This year I was privileged with the opportunity of spending this Christmas season in India. I have since spent my Halloween in Thailand, Thanksgiving in Malaysia, Christmas and New Year in India and then we will have Valentine’s days in India and my birthday in Costa Rica. A couple of weeks prior to Christmas I was tasked by our fun committee to do a teaching on whatever I felt called to teach on Christmas Eve and I also decided to write notes for everyone on the squad and have them open them on Christmas morning. I worked on both of those for the weeks leading up to Christmas, but in that week before Christmas, we did numerous things with the community of Sielmat Manipur to help them prepare for Christmas to tell them what the holiday really means. We did everything from skits, songs, choirs, memorizing verses, and bonfires. We even helped the community get all of the fish out of a small pond they were emptying with our bare hands. The whole thing was very muddy very cold but an absolute blast. Our squad also decided to do a secret Santa among ourselves from which I bought a gift for Sarah and received one from Sydney. On the morning of Christmas Eve, we woke up to a special breakfast and chai tea from our Indian cook, Dara. It also happened to be our sabbath so we had all day to shop for our secret Santas and I could work on my teaching and the notes.
That night we gathered around a huge bond fire to have an amazing worship session. Afterward, I gave a short teaching on compassion and what that meat to me and how I was working through that with the Lord. I was not even nervous because I knew the Lord had put that on my heart and I knew that he was going to speak through me. We then did our secrete Santas, drank chai tea, danced to Christmas music, caroled to the other teams and went to bed.
Christmas morning, we woke up to stalking from the squad leaders and I put names on all of my notes then put them under the tree. We dressed up nicely and went to the local church. In India, Christmas is more centered around the adults so the children don’t really get anything special so we spent our morning teaching the kids the story of Jesus through skits and songs. We then had a feast that the whole village took part in. You would bring your own plate and your own rice and get in line for either not spicy, spicy, really spicy, or REALLY SPICY pork and beef. We live next door to the village church and there were services going on all day and all night so we would come and go as we please.
The next morning we woke up to the sound of our dinner being killed in our back yard. In India Christmas is celebrated on the 25th and the 26th so we did more children ministry and ate more spicy food with the entire village. That night Zoie, Lexi Izac, and I played in our front yard on a blanket in the freezing cold, looking at the stars. It was nearly 10 o’clock and there were still services going on next door. We watched at more kids from the church crept in like sharks to come play with us. They walked up slowly and uncertainly until we said “hello” then they ambushed us.
We shook so many hands and hugged so many kids those two days and it was an experience that I will never forget. I am so blessed to have this opportunity so thank you to all the people that sent me here. I was so filled up by my squad and by the Holy Spirit that I wasn’t even homesick. Being so far from home for so long has been hard but through this, I feel like the Lord has been trying to teach me that he is my home and wherever I go he will fill me with the Love and comfort I need.
