Sheng dan jie quai le! That's "Merry Christmas," or something close to it, in PinYin. As we finish our first Christmas in a foreign country, I'd like to share with you some of the highlights! We've each been having Christmas parties with our students. It's a blessing to be able to teach someone the real meaning of Christmas-- to share with them the Christmas story for the first time in their life. We also played many "Christmas themed" games with our classes. Here's what its like when we walk into one of the parties... how can you help but smile?!
With our students we played games such as "Christmas light limbo," present toss, and cookie face (where you put an Oreo on your forehead and have to get it into your mouth without using your hands). Everyone had a great time and afterwards we took pictures with all our students!
We also had Christmas parties at our homes with some of our brothers and sisters. We did a progressive party in 4 different apartments. There was one for singing Christmas carols, one for doing Christmas crafts, one for learning the Christmas story, and one for decorating Christmas cookies. As much as I like to eat cookies, you better believe that our house was the cookie decorating house! The favorite cookie of the night was the Angry Birds themed cookie!
We were even able to decorate our own tree AND find decorations throughout the city. As one of my teammates pointed out, its amazing that America claims to have religious freedom and yet in America its considered almost offensive to tell someone "Merry Christmas" instead of "Happy Holidays." Ironically, here in China, "merry Christmas" is everywhere-- there's not a "happy holidays" to be found. There are even decorations throughout the city!
All in all, our first Christmas in China was a pretty good one! Of course we missed our family and friends back in America, but if we weren't trying to follow the Father's will in our lives, Christmas would be meaningless. Why celebrate the birth of someone if you do not truly believe in who they are?? Still, we are looking forward to celebrating "Christmas in July" with our families this summer!!
No comments:
Post a Comment