A birthday party for Jesus
CMS missionaries M and K, with sons S and T, serve in South Asia. In this article, K shares how they celebrated Advent and Christmas with their neighbours last year.
This article is part three of our Christmas series: ‘How do you celebrate Christmas?’
Article 1 is here. Article 2 is here. Article 3 is here.
Advent celebrations with our neighbours
There was tremendous excitement as we gave the boys the first clue and they went tearing up the stairs. It was chaos as our sons S and T and three of their friends ran around our building looking for the clues we had planted for our annual treasure hunt on the first day of December.
The final clue led them to look under our kitchen stove for the prize–our box of Christmas decorations. They tore it open and began flinging gold stars around, tugging the fairy lights, jumping on the bed to hang things off the mosquito net hooks, and lunging to be first to switch the lights on. Once the decorations were hung, we fed them pikelets and then sent them home, promising they could return in the afternoon to begin our advent calendar.
We have come to know and love our neighbours over the past five years. It’s been a privilege to watch the cheeky toddlers grow into adventurous, articulate boys with big hearts. It’ been a joy to welcome new babies (and have our own baby welcomed)! It’s been a delight to spend countless hours together playing on the roof, going to each other’s houses, walking to and from school together… and celebrating special occasions.
Later that day, the kids came running down the stairs with us after we had collected our washing from the roof. We explained to them that at Christmas we celebrate the birth of Jesus–someone they know of as an ‘exceptional prophet’. We shared that every day for the month of December, we would prepare for Christmas by reading different names of Jesus that we pick out of the pocket on the wall.
Christmas in our town
On Christmas Eve, our family visited the small Christian quarter of our town, where the only Christmas celebrations were taking place. We enjoyed the magnificent light display and wandering around the church grounds, bewildered by the mix of snowflake decorations, jingle bells and Christmas carols. As we left, a woman in hijab tried to enter. “Sorry, this is only for Christians,” the security guards told her. On the rickshaw home, we explained to our boys the sad reality that no one in our building had ever been to a Christmas service, and wouldn’t be allowed to due to the minority mindset of this Christian community.
The big party
A week after Christmas, we hosted a ‘birthday party’ for Jesus. Six kids from the building (aged 4–12), two mums, and a grandma came along. We played ‘pass the parcel’ and musical statues, and M told them a short excerpt of the story of Jesus’ birth.
“And if Christmas is a birthday, what should we eat?”
“Cake!” The kids sing in chorus.
They crowded around the table as we opened the cake picked out from the shop earlier that day, which S had requested to have the word “Isa” (Jesus) on it. The kids burst into singing ‘happy birthday’, and we shared cake and snacks.
God’s gift of friendship
Sometimes, the days here go slowly by. Sometimes we wonder, ‘is this meaningful?’ God has given us the gift of friendship with our neighbours–who trust us enough to let their kids go out bike-riding with us or to the river beach, and to spend hours upon hours in our house. We pray that we may be faithful to represent the one who said, “Let the children come to me”, in all we do and say.
PRAY
Give thanks with M and K for the blessing of relationship with their neighbours, and the opportunity to share and celebrate Christ with them.
