Christmas is coming

It is an exciting season as we prepare for upcoming festivities and celebrate Christmas with our Beijing family.

Since returning from our extended work travels in Guizhou and Qinghai – where we worked with dozens of teachers and met thousands of students – we have been focused on getting over colds, getting reorganized and enjoying the fellowship of our friends. In between, Krista has had a short business trip to Shenzhen and is wrapping up three days of teaching young primary-school-age children and training their teachers in Hebei.

While the weather has been mostly frozen and windy, we have had two small snowstorms that snarled traffic and entertained the 150 teachers/students on campus for the December session. The first snow delayed Krista’s flight from Shenzhen and forced us to wait in seemingly never-ending line for a taxi from the airport. The second storm arrived on a Sunday morning, making for a slushy, wet day at the Chinese church.

Both storms delivered wet snows that made for great snowballing and snowman building. The cold temperatures have solidified the blanket of snow left behind into a sheet of white ice – easy on the eyes but treacherous on the bike. It looks like we will have a white Christmas!

No Christmas season is complete without a little unexpected difficulty, which came to us through a daylong power outage that meant no heat and no water. It was easy to remember how blessed we truly are.

Over the upcoming days we will be celebrating Christmas in several different ways in several different places. The highlight so far has been a performance at the Chinese church recounting His story in China from ancient times to the present through traditional dance and song. It was a moving and elaborate presentation with costumed dancers, dramatic readings and acting. Our friend, Jan, is a member of the troupe and it was exciting to see the results of his long hours of practice. We are hoping to see the group perform another Christmas show this weekend.

We plan to join our friends at the Chinese church for a number of services and special performances this weekend as well as on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. As Christmas is not a national holiday, most of our friends will have to take time off from work in order to participate in the weekday festivities. There are also a host of events scheduled at the international fellowship that many of our friends look forward to enjoying. Christmas Eve we plan to have fun and fellowship with friends Tim and Amy.

It has also been an exciting time at our English study, where we have been learning about the Christmas story and the Old Testament prophesies about His coming. We found some beautiful handcrafted Christmas ornaments made by Tibetan nomads when we were in Qinghai that we have been able to share as well.

There are Christmas trees and decorations in the stores in some of the shopping districts around town. The big grocery store near campus has a special section (larger each year) devoted to ornaments, reindeer and Santas and plays Christmas music. Santa’s face can be seen randomly pasted in storefront windows in our neighborhood. Mostly, though, we are finding the Christmas spirit where it matters most: in our hearts and with our friends and family! Merry Christmas!

FYI... our access to Facebook and blogspot is limited these days. Hopefully in the new year, it will all be resolved for a while. :)