Afesheapa!

(That means Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year.. somehow)

Christmas in Ghana was quiet. There were decorations and parties and musical lights being sold out the windows of cars and eating and drinking and making merry.. but not in the way we are used to. The stores were still open, the market stalls, there were still hawkers and except that buissness was slowed there wasn't much to indicate the day.

My childhood memories of Christmas are to a Prespeterian church on Christmas eve where the candels are lit on top of the pews and the air is thick and soupy from the glow and with mint and the anticipation of sugar plums and tortiere and the sermon is peaceful and we all get candy cane raindeer on the way out. They are of waking up on Christmas day at 7 (but actually we stayed up all night because we could hardly sleep from the anticipation) and giving out presents and drinking champagne and orange juice (except I thought the champagne part was yucky until about 2 years ago) and then relaxing and playing with our Christmas toys and sneaking out to show our friends and seeing family the next day at my grandmas house and eating turkey and home baked cookies.

Here, it was mostly people just relaxing with their family, sleeping in and visiting relatives. They say "Christmas is just for the kids- to give them new clothes and something great to eat" but I saw some kids selling 'pure wata' out the window on my way back from town.

But anyways I will write more about Christmas later- I wanted to talk a bit about my day. Today the nuns had me write quotes by Mother Teresa on sheets of paper in kid-marker-colours to hang on the walls by the summerhut. One of them was a prayer:

"The sick and suffering may find in us real angels of comfort and constitution, the little ones of the street may clint to us because we remind them of Him, the friend of the little one"

This reminded me of a very special memory I have from last year- when I walked into one of the churches I was atending and all these kids I never met ran up to me and started climbing all over me and wanted to play. After playing with them for a while I asked the pastor whos kids they were, and he said 'I dont know they are just from the neighborhood- they have been coming here every week'. (They had a dinner ever wed. night to get to know people at the church/ the neighborhood better)These kids didn't know my name. They had never met me- but some how they knew that in that place they were safe- that they would be loved and played with and tickled and carried around and smiled at. Even though they didn't recognize me, they could recognize Jesus- God's love- and knew that they would find it there, regardless of who I was, they knew HIM.

Today, a year later on the other side of the world, I walked into the MoC house and some of the younger girls that stay that ran up to me to greet me. One climbed on my back the other two hugged my thighs as I lugged them back ito the summerhut.I have been playing with these girls for 2 weeks now and until today they didn't even know my name. Come tomorrow I don't even know if they'll remember. And I see them every day- they run up to me and cling to me and know they'll be smiled at and tickeled and played with. Sometimes when I meet kids on the street (which is where these ones came from) They start to cry or run away if I try to play with them because Im forgien and white and scary. But this is something beautiful- that they know the love of Jesus, and so regardless of who I am, they know HIM.

Cool Huh?! :)