A Macha Christmas!

Not exactly a white Christmas…

As we anticipate our one year anniversary of life in Africa, we have just come through our first African Christmas celebration. As one would expect, it’s a significantly different experience here than it is in Canada.

Most notably for us from The Great White North, the weather is drastically at Christmastime… temperatures in the 30s (Celsius)?!?!  Where’s the snow?!?!  To our Australian friends living here in Macha, this seems totally normal.  They’re used to being on the beach and/or having water fights as part of their Christmas celebrations, but to us something just didn’t seem right. It reminded me of what it might have been like that night in the City of David so many years ago. While it might not have been 30 degrees with high humidity, there probably wasn’t snow on the stable roof.

But more important than the weather was the significance of the holiday. While it’s true that Zambia is officially a Christian nation – one of the few in the world – don’t let that fool you. It’s no more pure and Godly here than any other nation of the world. However, the Church is alive and active here. And as we came together on Christmas morning with a hundred or so other believers to celebrate the birth of Christ, it reminded me that the Godhead chose to reveal himself as a human and to become “God with us” just as much for these “simple” subsistence farmers as he did for the “developed” and “self-sustaining” people of the West.

When we first came to Africa, Christmas was something I looked forward to with great anticipation. One of the things that has upset me for so many years at home is the extreme commercialization of Christmas. While I recognize that what we celebrate as the birthday of our Saviour was really the day of a pagan holiday that was hijacked by the Roman church hundreds of year ago, I still get upset by the ridiculous amount of money spent unnecessarily, all done in the “Christmas spirit”. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not against giving gifts. Nor am I opposed to having a bit of fun with the notion of Santa, mistletoe and all the other cultural traditions that have little to do with Jesus. But what I do dislike is the ridiculous amount of money we spend giving more stuff to people who already have way too much stuff, when the poor and needy are among us everywhere.

Not to toot my own horn, but the last couple years, I have finally put my foot down with my family and said, “No gifts for Jamie. Give something on my behalf to someone who really needs it.” And with that, money was donated to MCC (and other) projects on my behalf. Now, if I’m being honest, I can’t say that I didn’t feel just a slight amount of disappointment as others opened “real” gifts while I just received a card detailing the donation that had been given in my name. I am, after all, only human. But at the end of the day, it was the right thing to do. And I trust that whomever received the gifts was more needy than I.

This year, I received nothing for Christmas. Absolutely nothing… at least, in terms of “stuff.” But surprisingly, I didn’t feel any disappointment. (I did feel some disappointment, however, over… not being with family… not enjoying wonderful meals with family and friends… not being part of the Christmas eve services at The Meeting House. Apart from contemplating the birth of Christ (which can be done anywhere in the world!), these are the things that matter most. No surprise there!

I mentioned that I didn’t receive any “stuff”, but what I did receive was wonderful. I received joy! The pure joy of giving… giving to those truly in need. Arja and I gave very practical and useful gifts to some of our Zambian friends – gift bag filled with all sorts of items like rice, tea, sugar, soap and a small amount of money. We even enjoyed the purchasing of these things. There was no stress over finding the “perfect something” for someone who doesn’t really didn’t need anything. We knew that whatever we gave would be gladly received and gratefully used.

On top of these gifts for friends, we had the joy of giving our girls a few small gifts – books, a game, a toy – things that they have few of here. It was amazing to watch them light up with excitement as they opened a simple Polly Pocket or Littlest Pet Shop toy.

Amidst all this joy, I still struggled. I realized just how much this stuff, that I would previously scoffed at as cultural baggage is ingrained in me. All the stuff that, while it has nothing to do with the birth of Christ, is still a part of what Christmas is to me. While I never would have thought that I’d miss the outlandish decorations hanging in the mall, Christmas lights shining in windows, driving through the white blanket of snow and hearing Bing Crosby on the radio every hour, I actually did! I guess I’m not as hardened and pragmatic as I like to think I am.

Oh, and back to the white Christmas part… I guess you could say we did have our own version of a white Christmas. At the end of our church service, each family received a small bag of salt as a Christmas gift. This is a tradition that was started many years ago. When discussing this tradition with a Zambian friend, she reminded us that salt is something that can’t be grown and without it many foods taste bland. She also pointed us to Jesus words in Matthew 5:13, “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.” A good reminder as we seek to follow Jesus in our day to day lives… a white Christmas indeed!