Nazarene Theological Seminary

We were invited to spend Christmas this year with Aldo Genes and his wife Fátima and the Genes extended family.  This is an incredibly gracious family and it was wonderful to be a part of their family traditions.  Some of the unique Paraguayan traditions are: big Christmas Eve family dinners, which usually start around 10 or 11 at night; fireworks; hugs and kisses at midnight; greeting all of your neighbors at midnight with hugs, kisses, and words of happiness; and then relaxing on Christmas Day by sitting around and talking, drinking tereré, and eating Christmas Eve leftovers.  We had incredible time with their family and are thankful for their hospitality towards both Ted and myself. 

Throughout the entire night the Genes´s were asking us questions about traditions in the United States during the Christmas holidays.  It was fun to tell them of some of the different things we do (and do not do, such as fireworks… because it is just too cold!) as well as unique foods that we eat.  It is enlightening to see your traditions through the eyes of someone else.  Throughout this season I have become more aware of how sounds, sights, and smells have defined and helped me to remember certain holidays.  I had never thought much about this before, because I had never celebrated something like Christmas in a different country.  For example, singing Advent/Christmas songs with the church, smells of cinnamon and baked goods and pine trees and the crispness of a good snow, Christmas lights glistening in the snow, scarves, hot chocolate, lighting the candles of Advent, Christmas songs playing on the radio everywhere you go, spending time with family, Christmas Eve services, Walter Wangerin.... for me all of these things made up Christmas.  Now I am not complaining that things were different this year... I just never realized how much I would miss those things. 

Christmas in Paraguay didn´t involve cold weather, Christmas caroling, traditional Christmas song, or the lighting of Advent wreaths BUT it was an opportunity for me to focus on the story of Christ as we told the Christmas story in several different parts with the children with whom we work.  As we journeyed through the story in Luke... with Mary and Joseph, the angels, the shepherds, and the inn keeper I was struck with the awareness of how God called and used the small people, the people who were not thought to have great importance in their society.  I realize that this is a particularly Lukan element; however, this year it grasped hold of me and reminded me of the hope, light, and love that is found within this act of God becoming man, flesh. And now, as we continue to live in the light and season of Christmas I take my place along with the shepherds and remember that I have heard the Word of God proclaimed and am now called to bear that Word, to be a witness!  The shepherds had such excitement as they ran back to their sheep, telling everyone that they saw of the Good News.  At times, I think that I lack some of that excitement, that energy, that urgency.  I often find myself moving in slower and more cautious ways, less willing to step up and make a fool of myself.  We all have our different personalities and ways of going about life- I know that I do- but, at times I have become too comfortable with my way of living and I need to be shaken a bit, forced to feel a bit foolish and uncomfortable.  The Word of God challenges us and calls us to live differently - to live in such a way that is at times uncomfortable and awkward and foolish to others.  And so, I say all of this as a challenge to myself and to you all:  as you hear the Gospel, the Good News, this Christmas season may it challenge you and call you up out of your comfortable surroundings to be a witness for Christ, wherever that may take you.