God's Christmas gift to me

I love surprises. They are my favorite. I love not seeing something coming and it taking me completely aback.

On my way back from the 4-hour church service on Christmas day I asked God for a surprise. I wanted something shocking to happen and little did I know that He already had it well in hand. I got home and settled in, expecting to be home alone for the whole afternoon with a break in the solitude to skype with family. At around 2 I got a knock on the gate.

Standing outside my gate with a pikipiki (motorcycle) was a young Tanzanian guy that I had never seen before. He greeted me and then told me "I've come to fetch you."

After replying with utter shock and confusion, he informed me that his mom and sent him to bring me to their house. Again, I couldn't help but respond with confusion because I had no idea who he was, who his mom was and why on earth I was supposed to be going to their house. Finally, I figured out his name was Jeremiah and he was the son of Veronica (AKA: Mama Jeremiah) who is one of the cleaning ladies at the office.

Veronica and me

I had to make a quick decision - do I go with this young lad to his house, knowing that it means missing a skype call with family, it was NOT part of my plan for the day, plus wouldn't it be awkward for the first visit to someone's house to be on Christmas day? Well, the answer was simple...of course I'm jumping on the back of this pikipiki and we'll just see where the day leads!

As I was sitting (side-saddle, because I'm a lady) on the pikipiki I felt God say; "Well, you wanted to be surprised, Merry Christmas!"

It was then that I remembered a two-line conversation with Veronica 4 weeks before Christmas where she said; "You should come visit over Christmas." I replied; "Sure, that sounds like fun."

Honestly, that was the entirety of the conversation and not another word was mentioned until her son arrived at my gate. Every other Christmas I've ensured that I am with people every second of the day because the idea of being alone on Christmas day sounded so tragical. God knew that I would likely be home alone on Christmas day and that I love surprises, so He prepared it all for me. Had I been striving to ensure that I had plenty of people to spend Christmas with, I wouldn't have been home that afternoon. Had I been seeking to have my needs met, or at least what I perceived as my needs, I wouldn't have been around to receive God's gift.

I've been learning a lot about maintaining focus on God and trusting His good character instead of looking at my circumstances and seeing God through them. He is there in the midst of them, but I interpret my circumstances based on the character and nature of God, instead of understanding the character and nature of God based on my circumstances. I had peace through my circumstances because of where my focus was. "You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you." (Isaiah 26:3)

So, the reason this was the best gift ever?

A: It came from God.
B: It was a complete and utter surprise.
C: Relationship with people is always the best gift. We had a wonderful meal, enjoyed each other's company and took a walk around the area greeting others as we crossed their paths. One of the most hilarious parts was the 5-year-old doing exercises throughout the living room, including push-ups and tricep-dips. I asked him where he learned to do all these exercises and he said; "I don't know, God just taught them to me."
D: It showed me that my focus was where it needed to be and it encouraged me to not grow weary in growing in this area.

I couldn't ask for a better gift.

PS: I was able to have a friend email my family to let them know I would be late for the skype call, so I didn't even miss out on talking with them :).

My most unique Christmas, ever.

Most of the people with whom I spend a majority of my time left Musoma a couple weeks ago, either for furloughs or going home for the holidays. I knew that I would be spending a lot of time alone around the Christmas holiday and I was oddly fine with it. In the past I think that would have sent me into a pit of seemingly justifiable self-pity. You might have even felt pity for me, who knows? But, that didn't happen.

I was at peace completely. There were a few offers to come over on Christmas day since I was going to be alone, but there was no follow-up so I was fine with letting those potentials go.

What I expected from Christmas: A few skype chats, long quiet hours at home to listen to sermons, maybe seeing some of the other ex-pat families.

What I got:

• A 20-hour day, starting with a skype call at 3:30am.
• A 4-hour church service.

• The best gift ever from God (you know, other than Jesus).
• People going out of their way to come and pick me up so that I could spend time with them.

I didn't even ask God for anything for Christmas, I know that He cares for me and provides for all my needs, so it didn't even occur to me to ask Him to be with me or do anything specific on that day to meet my needs. Because He is a good and loving God, without me even asking, He ministered to me and cared for me all throughout the day and even gave me a gift that might be one of the best gifts that I've ever received.

"But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you." Matthew 6:33

Even as Christians I think we spend a lot of time caring for "all these things", making sure our needs are met, seeking the fruits of the spirit, seeking good and godly things, but not seeking first wholly and only God's kingdom and righteousness. He has promised that "all these things" will be given to us when we seek Him first. How much do we really trust that?

I'm learning to seek Him wholly first and I am seeing a marked increase in "all these things" in my life. The less I am focused and caring about "all these things" the more I have of them. I didn't care about ensuring that I would be with people all day during Christmas, I was excited about quiet times with God and ended up having the most people-full and packed Christmas of my life.

Here is the kicker, if I had been looking out for myself and had ensured that I had somewhere to spend Christmas day, I would have missed out on the great present that God had prepared for me and had set into motion 4 weeks ago.

What was that gift? I'll write about it in another blog post, this one is for singing God's praises. But, as a teaser, it started with a 19 or 20 year-old boy that I had never seen before showing up at my gate saying (in Swahili);  "I've come to fetch you."  My response; "???"

Merry Christmas to you all!

Christmas luncheon

On Saturday Sarah and I had our friend Paskaria and various members of her family over for a Christmas lunch. (Several months ago I wrote about Paskaria when she came to teach Sarah and me how to cook a duck.)

We had pilau (a rice & meat dish), kachumbari (tomato and onion salad) and sodas. Pilau is quite traditional for a Christmas meal here.

After lunch we had a gift exchange. Paskaria gave Sarah and me each a kanga (a Tanzanian sarong type cloth with a saying on it). Our kangas say 'tuvumiliane tusikosane kwa jambo dogo' which roughly translated means "let us bear with one another, let us not sin against one another for a little thing".

It is traditional when giving cloth to wrap it around the recipient.

Sarah and I gave them a solar lamp, some Western candy (I warned them not to worry when the pop rocks jump around in their mouth...that is what they are supposed to do), the book of Luke in Kwaya and a beautiful piece of art that Sarah made them.

Since my family traditionally reads the Christmas story on Christmas morning I asked if we could read Luke 2, but in Kwaya. One of the little girls read the first half and I read the second half. Thankfully, this is one of the languages that I work with so I was able to make my way through it and understand what I was reading for the most part.

We then had some ice cream. This was the first time for any of them to ever have ice cream! They said that it was very sweet and if they ate it they would definitely get fat. I think that that means they liked it.

We finished our meal by playing and teaching the kids to throw a frisbee. They really enjoyed that part of the day, I even saw them getting fancy with their throws and incorporating upside-down throws as well as hammer throws. They are very talented.

It was a wonderful day of spending time with friends and blessing each other with food, company, frisbee, gifts, ice cream and friendship.