An International Christmas

'Tis the season.

I remember a few years ago my family had a very international Christmas.  We had presents under the tree from the "Japanese Santa," the "Hong Kong Santa," the "Malaysian Santa," etc.  (Funny how all the Santas represented under our tree corresponded to places my dad had been that year.)  But this year I'm having another sort of international Christmas. 

Today was our Christmas service at my fellowship.  It was marvelous!  I was blessed to be able to join the choir, and have had a great time in the last three weeks going to choir practice and getting to know many others in the fellowship from the other schools.  But let me give you a picture of how international this Christmas service was...

We started with a bunch of carols.  That wasn't particularly international compared to usual here, but the praise team still consisted of people from at least 6 countries.

For the message, we had four people each speak about five minutes.  Of those four, two were American and two were African.  I was actually honored to be asked to be one of those speakers, so I talked about Luke 2:17-20.  Specifically, I talked about Mary's reaction (as compared with the shepherds') and asked if we are each pondering the meaning of this season.

After the message(s), we got into the "program" that had been put together just for today.  A Sri Lankan dance. The Sunday school choir.  A Filipino Joseph, a Nigerian Mary, and an Indian wise man.  An African dance.  And a choir full of Africans, Indians... and one white girl. 

It was marvelous! 

And I really enjoyed singing Silent Night with a beat.  I guess that's what happens when the choir director is from Guinea Bassu.

Since I'm not entirely sure what my plans are for the rest of the Christmas season (i.e. for Christmas day itself), I'll refrain from telling you about that until after the 25th.  But in the meantime, it was such a blessing to be able to celebrate the season with brothers and sisters from around the world today.