Our Christmas this year is like a string of shiny red beads; one memory joined to another, each sparkling, each reflecting -  and all-in-all a thing of beauty.

Memories, the beads on my string:

- watching the teenage faces of boys set in concentration as we labored multiple times and days to learn to cut paper snowflakes and improve on our snowflake-making skills.

-Late evenings by the light of our improvised advent candles reading Jotham’s Journey with our children and any visitors.  Quinn learning the word “cliffhanger” to describe the story’s always exciting denoument during EVERY night’s reading: “Dad, it’s another CLIFFHANGER!”

- Pounding bottletops and shaping with glue and feathers in “Santa’s Workshop” in our lower room.  Making angel ornaments, bruising our fingers, getting covered in glue.

- Our children and a few friends, walking in a line through the jungle carrying their Christmas tree home from the school farm.  The juxtaposition of Christmas and jungle – beautiful, surreal, laughable.

-  Quinn’s utter and spontaneous joy at cutting his first real paper snowflake.  ” I DID IT!”

-  Dinners in darkness by candlelight, not for romance but because there is so little power.  Snowflakes dancing on their strings in the flickering light just above our faces.  Smiles, contented sighs, good meals, good company.

-  Our dining table, littered with paper, markers, paints – an artist’s dream workspace.  And around each chair intent people, Amina leading the way, creating cards, gift tags and gifts.  Real giving happening; the giving of self, the giving of creative energy with a healthy dose of love.

- Begged and borrowed Christmas movies: from Prancer which induced tears and cries of “it’s too SAD!!” to Elf which made ALL of us roll with laughter.   Shrek the Halls is our new favorite.

- Caroling on the 24th with staff friends in  the darkness of Nyahuka night.  Walking through town with glow-bands on our arms, Timothy playing guitar in the darkness, shouting out “we wish you a merry Christmas” in Lubwisi as the drunks roared back “BE QUIET” also in their language.  Was there every such a precious moment of freedom in community in the Spirit as this??  I felt God’s heart pleased.

- Mixing dough, cutting out Christmas shapes, baking and decorating each one to perfection (of a kind.)  Little Petra, becoming perfectly at home with a rolling pin in her hand, learning English at our counter and always coming back to her best phrase: ” I want to eat!” (a cookie)

- Christmas morning and a special note from Santa.  Ephraim experiencing his first American Christmas (Have we ruined him forever?  Naw, we’re not THAT American.)  B experiencing her first Christian Christmas ever.  The long unwrapping under the tree.  Twinkly lights glowing, Nyahuka glitzy paper glistening, Santa tying his presents in newspaper because he “ran out of the good stuff.”

- Christmas dinner: lasagna and ground nut sauce, anything but traditional but truly yummy.  Taking too long to cook, stress as the day melted away, trying to manage time with both our Ugandan family and American team family.  Stories of Ugandan politics around the table

These are a few glimpses into our Bundibugyo Christmas.  Sometimes teary but always wonderful -  a gift from God just like His Son.