A Family for Christmas

The first Christmas was an event that not only brought to us the One who was to become our Saviour, but it also honoured the human family. God entrusted His only Son into the care of adoptive parents and made Jesus to become part of an earthly family. In heaven I suppose Jesus had God and all the angels to spend his time with and to share in family events together. But on earth, his family, initially, consisted of a young woman engaged to be married to a man who wasn’t sure what to do. They became Jesus’ family when He was away from home.

This Christmas, again, I have been away from my home and family.I wish I could have been with them - I've decided that is the very hardest thing about being a missionary. I was all too aware that although I held a baby at Christmas time, it wasn't my grandbaby, and although I mothered some young adults, the deepest places of my heart still long for my own young adults. And talking on the phone to my mom and my siblings just isn't the same as being there among all the Christmas trappings and jokes and familiar smells and sounds. But nevertheless, God did give me a family with whom to share Christmas in Moldova. It might have been lonely except for the fact that I had another ‘family’ here over the holidays.

Our team gets a good Christmas break and lots of time to relax and be refreshed before the new year begins. So I invited anyone who wanted, to come and stay at the house I have been house-sitting while the American missionaries who live here were home in the USA for Christmas. (Don’t worry, they told me I could! Thanks, Tanya & Kevin!) What a blessings this house has been! And what a great thing it was to have Katy, Alex, Emily, Esther, and sometimes Renia, Lilian, Victor, Stephanie and Cherise to be my adopted ‘children’. They are all fellow OM-ers and Katy, Alex, and Emily are members of the OM Romania team that has come to stay with us for a few months. They were great!

Some people came to stay overnight and some came just for a meal. So as not to be bored or lonely over Christmas I just kept inviting people to my house. On Christmas eve and again on New Year’s eve I had gatherings and I had two dinner parties the week after Christmas. For each event I was not alone in preparation and setting up and it was so fun to have my ‘kids’ to work with me. As you can see, (this is for you, Inga!) there was lots of food. Notice that the vegetable platter is empty – everyone likes fresh veggies (and we don’t get them often here in winter).

On Christmas morning everyone helped peel potatoes so we could make mashed potatoes to take to dinner at Matthew and Helen’s place.




On new year’s eve we had several groups of children come to our door, as is the custom, to sing carols and recite poetry. The first group was four boys, 12-14 years old, who recited poetry while ringing little bells the whole time and every once in a while joining together in a unison “hey-ho”. I learned from making a mistake last year, that when the children come to recite poetry they expect to receive some food and/or money. The fact that some of the children came back a second time made me think that maybe we were being overly generous with the money!



Later in the evening, around midnight, we went outside to see the fireworks. People all over Chisinau were setting off their roman candles and whistlers for everyone else’s amusement. I’m sure we watched fireworks for at least half an hour – big ones in the center of the city but lots of smaller ones above us and around us in the neighbourhood. On New Year’s Day, starting late in the morning, we sat around the table for hours working on some of the salsa, cake and fruit salad that hadn’t been eaten the night before as we talked and shared and prayed together. Not a bad way to begin 2007.
Thanks to Skype technology I did talk to my own children over the holidays, and I did miss them dreadfully, but all in all, it wasn’t so bad. And it’s not over yet! This Sunday is the Moldovan ‘old’ Christmas (set according to the Orthodox calendar) and I have been invited to join another family for their Christmas celebration. More about that later…but for now – Happy New Year!