Christmas in a New Culture!

As is always the case, we try to balance the expectations of the culture we're living in while maintaining our own family traditions.  This year was a bit more exciting due to the fact that we are unfamiliar with the culture we're living in, and thus had no idea what to expect!  In Indonesia, visiting and hosting family & friends was a huge part of their Christmas celebrations; everyone always had little cookies and cakes ready for whoever dropped by.  However, we've been finding that this isn't the case here.  Another difference is the lack of Christmas services throughout the months of November to January--in Indonesia, every church had their own service and then the women, children, youth--everyone!--would have their own service as well!  Daddy would be asked to preach at tons of services every year (to the point that the last few years we were in Pontianak, he'd print off a copy of the month of December, know which dates were already booked/which were free, and then say yes until they were filled up).  We did have one church ask Dad to preach on Christmas Day, but we went a couple weeks ago instead (see Gisenyi Trip - PART 1).

We inquired as to what usually happens here on Christmas Eve/Christmas Day in terms of services.  We were told that the Christmas Eve service could start at 6 or 7, and then last through midnight--until Christmas Day.  And then there would be a service on Christmas morning, including a baptism.  CLA (English church) was having both a Christmas Eve and Christmas Day service as well.  We decided to do Christmas Eve at CLA and then Christmas morning at our Rwandan Baptist church.

The Christmas Eve service was really nice at CLA.  It was only around an hour long, and there wasn't a huge attendance.  They had "planks" with candles on them resting on the pews (in the middle of the pews, dividing them in half).  Mr. Gaskill played his trombone and another lady played a flute for most of the singing.  And then Mr. Gaskill, along with Grace & Adam, played a beautiful piece on their trombone, clarinet, and French horn.  It sounded amazing!

One of our Christmas Eve traditions growing up has been that, after church, Caleb & I "hang up" our stockings (usually it's draping them over a couch) and open one present before bedtime.  Since we didn't have very many gifts this year, we decided to open one of our family gifts from Nanny & Grampy Bustin--flashlights!

On Christmas Day we got up, opened our stockings, and headed to church for 8 o’clock.  One of Gato’s daughters was being baptised and the best time we could come up with for starting time was 8:00.  When we arrived, there was a long line of people going down the middle of the church—the people being baptised and their families.  Other than that, there was no congregation...other than us!  J  The baptisms took until around 8:15, and then there was a break while they put the stage back together, etc.  The actual service started at about 8:50 . . .

 . . . and lasted until ONE O’CLOCK!!!!

There were several choirs that sang, including a huge youth one – probably at least 60 members!  They were getting ready for a celebration on the upcoming Saturday, and so sang a couple songs and there was a special offering for their event.  There was also a baby dedication during the service.  It started to pour rain right near the end of the service, but we snuck out and made a dash to our car!

The line up of people who were about to get baptised, plus some
family members.

 

Because Gato’s daughter was getting baptised, we had been invited to their house for a visit around 2:00.  It turned out that it was actually a big celebration with lots of people (including one of the 5 governors of Rwanda) and included a meal as well as lots of greetings and words of encouragement for Promise, etc.  During church, I had started feeling unwell and it had continued to worsen, so we finally decided that I would just stay home.  However, the others still all went and didn’t get home until 6 o’clock.

Promise and her mentor.

So, 5 hours at church and 4 hours at Gato’s.  Not our typical Christmas Day!

I keep saying that we got up and opened up our gifts at 6:30 . . . just PM, not AM!  J

We didn’t end up with very many gifts this year, so we brought them out from under the tree and piled them on the floor in the middle of our couch & chairs and then took turns one at a time opening a gift.  It was slower than normal, and after the busy day we’d just experienced, we all thoroughly enjoyed the quietness of it!

Stockings in the morning, before church.

6:30 PM -- Finally ready to go!

Boxing Day was a very quiet, lazy, stay-at-home kind of day and we had our Christmas Dinner at lunch -- using saved-up-from-Canada treats!  And then the whole week between Christmas and New Years was very relaxing for us and included mostly doing puzzles, playing lots of games together, reading, and watching some shows.

As usual, even though our Christmas may not be "normal," we always make lots of memories ("Remember that time we spent 9 hours in services on Christmas Day??") and make the most of the time we do have together as a family!