Christmas and beyond!

This year I really had to remind myself why we celebrate Christmas. I think I was homesick at first and every time I would see Christmas decorations in early December, I would think "It doesn't feel like Christmas, it's 90 degrees outside, what are they thinking?" I was a bit of a Scrooge. Finally, I started focusing on Jesus' birth and how thankful I am that God sent His Son to earth. It's amazing that the Son of God lived a human life and understands how I feel. And to top it off, He died a horrible death on the cross just to save me. That's amazing love! When I thought of all that, I started to get into the Christmas spirit. It's a good thing too, because Christmas was coming whether I was ready or not!

We did Christmas activities with our students at school during Christmas week and my students enjoyed playing Nativity bingo and making snowflakes. The teacher's Christmas party was memorable because many foreign teachers dressed up as Christmas hula dancers and performed. We acknowledged the fact that there can't be a white Christmas in Bangkok and sang "Christmas Island" and danced the hula. Some also dressed up as reindeer for "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." We finished the performance with "Silent Night" to follow the school's Christmas theme "Blessed Night."

I had a Honduran-Thai-Argentinian-American Christmas. Many friends from church went to a Latin American friend's house on Christmas Eve and had a feast. I brought pumpkin pie, which was my favorite thing because it reminds me of home. We played games, read Scripture and sang Christmas songs until midnight, which is the Latin American tradition. My dad sent me flowers and I got to talk with him, brother and sister-in-law. I ended Christmas day by eating hamburgers with my Filipino friends at a mall in Bangkok and enjoyed looking at the Christmas rabbits (I have no idea how the 15 ft. tall rabbits in the mall relate to Christmas, but that's the theme the largest mall in Bangkok chose this year:).

The highlight of my Christmas vacation was going to visit an orphanage in Sangklaburi (near the border with Myanmar). The kids are so amazing! They are all from Myanmar (formerly Burma). Most still have families in Thailand or Myanmar, but their parents cannot afford to send them to school and they have been able to get Thai IDs, which allow them to study in a Thai school. I went to teach English (it worked out that the teachers in their village school wanted time off and declared the 27th to 3rd holidays. Only a village school could do that--classes in Bangkok went on as usual). I also got to lead their evening devotions. We went to the river to swim on my last day. Tourists come to that river to ride bamboo rafts and ride elephants. We played on the rafts that were not being used and one elephant owner brought his elephant to the river for a bath. I even jumped off a 20 ft. cliff into the river. Now I can say I've cliff-jumped, but I don't think I'll do it again. I'm definitely not a thrill-seeker.

The kids have experienced the love and blessings that come from God. They pray fervently and worship God from their hearts. They can speak Thai and Burmese. They understand English very well and some also speak tribal languages like Karen. I was touched by the story of one 8 or 9 year old boy. His parents left him in bed when he was 1 year old because their village was being attacked by soldiers. His grandfather came back for him but he lost all contact with his parents. He went to live at the orphanage a few years later. The head of the orphanage found the boy's father in Bangkok and took him to spend two weeks with him last summer. At the end of the two weeks, the father and son weeped when they had to part, but the father knew that his son has a better life at the orphanage because he can go to school. The father wouldn't be able to send him to school in Bangkok. This little boy is joyful and loves to have his picture taken. I thank God for helping him overcome, despite his difficult circumstances.

As I listen to people singing karaoke and celebrating New Year's outside my apartment (in the middle of the day), I think of the many blessings God gave me in 2010 and look forward to new opportunities to serve and grow in 2011!