Merry Christmas!

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Dear All,

My first Christmas season halfway around the world...

We had our Redcliffe Christmas party last night and everyone showed up, families in tow, dressed to the nines (or the sevens or even fives, depending on how festive they were feeling) to celebrate the season with a buffet and a program. Claire (England) and Adriaan (Holland) MC-ed and many people took a part. I sang a silly song with my team for duties. We're the kitchen team so we made up a spinoff of "the 12 days of Christmas" describing the rather minging details of our work : ) The student committee did a sketch where they play-acted the tutors-- Simon Steer with his high-class, "blue-blooded" accent and repeated use of the word "marvelous", Rob Cook with his philosophical arguments and much chin-massaging, it was great : ) It's customary for the staff as well to come up with some kind of humorous sketch. This year they did their own version of "The Sound of Music"-- please take this moment to picture my proper British tutors (mostly men) dressed up like nuns and speaking and singing in high, squeaky voices... : ) Jolly good fun!!!

Mostly I just liked it because it felt like Christmas. Finally. These past few weeks I have been perfectly aware that the Christmas season is fast approaching but I've been too busy with end of term pressures to really feel it. Tonight I felt it, a tangible excitement, a season of celebration. We have such A Reason to celebrate...

On wednesday this week, smack-dab in the middle of our frenzied researching and writing of all our essays, Tabitha (South Africa) and I organized a bit of an informal caroling excursion. We were American, English, African, Indonesian, Hungarian, Polish, and Brazillian united in song to make people smile-- and it was gorgeous. I've decided I adore Christmas caroling (the fact that it's not -30 degrees with snow up to my knees probably adds a bit to its appeal :)).

My new pastor and his wife, who works at the college, and two daughters had me over for a Christmas lunch last Sunday along with 4 other students who go to the Kendal Road Baptist Church these days. I love people with the gift of hospitality and I want to endeavor to be one : )

We put up a huge Christmas tree in the dining hall and decorating was a group effort one evening last week. What we've come out with looks disconcertingly like kindergartner's crafttime project gone bad but at least it's festive : ) (Do see pictures!! Follow link at top!) I was missing our home that day, missing how our home begins to glow and glitter during the Christmas season with all the revered, once-a-year decorations coming out and finding their places about the house. I was missing Mom and I traditionally putting up the tree together to celtic Christmas carols in a room made all the warmer by the thick winter's blanket of unbroken snow making the night frosty and white outside. I was missing my little brothers milling about teasing me for getting lost in the Christmas-ness of it all : ) So having the "Christmas tree night" here was incredibly precious, no matter how unorthodox : )

On December the Fifth we celebrated the traditional Dutch holiday of Sinterklaas here at Adriaan and Henk's organization. It's a brilliant way of doing things, really. They keep gifts and such entirely seperate from Christmas itself, leaving the holiday open to be celebrated for what it is really about-- Jesus. The social side of the school was shrouded in secrets the weekend before as we all prepared our gifts and poems inside the homemade surprisas made from paper and craft material to represent the person whose name we had drawn. Some were incredibly clever; a giant Hebrew letter for a Hebrew scholar, a foot-high piano for an expert piano player, a table-tennis table for a serious table-tennis player. About 40 of us gathered in a huge circle and one by one unwrapped our gifts within our surprisas and read the poem written about ourselves : ) I love experiencing life through the lens of another's culture...

Which brings me to tonight. The Tanzanian couple here, Amani and Esther, invited me over for an evening meal Tanzania-style, along with a friendly middle-aged pastor from Uganda named Michael Lobowa. I wish I could put into words how much God has spoken to me through interaction with these people in one evening. First of all, I've learned that African food is delicious. Secondly, I learned many cultural do's and don't's-- such as always take from what is offered only what the guest of honor takes (which, apparently was me, so I find) and no more, and never sit in the same style as the guest of honor or they may think you're trying to take their place : ) Thirdly... I've learned yet again how beautiful God has made each and every person. I've learned how valuable He has made them. How precious. I went into that room having lived with these people for three months but really hardly knowing them. And there we talked and laughed and ate together and prayed together. And I walked out having still pools in my soul stirred by the kindness and warmth of the three of them. Somehow, I'm aware that I will never be the same having shared an evening of my life with the three of their lives. We didn't discuss or share anything too deep. I learned about Tanzania and Uganda and the liberation and swahili. We spoke of American culture and British culture and my family and Michael's. We spoke of food and the Christmas party and lecturers and accents. But the generosity of spirit. The love. Such precious bonds formed. Michael has even planned a birthday party for me for this June-- seven months away. He says he and his wife, whom he hopes will have joined him from Africa by then, will make me their baby for the day : ) So mark your calendars, Ugandan Michael is throwing me my 20th birthday party this summer : )

I love finding myself at home here in my whole new world. At home in the very state of having no home.

At first everything was different and constantly reminded me of where I was, what I was doing, the novelty of it all. The accents were so obvious, so noticeable. Now I sometimes catch myself "catching myself" noticing them-- as if they've become so commonplace that I forget they're there. It was the way the telephone numbers were divided into fives instead of the usual 3 digits, dash, 4 digits. It was the unusual words used in everyday conversation: "trousers", "minging", "reckon"... It was the spelling of things: favourite, colour, programme... The cavalier mention of places I'd never heard of that seemed so foreign... Now it's all normal; to be expected.

I have been living in England for three months and three days. A quarter of a year of my life. And it has been so natural it was like slipping in to a favourite though not often heard song, and it's been so unnatural it's been like an onslaught of dischordant keys being struck violently all at the same time. Emerson wrote, "The years know much which the days know not of." I'm inclined to think that the days know much which the hours know not of because each one has held so much discovery mingled with distress, promise with pain, delight with disappointment. Making sense of it is like a long string of beads. One bead stands alone as a perfectly valid bead but it's not much good for anything. But strung up in a line of them all in a row there stands a necklace, complete and purposeful.

I'm realizing that these days, good and bad, have been beads in my necklace.

And I know in His hands they'll string up as diamonds and pearls...

Yesterday was our last day of term here at Redcliffe. Everyone's taking off for home, family, friends. Though I can hardly believe the words as I say them, I'll be flying to Paris tomorrow to spend Christmas with Tiphaine (do you remember her? She was a foreign exchange student who lived with my family a few years ago) and her family there. We'll be spending a few days in Paris, a few in Rouen, and then Christmas in a tiny village in Normandy with her parents and 5 brothers and sisters who speak very little, if any, English. I'm afraid I know very little, if any, French. So, it's bound to be an interesting week and a half : ) On the 29th I fly from Paris to Belfast to stay with a friend from College (Jenny) for the second week and a half, encompassing New Year's Eve. We'll be staying in Belfast, Armagh, possibly Bangor, and we hope to spend a few nights in a cottage in Donnegal on the northern coast when Leticia (Brazil) flies out to join us. Yes, Leticia and Jenny are the same two girls who make up my prayer triplet. Watch out world; there may be some powerful things happening that week : )

Christmas in Normandy, New Years in Belfast, my Home of Homes found in my King of Kings no matter where on earth I find myself... I will praise You, O Lord my God, with all my heart; I will glorify Your name forever (Psalm 86:12)...

May His presence in your life abound this Christmas. May you seek after Him as your greatest treasure, not counting the cost. He is so much greater...
As they say here, "Happy Christmas!"
Leah <><

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