Have you ever tried to tell the Christmas story or explain why we celebrate Christmas without talking about Jesus? It's not so easy. But, seeing as we were in China and those were the instructions we were given, we had to run with it. So Mel came up with calling Jesus Baby Love instead and focused less on "the Christmas story" per se, and instead talked about a special baby being born then went on to talk about who Baby Love was and what He did, without actually being Christian-y (if any of you would like to read the story she wrote, let me know and I can send it to you). Now, hold on to that explanation while I talk about the parties.
We hosted two of the parties, each on Christmas Eve. The first, which was at Eagles' Wings, was for E.W. 3, 4, 7, & 8 and the second, which was at the E.W. 2 school building, was for E.W. 2, 5, & 6. To give a quick overview of what the parties entailed, we sang songs as a group to open (the E.W. kids LOVE "Jingle Bells"), then moved into stations for an hour, 3 games and 1 snack station and rotating every 15 minutes, then we gathered back together for the Christmas story and more songs, then SANTA CLAUS!
Sadly, the first party started late and we became very crunched for time and our contacts decided we needed to go straight from stations to Santa so we wouldn't be late for our lunch with the boss man of Eagles' Wings. However, at the second party, one little boy, who we'll call Jay, made it apparent that he just wasn't satisfied with a Christmas story that didn't have Jesus. As Mel was talking about a baby named Baby Love being born under a bright star in a far away town called Bethlehem, from the crowd of kids we hear Jay say with enthusiasm, "Wo Zhidao, Jesu!", which means, "I know, Jesus!" in Mandarin. WOW.
4You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.
–1 John 4:4
Friends, the enemy has such a strong grip on this country, to the extent that evangelism and missionary work is illegal and we had to take out Jesus from any songs we sang to a room full of children. And yet our strong and mighty God overcomes the Christian oppression in China every day, this day through a 7-year-old boy. This is the same little boy who Alex saw wearing a cross one day and who pointed to the cross, gave the thumbs up, and made prayer hands. I don't know who told Jay about our sweet Savior, but I pray that He grows to intimately know Jesu and continues to proclaim His name unashamed and unafraid, as we all should.
"Our God is greater/Our God is stronger,
God you are higher than any other/Our God is healer,
awesome in power/Our God, Our God.
And if our God is for us, then who could ever stop us?
And if our God is with us, then what can stand against?"
