It felt like Christmas inside our home, but the minute we walked outside on campus, it was just like any other ordinary day. They really don't recognize Christmas here. The closest thing they recognize is the Chinese character for the word "peace" is the same as the Chinese word for "apple", so for good luck and safety they gift each other apples on Christmas Eve. Needless to say, we have about 20 apples from students that we are about to make a big pot of applesauce with!
Christmas was quite different, but really meaningful. It was hard to be away from family at home, but the people Father has placed in our lives over here have been special. We have grown into a deep friendship with a 91 year old man in the local nursing home. He is fluent in English from being an interpreter for the army in WWII. He became a family member when he was 86! We spent Christmas Eve with him by taking him to dinner and then going back to his home to read the Christmas story out of Luke and we sang Christmas carols in English and Chinese. Hearing multiple languages worship at one time gave us a taste of what's to come... Every tribe and tongue. It's like reading Rev. 4 - 5.
We had our usual group of boys over for breakfast on Christmas morning and made green pancakes! We did a White Elephant gift exchange with them and spent the day together. It brought us great joy to watch them open a Christmas gift for the first time! They are not family members, but they have really wanted to learn about pryer. They have all been introduced to the message in Becky’s class, and one boy has a good book. We all held hands and each boy went around the circle voicing a request or a praise. Our hope for the New Year is that Father will really draw them in and capture their hearts.
Later that day, we went around to all of our local friends in the market we have built relationships with to wish them a Merry Christmas and give them some baked goodies. The FIT class from LABC has sent a large number of items for the local orphanage we will be giving in January, and we were able to give some of the baby items they sent to a dear local friend who is having a baby in March! She was full with tears of joy and appreciation! Thank you for joining us in serving those in need!