Okay, we can say Merry Christmas now!  We hope and pray you are having a blessed day as you celebrate the birth of our Savior.   We are. 

Our hope and prayer is that next year we will be celebrating Christmas in a new place, in a new country, in Peru.  After opening presents this morning, I walked out to the mailbox to get the newspaper.  One of the articles was called “Latin Traditions come to the US.”  Of the two countries mentioned in the article, guess what was the first?  Yep, Peru.  A sidebar in the article listed some of the things we hope to experience next Christmas:

• A Christmas meal of turkey, chicken or pork; hot chocolate; and a sweet fruitcake called paneton. 
• Fireworks and a midnight gathering to say “Merry Christmas” and a toast with cider or champagne.
• Attending the “Misa de gallo” (rooster’s mass) at 10 pm on Christmas Eve.
• Meeting and gathering with friends and family starting at noon on Christmas Eve and lasting through the night and into the next day.

It’ll be different, but it’ll be blessed.  To God be the glory!

Take a look at the pages on the sidebar to read the message I brought at Beersheba Presbyterian Church yesterday evening.

It’s almost time to say Merry Christmas! 

The kids have been asking a lot of questions this year about Christmas.  Not so much about Santa Clause, because I think they realize if they stop  believing the presents stop coming.  Most of their questions are about Jesus and his birth in the stable.  One of them asked last night, “Why do we make such a big deal of his birthday?”

Thinking I had a good answer, I said, “Do you want people to make a big deal of your birthday?”

“Yeah,” was the reply, “but why do we make it a month long thing for Jesus?”

Point taken.  I had to think about that.  After all, the more we do something, the less special it becomes.  Is spending so much time on Jesus during this Christmas season taking away from the holiness of the day?  I think perhaps it does.  As we talked, I realized how much I enjoy being a part of a liturgical church that every year  cycles through the life of Christ.  When we do that, we don’t rush things.  A pace and a pattern is set for the rhythm of life. 

The church year began four weeks ago with the first Sunday of Advent (remember those calendars with the windows counting down to Christmas?).   For the next four weeks, we lit candles and count down the weeks until Christmas Eve.  Tonight we light a fifth candle, a white one in the middle, to represent the light of Christ come into the world.  Throughout this season we have not been celebrating the birth of Christ.  Instead, we have been anticipating and looking forward to the blessed event.  When I was serving a church as pastor, I tried to follow an old tradition of not singing Christmas songs until Christmas Eve.  Why?  Because according to the church year, he had not yet been born.  Looking forward changes our focus and helps us to see the coming of Christ in new and different ways. 

Tomorrow is Jesus’ birthday.  Today we still wait.  And wonder.  And hope.  And anticipate what a difference his coming will make in our lives.  To God be the glory.

 Tonight I will be leading worship at Beersheba Presbyterian Church in Summerville, Georgia.  Please pray that I will listen to the guiding of the Holy Spirit as I make preparations. 

This morning we spoke at Sugar Valley United Methodist Church (located in Georgia between Dalton and Calhoun).  One thing I like to do when we visit churches is to ask about the history.  I like history and seeing how today connects with it.  On the sign out front, I’d noticed it said the church was established in 1857.  We’d seen that a lot on our journeys, but I wanted to know about Sugar Valley in particular.   Usually the original buildings had burned sometime in the past and rebuilt.  Sugar Valley was one of the rare exceptions.  The walls of the building are original.  At one point in time the building had been two stories tall, but a windstorm had knocked the second floor off years ago.  (The second floor was where a temperance group had met).  The timbers under the floor had to be redone a few years back because of termites.  The walls, though, are still original.  If those walls could talk…

Imagine 150 years of revivals, campmeetings and preaching.  One hundred fifty years of floods and famine, harvests and plenty.   Generations of weddings, baptisms and funerals.  During the Civil War (War Between the States or the War of Northern Aggression, depending to whom you are talking), the building was used to stable horses.  At one time there were two doors on the front of the church:  one for the women and one for the men.   If those walls could talk…

It was an honor and a joy to speak there this morning.  Now Circulo Abierto / Open Circle Peru is a part of that 150 year legacy.  To God be the glory. 

I wasn’t sure what to write for a title of this post. I am sitting in the classroom where I have been teaching for the past seven weeks or so. I’ve gotten to know the kids well, and I like them all (though the amount I like them can vary from day to day. Sometimes when they are acting up, they say, “You hate us, don’t you.” I can honestly respond that I don’t. I only have a few days left with them. It’s a bit bittersweet. I am ready to be able to devote 100% of my time again to raising support for missions. At the same time, though, I feel God is using me here with these teenagers. I’m teaching them…and they are teaching me. I like it when that happens. Farewells and see you laters are not fun…but they are a part of life.

As a class, we are finishing up a unit on Anne Frank. It’s been good for all of us, I think. Anne was the age of the students while she was hiding in the Annex so many years ago. There are parts of the story they could relate to: fear, death, dying, frustration, relationships. It was good for me to revisit the story through the eyes and ears and experiences of 13, 14 and 15 year olds.

An old friend from our first year of college just called. She’d been talking to Audra and was disconnected and didn’t remember which number was the house and which was the cell phone. I’m glad Nancy called the cell phone, becuase it was good to connect again. I asked if they had snow and she said about a foot. We’re supposed to have a cold front coming in, but this is Georgia: a cold front usually means highs in the 40s or 50s. I don’t think we’ll be having a white Christmas (not that this is a bad thing, mind you! A few flakes of white wouldn’t be complained about by my family, though.)

I’d better be getting home. May the blessing of God be yours tonight and always.

Brothers and sisters in Christ,

We are indeed still here. It has been a while since I’ve written and I apologize. Between school and mission work, by the time I get home and sit at the computer, I am dead tired and don’t feel like doing anything else. I’ll try to write more in a few days.

The kids are now attending public school. They were a bit hesitant at first (correction: Todd was excited and ready to get there to be around some boys for a change. The girls went dragging their feet). After the first week, they’ve all decided to enjoy it. Aylis’ was asked out by three different boys (we said no, not yet) and Kia is getting some looks from the boys. Todd is making a lot of friends. Yesterday, we learned Aylis’ won her class spelling bee and will represent her class in front of the entire school.

Soraya continues to grow. The other night she slept for a full five hours. After getting over the initial fears of “why did I sleep so long,” she was really happy!

If you are looking for a good book to read, I am in the middle of The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. A good book and very well written.