I decided to do a series of blogs describing things in further detail. Soooo let’s talk Christmas.
December was a hard month of low motivation and homesickness. Being away from home during the holidays where your in a different country with traditions unlike your families. It is a little weird. A little uncomfortable. You wish to go home but there is also no other place you would rather be then right where you are even if right where you are is huddled in a tent, in a cloud, trying to get warm.
It is helpful though, having all these people around you thinking similar things. And being at Dunamis made our Christmas extremely special. They poured into us and helped us celebrate by giving us Christmas Eve and Christmas off. For Christmas Eve we got to go to a mall and do secret Santa shopping and got groceries to make a Christmas meal. We also had a family from America who lives at Dunamis hang out with us, make a snowball fight, and do a candle light worship service like you would at home. Christmas Eve was definitely the harder than Christmas for me. As most of my family knows Christmas Eve is my FAVORITE. The cousins come over and we do white elephant and secret Santa. We eat a meal altogether and tell the usual stories about how Carley and I were SOOOO gullible as kids and Cam and Ken could convince us of anything. Christmas Eve means family to me, communion, and love beyond borders. What I would describe as pure joy. Yet, this year it was just with a different family. Not my bloodline family, but a family brought together by Christ. My new brothers and sisters.
I think this year on Christmas Eve was the first time I ever fully understood and felt the REAL weight of Christmas. It is not the traditions, presents, or even your family. It is our Savior being born. It is the beginning of the best love story in history. I think in my head I thought I understood this, but I still relied on the family aspect of it all. Even though being away from my home on Christmas made me shed multiple tears and was hard at first, I would do it all again to have the heart change I did this year. Christmas was worship and adoration for the miracle our Father performed through Jesus this year. And to be honest thats all I needed this holiday season.
