I prayed last night that this Christmas Eve would be unique and memorable for our team. Maybe I should’ve prayed that it would have been fun and easy…
We left at 7 am this morning for a two-hour drive to a small school waaaay up in the mountains. And I do mean waaaay up. We would go up one mountain, around, and down again, and then our driver would laugh and point to the next mountain and motion that we were going over that one as well. Our driver was really cool- he was nervous about talking to us, even in Chinese, but he stopped at a 7-11 on the way and bought us all breakfast. The school we taught at in the morning was fine- the kids had very decent English and it all went very smoothly. We had a 20-minute ride even further into the mountains to our second school. This school really touched my heart. The kids’ English was really bad and maybe everything didn’t go quite as well on the outside as it did in the morning. But during our third class time I sat on the side of the basketball court with three little first grade girls on my lap and two more on either side of me. I couldn’t move because they were holding on to me so tightly. When I looked into those kids’ eyes, I saw kids that were hungry for love. They all showed it in different ways- there were the tiny little kids that got into a fight right in front of me, the boy who grabbed my hand, kissed it, and said “I love you, teacher!”, and the little girl who got hurt and ran to me for comfort. When I kissed the top of her head, all the other little girls wanted me to kiss their heads too. :-) I guess I can’t really explain the feeling. I just felt like these kids were missing something. I’m beginning to realize what it was. They had Christmas trees everywhere and could sing “We wish you a merry Christmas” backwards and forwards, but like the majority of our world, they were missing the whole purpose. They needed love, but not just anybody’s love- they needed Jesus’ love. I’m realizing now that this is why this Christmas has seemed so hollow and empty this year for me too. I didn’t feel Christmassy this year. Sure, we have a tree up. Yeah, I went Christmas shopping and got everybody their presents. We baked Christmas cookies. But still the warm fuzzy feeling wasn’t there. Well, guess what. God gave us an amazing gift on Christmas called Jesus. With or without the warm fuzzy feeling, Jesus is still Jesus. With or without the tree, shopping, cookies, and Christmas music, Christmas will always be about Jesus and His amazing love to us. Jesus is here when the warm fuzzy feelings are gone. He is Emmanuel- God with us! He is a friend when all our friends seem to be gone. He is a father when our fathers are halfway around the world. He is hope when all hope is gone. He saved us, He loves us! And Christmas is celebrating that amazing gift. Wow.
Well sorry about that. I started out writing an update and ended up thinking through a lot of things for myself. I’m sorry this wasn’t a better update- after all, it’s Christmas Eve so this should have been a good update. Oh well…
I hope each and every one of you has a marvelous Christmas with the ones you love- and if you get a chance, take a minute to pray for us here in Taiwan far away from the ones we love. May Jesus’ love be with you always!
Merry Christmas with love from
Christina Moody
Nantou
