A Nepali Christmas Tale

"I wonder what Christmas is like in Nepal?", I hear you ask.  Well, funny you should say that...!
I know, I know, you're probably full of ham, salad, roast chicken and sticky date pudding from yesterday, and not really thinking anything of the sort...  But I'm still going to tell you!  Mainly because it's been such a lovely, different Christmas to anything I've really experienced before.

Really, it started on Christmas Eve.  One really cool thing about short-term mission has been learning a whole lot more about other cultures...  Obviously learning about Nepali culture has been fascinating and wonderful.  But living amongst expats from around the world means there's all sorts of other little things you learn.  What a wonderful kaleidoscope we are!  In Jumla, I've been living with a lovely German Christian woman.  And, in Germany, Christmas Eve is actually bigger than Christmas Day...  they have a big meal, and usually exchange gifts on Christmas Eve.  I never knew that!  But there you go.  So, we had a fabulous, big dinner together on Christmas Eve, with roast chicken and vegetables, home-made German noodles, a few different salads, and custard and cake for dessert.  Beautiful food, beautiful company.

Then... Christmas Day!!  Church happens on Saturdays in Nepal, so we'd had church the day before.  At that service, we'd been told we'd sing some songs to the patients at the hospital nearby at around 7 or 8am, then head back to the church for a short service and a 10am-ish meal  (the usual time for the first meal of the day in Nepal)...  just bring 100 rupees, a pint of rice and a handful of lentils.  Sounded just gorgeous.  Anyway...  at 8am, nothing was really happening at the hospital.  So I headed back to the church to see what was happening.  Turns out we were now singing at 9am.  No big deal - we all live quite closeby!  Anyway, in the end, I think the singing at the church happened at 10am, with church starting at around 11:30am and finishing at 2:30pm.  Honestly, I found this hilarious!  Time is a little more flexible in Nepali culture.  It's something I actually find rather beautiful and different.  (Although sometimes having a very time-focused Western mindset can be a challenge at times).  The church service was just lovely.  Bible readings, lots of joyful singing and praying, a few dramas (including the Christmas story), and pressies for the Sunday school kids.  One big celebration of Jesus.

Oh, and this is how the church looked:

Just one of the reasons I love this country.

After this, two of my friends and I wandered up to the local orphange - to which we'd been invited for Christmas Dinner.  There's currently 17 children at the orphanage (all of whom have lost both parents), but are cared for by a faithful family, originally from India.  So, our Christmas dinner was just fabulous abundant food...  a special salad of carrot, onion and yoghurt; a delicately-spiced pork dish, and chicken biriyani - a South Indian speciality.  The hospitality of this family was precious, and it was lovely spending a few hours playing games with the kids (including the chocolate game where you roll a dice, dress up and eat the choccy with a knife and fork...  highly popular!), singing some songs and praying; as well as just spending time together, chatting, preparing food... really, just doing ordinary things.

All in all, I've had a wonderful couple of days.  Not spectacular, but what a privilege celebrate Christmas in another culture which in some ways looks so different, but yet still basically doing the same things, and united by the same loving Father.

I hope you all had a beautiful Christmas, wherever you are... whether it was warmly filled with familiarity, or excitingly different.  Much love at Christmas, and heading towards 2012!

P.S.  Oh, and this was a bit before Christmas (the night we put up decorations in our house, to be exact, but I just had to share our amazing vegetable soup with flatbread Christmas stars...  Our very own invention!  Was quite excited about this.)

 

Christmas Is Coming

Oh yes it is!  I do so love Christmas.  

It does seem that, with our growing a little older every year, a certain Christmas-related cynicism tends to also grow within us... It may well be justified.  After all, as one who has grown up in an Australian capital city, I've witnessed the ever-growing materialism that surrounds this time of year...  the Christmas carols and decorations which appear around Octoberish; the incredible pressure to find a gift which adequately expresses our love to all those around us (and just what sort of $ sign is attached to it); children throwing tantrums in the sardine-packed, local super-mega-shopping complexes, attached to (or running away from) weary, frustrated-looking mums uttering a variety of threats...  Then there's the hidden sadnesses around this time of year:  the lonely, the depressed, the homeless.  Those for whom Christmas is a constant, sharp reminder of what they don't have.  Suicides; hospital accident-and-emergency departments busy with alcohol- and who-knows-what-else-related incidents.

Positive, I know.  But it's real.

But you know what else is real?  Jesus.  His birth, in a smelly animal shed out the back of an overcrowded inn... Real.  That nativity play, featured in churches and Christmas Carol services each year...  cheeky, freckled kids with tea-towels around their heads;  the best-behaved Sunday school boy and girl dressed up as Joseph and Mary; someone's recently-born bub lying in a little crib, nestled into something more comfy than real hay...  Sort of real.  But based on something as real as you and me.

But it's a true story which is not understood or remembered by many; and even for Christians it can become blurred around the edges in the fog of familiarity.

This year, for me, is different.  This year, I'm in Nepal.  I'm here for six months on a short-term mission trip, which includes Christmas.  So really, there's all sorts of reasons it's different... including the beautiful wintery-ness of it!  We've only recently started singing Christmas carols.  They have regained a beautiful freshness and a real joy.  Also, because the other expats here are from Germany, America and a different part of Australia, I've been learning Christmas songs I don't even know, and cracking out some of the more obscure ones.

The bazaar (main shopping area!) here is limited, basic, and sells mainly essential clothing items, food, household items, as well as a few more "luxury" items.  Many people are poor, and have trouble even keeping their families well-nourished.  There's no option for a widespread gospel of materialism.  With the dominant religion being Hinduism, Christmas isn't even widely celebrated. (Although this is also very sobering.  To see how few people here know and love Jesus, and see His birth as something to celebrate... I guess it's not that different to the religion of materialism.  It's just more obvious.  Perhaps...  But a topic for another day!)

So, what am I trying to say?  Really, it's a long-winded way of saying that, this year, with the smog of all that "other stuff" removed, the truth that Christmas is all about Jesus has been as clear as a crisp, blue, Jumla morning sky. 

That God Himself left His rightful place of glory to enter our imperfect world - entered humanity, with its struggles, temptation, pain, loneliness.  In such an unspectacular way.  The same Jesus who went on to suffer and die on an instrument of torture on our behalf.  What unfathomable love.

I think I needn't go on.  I won't be the first, last or most eloquent maker of this point!  But what a truth.  And how wonderful that we can go on being re-amazed by it.  I can't possibly describe how thrilled and thankful I am to be here - free of all the extra Christmas decorations we try to hang on Jesus at this time of year... which only serve to distract us from the real source of light and beauty. Him.

If you have big Christmas plans, and have just stumbled in the door from your Christmas shopping expeditions in desperate need of a cuppa, please don't feel judged!  I've sure been there, and chances are I will be again...  Christmas still IS a celebration!  It's about our hearts and attitudes much more than what we "do", and there are many ways of loving God and loving those around us.

But whoever you are, wherever you're at, whatever your Christmas schedule... think of Jesus.  Not as a sort of guilt-saturated, side-obligation, but as the centre and foundation of it all.  Indeed, of our whole lives.  If you don't know Jesus, take advantage of the season - ask a friend about Him and what it all really means.  Or email me!  That'd be really cool.

So, happy Christmas to you all.  Despite struggles and circumstance, frustrated plans and burnt turkeys.  May the world be filled with the joy and peace of Jesus.  Come, let's really adore Him.

* * *

Isaiah 7:14

¹⁴Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

Isaiah 9:6 

⁶ For to us a child is born,
   to us a son is given;
 and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
   and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Luke 2:10-14

¹⁰And the angel said to [the shepherds], "Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. ¹¹For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. ¹²And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger." ¹³And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,
 ¹⁴"Glory to God in the highest,
    and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!"

A Self-Directed Welcome

I never, in a million years, thought I would start a blog.

(Hmm, there I go, justifying myself already.)  I guess I've never been much of a writer.  I remember well creative writing at school, and it wasn't all the rainbows and fireworks that I so desperately wanted it to be...  I've always loved books, and somehow thought I should be good at writing.  But that's OK.  One doesn't necessarily need to be a novelist to write a blog.  An appealing reason in my book!

I think the main motivating factor in my starting my own little cyberspace word-garden was one of my friends.  She writes really beautifully, and her blog is just full of touching and insightful thoughts - but that's alongside simple observations, ponderings, just little things.  She also follows up her blog comments as "conversations" with people.  All of which I love!  It feels inclusive, and do-able.  It's just a little place to share, I guess.  Even if I can't write like my friend.  God gives us all individual talents and gifts - and what a precious kaleidoscope that makes us.  I feel like this life is so full of wonder and learnings that sharing them is actually a worthwhile activity.  At the moment, anyway...  Who knows how long this blog will last?  Maybe I'll become a little too introspective (a little risky).  Who knows whether anyone will ever read it?  I don't mind, to be honest.  We shall see.  I'm kind of excited!  If you're actually, actually reading this - welcome!  It's lovely to have you here.