Christmas Sunday at the Beach

Early this morning as the sun rose, I stepped into the half light of the apartment where we were staying.  

I turned on the coffee pot and walked over to the sliding glass door and gazed at the beauty outside. When the coffee finished brewing, I poured myself a cup and added some cream from the refrigerator. Then, with the coffee cup warming my hands, I walked the few paces to the couch and sat down. I picked up the lighter and slowly lit the advent wreath, giving thanks to God for His unspeakable gift - a gift I needed far more than anything someone on earth could give me.  I breathed a prayer as I lit each candle.  "Thank You, God, that You became flesh and took on the form of a man so that I could know about You.  Thank You that You are Immanuel - God with us.  Thank You that You knew what I needed most this Christmas and every Christmas - a Savior.  Thank You for Your gifts of hope, peace, joy and love."  When I finished lighting the wreath, I nestled my body into the cushions of the couch and began to read from Galatians, "But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son . . ."  I read on, once again touched by God's gift to us.

Every Christmas no matter where I am in the world, this is the way I love to start the day - lighting the advent wreath and then with coffee warming my hands and the Bible and prayer warming my heart, I give this day to the Lord.  But today we were in Florida, so after a few minutes on the couch, I slipped out to the balcony where I could watch the sun rise over the distant ocean.  A cool breeze stirred the palm trees and a fountain rippled the water in a pool below the balcony.  I marveled at the beauty around me.  Imagine, I thought, that the God who made all of this became one of His own creatures - a man.  The God who is so powerful that He spoke this world into existence became powerless - a baby who needed His mother for nourishment to sustain him.

After reading a while and praying, my coffee cup was empty and it was time to head back in.  Just then Charlie came out.  "Merry Christmas," he said to me and lightly kissed my cheek.  "Merry Christmas, " I replied.  He stood for a minute behind my chair and joined me in admiring God's creation of this new day.  Then we headed back in so that I could make breakfast.

Usually on Sunday mornings, I put on worship music while I am preparing breakfast, but I had forgotten to bring along any CD's on this trip.  Instead, I hummed, "O come let us adore Him" as I worked.  How glad I was that this Christmas fell on a Sunday.  It seemed especially appropriate to me to gather with other believers on this, His birthday.  Even though we would be visitors in church that morning in a church where we had never gone, it would be good to sing His praises together with other believers and read His Word with them.  

After breakfast and getting ready we headed out.  On the way to church, Charlie found a radio station playing Christmas carols and we listened and occasionally sang along.  When we arrived, we were greeted by several people and found our seats.  Before long the choir filed into the choir loft.  "A small choir this morning," a voice said behind us.  When the first notes of "Emmanuel" were sung, I breathed a sign of thanksgiving.  "Thank you, Lord," I prayed, "for good music and for believers with whom to celebrate You on this, Your birthday.  I have never met these people before, and yet they are some of the ones with whom I will spend eternity.  How appropriate that I meet more of Your children on Your birthday."  

The rest of the day included dinner with my sister's family, walks on the beach, watching the sun set over the ocean, and taking a drive after dark to look for Christmas lights.  It was a good day.  As I settled into bed that night, I thanked the Lord.  


"Thank You, Lord, for today," I prayed.  "It was a lovely day.  I really enjoy it when I get to be with Your people on Christmas Day, even when I don't know them."

Then I thought, "Lord, did You have a good day today?  We say Christmas is the day we celebrate the day You were born, so did You have a good day?  I hope so.  I hope that all of the worship that was lifted to You by Your children today made it a good day for You.  I know You are outside of our time zones and You don't experience days like we do, but You came into our world on this day many years ago, so You know what I am talking about.  Next year, when Christmas falls on a Monday and it is unlikely that I will attend a church service that day, then help me to be as conscious with my worship of You as I was today.  Help me to make sure that YOU are the One that I am honoring on that day.  Help me to make it a day that is pleasing to You.  Amen."  

Whispers

A teenage girl leans in to a close friend and whispers about the boy she likes.  A child reaches up and pulls down his dad's head to whisper his desire for ice cream.  Husbands and wives whisper their love for one another in the darkness of night.  During a concert, a proud mother whispers to her guest that her child has the next solo.  

Whispers are for two people.  We do not speak in whispers when we want others to hear.  We might speak quietly if we want only a small group to hear, but we do not whisper.

Yet this week I am learning about another kind of whisper.  Friday night I lost my voice.  After that, only whispers escaped my lips.  Any attempts to vocalize caused pain.  I have lost my voice before, and it has usually returned in a day or two.  This time is different.  Four days later I am still without a voice. I can only speak in whispers.

Whisper a prayer in the morning.  Whisper a prayer at noon.  Whisper a prayer in the evening to keep your heart in tune. 

So goes the song.

Yes, I have whispered my prayers all through the day.  Whispered prayers are as effective as those I have prayed with a loud voice, and maybe even more so, depending on the state of my heart.  My inability to communicate with others has given me more time for prayer.  Whispers work in my prayers to God, and I love the fact that He can hear my whispering heart even if everyone else is crying out to Him with a loud voice.  Whispers work in my prayers.

But there are so many times when whispers do not work well.  When I am out on the street, desperate to catch a child's attention because of an oncoming vehicle, a whisper will not do.  When I am in church and everyone around me is lifting their voices in praise to our Almighty God, my little whisper is not enough.  When I am out on the street inviting children to Vacation Bible School, parents eye me suspiciously when they hear me whisper to their children.  Yesterday, in a large group of people, I wanted to chime into the conversation, but a whisper is not heard over the buzz of friendly banter.  I cannot even give directions from the back seat of a vehicle.  Obviously, I cannot teach so long as I am voiceless.

I am sometimes called a quiet person, yet I am realizing how vocal I really am.  Everywhere I turn, I find that I miss using my voice.  I want to be able to call out a greeting to a neighbor on the street, thank a child effusively before she runs off again to play, and join in the conversation around the table.  But most of all, I miss being able to sing, to lift my voice in praise to the God I love.

For that, whispers will not do.

The 26-Hour Day

The sleep of a labouring man is sweet.  Ecclesiastes 5:12

At 2:45 a.m. I heard it - an alarm going off in another room.  We lay in bed, waiting for it to stop, but its owner did not respond.  After about ten minutes, it finally stopped.  Now we were fully awake, on about three hours of sleep.  Five minutes later our alarm sounded.    

At 3:45 a.m., we climbed into the back row of the 12-passenger van. The pastor’s family climbed in after us.   Four-year-old Abigail slept through the transfer from her bed to the van.  Junior, the pastor’s only son, drove to the first stop where we picked up a mother and her seven-year-old son.  They joined us in the back row.  After several more stops, the van was stuffed with twelve adults, two children, and miscellaneous bags at people’s feet.  Another car, also filled with passengers, started to follow us.  At the gas station, Junior filled the van’s tank as well as a five-gallon jerry can.  One of the men climbed to the roof to tie the jerry can up there with some other luggage.  Now it was 4:45 a.m., and we were finally on our way out of the city.

The van sped up when it arrived at the highway.  I settled into my seat, leaning against Charlie, hoping for some more sleep.  After about five minutes on the open highway, we turned off and started the ascent up the mountain on a gravel road.   Twists, turns, and bumps in the road kept sleep away, but eventually I dozed a little.  

A couple hours later, at the entrance to a tunnel through part of the mountain, we stopped to wait for the other vehicle that had fallen behind.

“Can we get out?” I asked.  Charlie’s knees were bumping up against the seat in front of us, and my legs were longing for a stretch.  They let us all out, and the men made a beeline for the bushes.  “If you need it,” I was told, “the tunnel up ahead will provide privacy.”  

Around us, the sun continued to rise, casting shadows on the mountains, slowly reaching into the valleys.  Misti, the volcano that guards Arequipa, was showing off his beauty, and the passengers’ cell phone cameras were capturing the scene.  

Before too long, the other car caught up with us, and we reloaded into the vehicle.  

“Is it possible for Charlie to sit somewhere else?” I asked.  His legs were really too long for the back row.  This time they let Charlie and me sit up in the row behind the driver.  The change in seating turned out to be a greater blessing than I realized at the time.

A couple hours later, Charlie asked them to stop.  The twists and turns of the mountain roads had finally caught up with him, and he was sick to his stomach.  Junior quickly stopped and yanked open Charlie’s door.  He got out just in time.  Sonia, the pastor’s wife, prepared some tea with hot water from a thermos and gave it to him.  It helped settle his stomach, and we were once again on our way.  On and on we traveled, bumping and turning.  Eventually I dozed again. 

By 8:30 my stomach was growling, and I wondered if there would be a stop for breakfast.  But we kept going.  On and on we rode, winding our way up to the 16,000-foot mountain pass, high above the tree line.  

“Look!” someone shouted pointing to one of the volcanoes in the distance.  Volcano Ubinas had just burped.  A cloud formed above and grew larger and larger as steam and ash rose into the sky.

Bumping over the gravel and feeling my stomach lurch, we continued in a descent over the other side of this mountain pass.  Trees, birds, and insects reappeared.  Mile after mile of terraced farming hugged the sides of the mountains.  Our van hugged the mountain, avoiding getting to close to the side where it dropped off into deep canyons.

I kept thinking we must soon be arriving at our final destination.  After almost six hours of travel, we rounded a bend.  A crowd of people stood on the side of the road with large bags of goods.  They were members of the church in that town.  Junior stopped to greet them and began to talk to them about how to get them to our ultimate destination.

“Junior,” Sonia called out to her son.  “Why don’t some of us get out and they can ride?  They have been waiting a long time for you.  Some of us can wait here for you to get back.”

I welcomed the idea of putting my feet on the ground to allow my stomach to settle.  We got out.  They got in.  After they left, the eight of us started walking down the road at a leisurely pace along the river gorge.  I stopped frequently to take pictures of the blue skies, desert hills, and the green valley below us where the grey river sparkled in the sunlight.  After about an hour of walking, we saw the van approach.  Junior turned around and picked us up, and we drove on for another half hour to the village of Cadagua.    

“Breakfast is waiting,” we were told when we arrived.  It was now 1:00 p.m.  

We followed our hosts to the back of the house.  A corrugated metal roof and a small tarp provided shade.  There people sat on benches, boxes, and a few chairs.  Steaming plates of noodles and a red sauce with mystery meat came out of the kitchen.  Since we were surrounded by guinea pig cages, it was no surprise when we later discovered that most of the meat in the sauce was guinea pig.  I should have known when I discovered the small head in the sauce.  I did not eat much.  My stomach was still turning after all the hairpin turns, so one of the young men in our group finished my plate for me.

Evidently, both Charlie and I looked a little green.  One of the women from the Arequipa church came over.  

“Would you like a cup of tea and some soda crackers?” she asked kindly.  

That sounded like just the right thing for our upset stomachs.  We leaned back into the wooden bench and waited while she found cups and prepared us some tea.  As we sat quietly drinking our tea, the women   One man stood next to a table and sawed his way through the bones of an animal, adding the chunks of meat to the pots as well. Children played, swinging from the rafters of the corrugated awning and teasing the guinea pigs.

swirled around us, cutting up vegetables, and adding them to the large pots on the fire.

“It’s time to start the program,” Junior called to everyone.

We joined him in front of the house.  There to one side of this town’s Main Street sat a truck-tire  tub overflowing with water.  Junior began the service, leading the group in singing with his guitar.  “He decidido seguir a Cristo.”  (I have decided to follow Jesus.)  Our voices filled the mountain air.  A few people emerged from neighboring houses to join us to see what was going on.

After singing several songs, Pastor Daniel Araujo stepped forward.  Carefully, he explained what baptism was and why this teenage girl had decided to be baptized.  

 

 “Please share with this group why you have decided to obey the Lord in baptism today,” he instructed her.  Joy flowed from her while she reverently shared her faith in Jesus Christ.  Then she stepped into the frigid water, sat down in the tub, and was baptized in its confined space.  When she arose shivering, we sang again.

When the baptism service ended, Junior once again shouted out instructions. “If everyone would head to the community center, we will be showing a Christian movie,” he announced.   

He drove the van over to the community center and began to set up the computer projection system for the movie.  Men hung a white sheet on one wall of the community building.  People rearranged chairs to face the “screen”.  Soon we were all watching “Facing the Giants” in Spanish.  I went to see if I could find a place to sleep in the van, but someone else had already thought of that idea, and I was afraid to wake them by opening a door.  So Charlie and I sat against the back wall, and I dozed for a while, my head on his lap.

By the time the movie was over, the huge pots of stew we had seen over at the house had been carried to the community center kitchen.  We dragged our chairs from one side of the center to where tables had been set up on the other side.  

Apparently we were the honored guests because our table was served first.  Charlie and I insisted on sharing a bowl since we knew we were both still too queasy to each much.  Several varieties of potatoes, huge pieces of squash, sweet carrots, and alpaca meat were served us.  Delicious.

The conversation in the room lulled as people began to enjoy their food.  An alpaca feast is a rare and welcome event, and the whole community had been invited.  When the last plate of food had been served, those of us who had received food first were done.  Women went into the kitchen to wash up metal plates.  Men washed down wooden table tops, folded their metal bases and stored them in the corner.  They quickly stacked the blue and white plastic chairs in another corner.  When the work was done, the last event of the day was announced – a church service.  Everyone moved back to the other side of the room to enjoy that event together.  

Singing and testimonies were shared as the various churches represented took turns to give testimony to God’s blessings in their lives. This gathering of believers represented people from five of the surrounding villages as well as those of us who had come from Arequipa.  In addition, many of the people from town had come for the feast and to see what else was happening.  Charlie was invited to preach, and our nephew, Jeremy, translated for him.

When it was all over, it was 9:00 at night, and I was anxious to go home, but there were still people who needed to go home before we could leave.  Junior loaded the people from the nearby villages in the van and left.  Charlie stretched out on the floor to get some sleep before the long arduous journey home.

“I can’t drive,” Junior said, when he returned almost two hours later.  “I’m dead on my feet.”  Roberts, one of the men from the church, took over and we left.  

Away from the city and few lights, the full moon shone almost as day.  Stars seemed close enough to reach out and touch.  This time the bumps, twists, and turns did not keep me awake, but they did for Charlie.  He was sick to his stomach the whole way home, and trying to sleep only made it worse.  

When we finally got home, it was 5:00 a.m.  I crawled into bed, grateful  to be able to stretch out and glad that the ground under me was solid.  I cannot remember the last time that I have been so glad to get to bed.  If I felt that way, I am sure that Charlie felt the relief even more than I.  How grateful I am that God gives us the gift of sleep.

Too Wise to Be Mistaken and Too Good to Be Unkind

Years ago a dear friend gave me a copy of Gadsby's Hymns.  Since it was #7 in this book, it did not take me long to find this hymn by Samuel Medley.  Medley was led to saving faith in Jesus Christ when his grandfather read him a sermon by Isaac Watts.  After that, his life was radically changed and he became a prolific songwriter, writing over 200 hymns.  Unfortunately, most of them are no longer being sung in our churches even though many contain doctrine we would want to sing.  More modern songs and hymns have replaced them.

Although I do not know the tune it was sung to then, I find myself singing it to "Jesus, the Very Thought of Thee."

    1   God shall alone the refuge be,

            And comfort of my mind;

        Too wise to be mistaken, He,

            Too good to be unkind.

    2    In all his holy, sovereign will,

            He is, I daily find,

        Too wise to be mistaken, still

            Too good to be unkind.

    3    When I the tempter’s rage endure,

            ’Tis God supports my mind;

        Too wise to be mistaken, sure,

            Too good to be unkind.

    4    When sore afflictions on me lie,

            He is (though I am blind)

        Too wise to be mistaken, yea,

            Too good to be unkind.

    5    What though I can’t his goings see,

            Nor all his footsteps find?

        Too wise to be mistaken, He,

            Too good to be unkind.

    6    Hereafter he will make me know,

            And I shall surely find,

        He was too wise to err, and O,

            Too good to be unkind.