middle of nowhere.
I’m finding a new level of empathy with the people we are building relationships with here, because I’m doing for them what Jesus did for me. I’m also being brought into a new level of humility, because Jesus is allowing me to be Him to these people. He is using me to bring hope to the hopeless, healing to the broken, and love to the forgotten. That is a huge privilege that I definitely don’t deserve, but am allowed to have because of the crazy awesome grace of my Savior.
And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” -Luke 2: 10-14
Merry Christmas, y'all. 10 more days!!!!
