CHINESE NEIGHBORS 中国邻居: Four Flavors of Christmas

Happy New Year everyone! I sincerely hope, that for you and me both, this will be a year of joy, restoration, and thrilling endeavors, however great or small.

Get ready for a quadruple dip Christmas 2015, the flavors are: Office, Church, Home and Country.

Do not miss the Country flavor, folks!

OFFICE

One day Drew had to mediate a terrible conflict on the team he manages. It hammered on his spirit and kept him at the office until after 9pm. Meanwhile, Titus and I were home plodding through two hours of homework. I felt irritated with Drew's team for fighting, augmenting Drew's stress level and disrupting our family life. What an awful day!

The next morning I was sparkling inside when the Spirit inspired me thus: To surprise Drew and his crew with gifts and cards handmade by Drew's kids. I thought, "These folks need some cheer. They need to know that there is a way of peace." Inside each card I wrote a sincere note of affirmation and spelled out what is celebrated at Christmas: That God through Jesus offers us reconciliation to himself, and in our relationships, families and communities. The kids and I delivered it at the end of the day -- the team was lifted! We took pictures, chatted, Roshan from India ran out and bought chocolates for the boys. Afterwards the team members went nuts on their social media posting pictures and writing about how happy they were to receive a gift and visit at work, and how much they appreciate Drew. This little moment went viral all around the company, the CEO and tens of others commenting their praise. Mission accomplished.

CHURCH

The Christmas Celebration Show is a long-standing tradition at our Chinese church; if you've been reading this blog for a couple years I bet you remember. I vowed that I was NOT going to perform this year -- other commitments, thank you -- but a couple brothers talked me into it. I in turn was unsuccessful talking my violinist husband into it. Drew is the resolute one in this union. Anyway, we also had a little party with our kids' class at Chinese church, during which our co-worker Mrs. Feng did a wonderful job conveying the significance of Jesus being born into the world.

Was this photo taken out of a scrapbook dated 1980?

And is it me or my mother?

HOME

You know the gathering that's like, this is OUR Christmas, our core people together? That's what this tradition is for us, a day with our Changsha family. Who is our family? Wang Zhao, Li Ci, Liu Jia (Lydia, as you know her), Sun Ping, Liu Jian, Li Feng -- and additionally this year we had Jared, Yuan Mingxiao (Michelle), her friend and his son. They arrived mid-morning and stayed until it was time to catch the last bus of the night. The table was so full of dishes we had to stack them, so full of friends that I didn't sit down until someone else finished and vacated a seat. Together we opened to John and remembered how God gives us hope, family, great love and care. Each person shared his or her hope for the new year, and Yuan Mingxiao (Michelle) made our desires known to God in prayer. In the lazy afternoon I was transported back to the 90s: I could see my young Dad cracking up on the couch, as we carried out this household's inaugural viewing of Home Alone, in Chinese. Henceforth, Titus cannot even think about that movie without erupting into giggles.

COUNTRY

If we hail a taxi at noon, catch the westbound bullet train, hop on a bus through southern mountains to the town of Tongdao, Noah can pick us up at the station around 7pm and drive another 40 minutes through a narrow, winding river valley way, to their home in Pingtan village. Welcome to the "Dong Corridor" -- a segment of land at the conjunction of Hunan, Guangxi and Guizhou provinces, home to the Dong, a distinct ethnic minority numbering about 3 million. This was our fourth trip to the area, the first was roughly one year ago. Our friends Noah & Naomi, and their three girls Natalie, Pearl and Chrissy have recently planted themselves in this community. We love this family, we love the Pingtan river valley, and so we had ourselves a very Merry Christmas weekend here. I PROMISE you will be hearing much, much more from us about the Dong and Pingtan in the future. For now, enjoy walking with us through the very place we were last weekend.