Christmas in Laos

The Christmas Eve service at a Lao Evangelical Church in Vientiane. I'm not the best photographer and this is not the best photo, but hum a little Joy to the World, synthesizer-style, as you imagine this joyful and pom-pom'ed dance taking place.





On Christmas morning, the MCC volunteers staying at the guesthouse had breakfast together-- eggs, bacon, toast, papaya. We also opened packages from home, or each other (the couples), received phone calls, and finished up or began our potluck contributions. I was just beginning to cook after breakfast, or just heading to the market to buy vegetables so it was a rush to finish before lunch. I haven't shopped in a market on Christmas Day before but the last minute cooking as a touch of familiarity for me. I'll learn one day.




We had a feast-- turkey, potatoes, salad, rolls, what what-- followed by songs, a gift exchange (White Elephant-style but really lovely things: Lao handicrafts and imported foods like Kraft dinner), candle lighting, and snacks-- many, many good snacks. A day full of blessings and a beautiful culmination of the Advent Season. Even though 25th has come and gone, may we continue to joyfully celebrate the good news of Christmas. Christ has come.

Peace,
Renee

My Christmas Gift

I'll tell my Christmas story soon, but tonight I wanted to share this prayer with you before I go to bed. I've been richly blessed today with food and fellowship and gifts from friends near and far, and I am unprepared to reciprocate with packages but I offer this instead. A friend shared it with me and I've found that bringing parts of it to mind can change the way you see life-- people, situations, classrooms, manger scenes. May it bless you from this day onward with the gift of new sight from God for the world around you.

Days pass and the years vanish
and we walk sightless among miracles.
Lord, fill our eyes with seeing and our minds with knowing,
let there be moments when your presence,
like lightning,
illumines the darkness in which we walk.
Help us to see, wherever we gaze, that the bush burns unconsumed.
And we, clay touched by God, will reach out for holiness
and exclaim in wonder:
"How filled with awe is this place
and we did not know it!
Blessed is the eternal one, the Holy God!"

Merry Christmas,
Renee

It's Almost Christmas

... and while Laos is free from the nasty winter weather that Seattle is getting (and other places as well, but I hear Seattle is unusually blustery this winter), it does now get down to 60 degrees F at night and it is breezy during the day. When people ask me if I'm cool, I sometimes am. This gives me great joy. I smile happily to draw a blanket and not just a sheet over myself at night. It does make unheated bucket bathing more challenging, but I sweat less so maybe I can get away with just a foot-washing on some days?

In my classes, I am trying to decide how to teach about Christmas. There are certain restraints teaching here so that the holiday lesson cannot be religious but I don't want to only tell about Christmas trees and Santa Claus (besides his being a very commercialized figure, it would be hard to explain why he does not deliver gifts to children in Laos, if he really is such a good-hearted fellow; some of my students are indeed naughty but I do believe that the majority should make his good list). None of my lessons worked last week in any case, so it may be a moot point if this week is similarly unsuccessful.

That is not to say that last week was a bad week. In fact, I had only two classes that I would not want to go through again and several that I felt rather good about. I did rediscover how poor a singer I am when I tried to teach a carol or two, but did not lose heart-- I still enjoy singing to myself, just not in front of classrooms of students who are unfamiliar with the words and tunes of the songs. I'll also refrain from any solo-caroling, though I will deliver some Christmas cookies to some neighbors. In fact, I'm off to make them right about now.

Peace to you all.
Renee

Contentment: An excerpt

I was writing to a friend and thought maybe I'd save myself some time and send these thoughts to all of you about what I think God is trying to teach me, and how today I am not learning. I think, based on some of the things I've read lately, or talked with people about, or struggled with, that God is trying
to teach me about contentment and joyfulness. It seems ironic to write about it today since today I am decidedly discontent but today I have the time-- the time, perhaps, both to write and to be discontent.

Saturdays (here it is Saturday) are hard because I feel like I should stay in my village/suburb with the family and see what happens-- maybe bonding will happen like a lightning strike. I've turned down three Saturday trips with MCCers thinking that I should try to do what I say is important-- to be present in a place. Alas, my family and I have yet to bond. The closest we came was some shared TV time and nail-painting. I now have nice little strawberries on each nail. I had a french tip but chipped it off, thinking I could ask for it again, to be sociable.

So, I generally take the day to do laundry, cleaning, reading, wishing I could nap,etc. I think about visiting the teachers who live at the dormitory next door but don't feel up to the struggle with language that that would lead to. Eventually, I get really anxious and say, as I don't feel like I'm being present anyways, in any way that is more than physical, head into town. Then I call my all of four contacts in Vientiane and hope someone is around.

Nobody is around today, so I read the blog of a SALTer in Vietnam who is loving it, whose family is lovely, whose stories are funny and wise. Oh dear. I feel discontent. A devotional I'm reading is about joy and fighting for joy and choosing joy and God's gift of joy and I read it and then don't know what to do. The Word says that I'm a new creation, that a new covenant is written on my heart, that God's Spirit dwells with mine, unworthy as mine may be, that God loves me with an everlasting love. And I have been gifted with people who love me, whom I love. And I know that God is present in this world and at work. Oh, these are reasons for joy!
But I'm tired and lonely and not sure if I'm doing this whole living cross-culturally thing well and I can't feel this joy. What to do?

Recount times that do bring joy, I think: when class goes well (when visitors come and my kids introduce themselves and then want to sing-- Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes they (we) did and a song in Lao); when I walk under a bouginvillia bush; when one of the thousands of dogs in the street don't bark as I go by; when I go to a birthday party where I can't really talk with people but can still laugh and enjoy the food and and dance (the traditional Lao dance I cannot do, but the simplified
move-in-a-circle-with-arm-bobbing I can pull off) and sing (oh, thanks, that the happy birthday song is, apparently, international, if not universal...); when I go swimming; when the air smells like candy from a nearby flower; when I feel cool instead of hot, sweaty, sticky; when I buy a bunch of cilantro for the equivalent of 10 cents...

Wishing you a joyful day,
Renee

A Traditional Thanksgiving

I can't get all my photos to upload, so you'll have to imagine a turkey roasting on a spit with a traditional Lao house in the background (the home of the MCCers, Heidi, Micah, and Frances, with whom I celebrated Thanksgiving), as well as the table all decked out with Thanksgiving food. But here is one of me straining cooked pumpkin through a sieve-- a timely process but worth it for the pie it produced. As traditional a Thanksgiving as I can imagine in a village in Laos on a Saturday (alas, my Lao school did not take a break for the holiday :)).