Christmas--A Season of Contrasts

Darkness and Light...Despair and Hope...War and Peace...These are the contrasts of the Christmas season that I've been reflecting on. I don't have lots of nice, traditional Christmasy looking pictures to post. Why, I'm not even setting up a tree this year, since we won't be home to enjoy it. But, this year we are trying to focus more on the real meaning of the season. We are SO thankful to God that He came into our messy world and our messy lives to save us! That was the message by Pastor Mitri Raheb who came to Redeemer Lutheran Church last night to speak about the hope that his people are trying to pass on to the people of Palestine through the Bright Stars of Bethlehem program. He is the pastor of Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem. Jay had the privilege of sharing his gift of singing for the program. We heard about the town of Bethlehem where Jesus was born and what it's like today. I had NO idea that it is so similar to the days when Jesus was born. At that time Bethlehem was under Roman occupation. Today they are under Israeli occupation, surrounded by a wall with a huge checkpoint. Every five years of Pastor Mitri's life, he has experienced war. When he was a small boy his mother took him inside the Church of the Nativity to seek refuge. Reminds you of the verse in the bible where it talks about Rachel weeping for her children. Did you know that 1/3 of Palestinians worship Jesus as their Lord? In one of the wars that occurred in 2002, Pastor Mitri's home and church buildings were taken over by the Israeli army. He said that five years of work were destroyed in just 11 hours. But, he is trying to pass hope on to his children and grandchildren. They are rebuilding lives by reaching out in their community and starting schools for children. The focus in their college is to teach young people to use their gifts in the arts to be instruments of peace.

We are thankful to God for allowing Penny to also use her artistic gifts through the homeschool enrichment group. She is participating in their musical, which they are practicing now. They aren't performing until April. So, by the time they do perform it should be a grand production. On Friday she spent all morning learning a dance and came home tired! But, I was proud of her at how well she was learning her part. And she dressed up in a cute dress that her relatives in Sweden gave her.

Jay had a second seasonal concert at his school this past week that was another smashing success. It was a rather stressful day, as there were a couple of glitches that popped up. But, in the end everything came together smoothly and there was an even bigger turnout than the first concert as I think word got around that the new music teacher has been gleaning the kids for great things. It was so fun to see the proud parents immediately pulling out their cameras, phones, etc. to take shots of their kids the minute they entered the gym. Yes, we believe that God has called us into this "messy" little obscure school in Denver to bring the joy of music into these children's lives. Here's a picture of the roses that Jay was blessed with by a child at the end of the concert.

Another blessing of going up to Fort Collins, yesterday, besides visiting our brothers and sisters at Redeemer Lutheran Church, was also visiting with our brothers and sisters of Fort Collins Japanese Bible Fellowship. We all gathered together again at, of all places, a Mexican restaurant. It was great fun to fellowship again with these dear people.

And after we came outside, we discovered a big weather change, with the wind howling and the temperature dropping. We even got a little snow in Denver, we noticed after we got home at nearly midnight. After such a long and busy day, we came home late and tired. Our stomachs were all hurting a bit, perhaps from the Mexican food. But, my heart felt very encouraged to know that yes, God came into our world, with all of it's imperfections. Jesus was born right into the midst of such a world. And He continues to come into our imperfect world and our lives, as He is reborn in hearts through faith in Him.

Concerts, Thanksgiving, Date, Loy Khrathong, Etc.

Time for a new monthly blog post. It's hard for me to find time, since Penny wants to be with mom nearly 100 percent of the time. I'm thankful for so much bonding time. In fact, homeschooling has been great for this! But, finally, she's sleeping in and I have a chance to update the blog. It's been a great month. Jay's first concert went off with a bang.

We're so excited that he's brought concerts back to the music program at his new school. The last teacher was rather uninvolved with the kids. And these kids come from a tough situation where the parents just struggle to provide the basic needs. So, they seemed to be extra proud of their kids and the kids were so thrilled to get to stand up in front of their parents to show off their musical skills. I think that the kids at Jay's old school never really knew just what a blessing they had, since they had it all. The kids at his new school just seem to appreciate being able to sing and do all of the fun motions to show their parents what they can do. We were thrilled to watch them perform. Now there are a few more holiday concerts coming up. Besides all of the holiday concerts, we've also had fun hosting Thanksgiving here at our new humble home.

Jay's parents were able to come join us from Ft. Collins. We had a wonderful meal and I felt like I could really enjoy it. I'm really LOVING the fact that for the first time in my life I'm not having to work outside of the home. I LOVE being a stay-at-home-homeschooling mom and housewife. We haven't put up too many decorations, since we just moved and hardly know where things are. Besides, we will be spending Christmas day with relatives, so why go to all of the trouble? And I'm busy with homeschooling everyday. So, just a few decorations will help us focus on what the season is all about, it's JESUS! Penny and I had a great reminder of that at the Women's Christmas event at Grandma Dottie's church. I feel so bad that I didn't even take pictures of the ladies. I took photos of the beautiful tables and then once we sat down and started visiting with all of the ladies and listening to the beautiful music and message, I completely forgot all about taking photos. It's become a special Christmas tradition for us to join Grandma Dottie at her beautifully decorated Swedish table.

This year I kept wiping my tears as I observed my beautiful daughter and saw how far she's come since she first joined us for this event. In the beginning she hated being there. She did NOT like meeting the old ladies, listening to words she didn't understand, and eating the food she didn't like. Lots of pouting and whining! Now she sat there poised as a beautiful, radiant young lady with a sweet smile on her face and totally taking everything in. Afterwards she said, "That was a REALLy good gospel message, Mom!" Lord, thanks for just transforming my daughter into such a beautiful flower! She's blooming beyond my hopes and dreams! We haven't been getting any snow at all, yet, this year. In fact, there's another forest fire that just doubled in size up in the Rocky Mountain National Park and made our drive to Grandma's church rather smoky. So, we're praying for snow here. But, we're praying that there won't be too much for when we travel back to South Dakota for my brother's wedding and to celebrate Christmas with family. Another fun thing was that Jay and I actually got to have a date weekend after Thanksgiving as Penny stayed with her grandparents.

We spent one of those nights at a luxury hotel that Jay got a special AAA discount at in Colorado Springs. It sure was great to refuel our love as a couple so that we were better able to jump into parenting and teaching again! God has been good to us all! Lastly, we also had our own silly little celebration for Loy Khratong, a Thai holiday. We try to find ways to incorporate a little Thai culture, but sometimes it's a challenge because one wonders where to draw the line as many of their celebrations center around Buddha worship and animistic traditions. For our little family, we worship Jesus as our Lord. So, we have to decide which aspects of the culture we can embrace and which practices would deny our allegiance to our Lord and Savior. We have decided that the beauty of the flower arrangements and candles floating water is a beautiful tradition. But, when we float ours, we don't thank the river gods. We thank the Creator God who provided the rivers. So, it's appropriate that Loy Khrathong comes close to Thanksgiving time.

We use the candle that Penny was given at her baptism to put in our little Americanized make-shift Khrathong. It's a special reminder of Jesus, who is the Light of the World. What's cool is that the candle was actually made in Vietnam. We play the Loy Khrathong song, because the words have nothing in them about worshipping the river gods. It's simple about floating the beautiful Khrathongs down the river. Now it's too cold to float it down a river at night in Colorado, so we are silly and float it in our bathtub. But we have fun playing the music and dancing. And Penny laughs about how silly her mom is. But, I think deep-down she's enjoying the silliness, too!