"What color should I make the hands?" one of our English library workers asked me during one of our help-us-decorate-the-English-library-for-Christmas-days. He was coloring a paper cut-out manger scene and wasn't sure what color skin Joseph was supposed to have. I told him to color it brown because Jesus and His family were from Asia. He thought that was funny and asked me if Christmas was American or Chinese (interesting!) I told him Christmas is for all people which led to an interesting chat.
Christmas in Cambodia was not like any Christmas I've ever experienced. The tropical weather and the noticeable lack of Christmas music playing everywhere made it very difficult to remember to even celebrate. For me, it was more of a discipline to celebrate than an expectant awaiting. That truly threw me off, but also forced me to take a deeper look at the relevance and eternal implications of the incarnation. You can't see in the photo, but on the map on the wall we placed a little star by the Mediterranean Sea with a the words "Jesus was born here". Putting Christmas into context, and particularly a Cambodian context, seemed to make the snow, the jingle bells, the reindeer and even Santa Claus himself all gloriously melt away. Christmas is a true story that can be shared in any culture, language and climate. The silliness of the extra things we tend to add to "Christmas" become all the more obvious in a culture that doesn't naturally relate to any of those things we often associate with the Christmas season.
I think my favorite story sharing event we did was watching "The Nativity" movie in the library. We projected the film onto the wall so it was nice and big. As we began watching it with a small group of students, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the dialog was very slow and easy to understand. I also didn't realize until watching the film again how close Khmer culture seems to be with ancient Jewish culture. There were a lot of parallels between agrarian lifestyle, arranged marriage and even living under the rule of a king. Cambodia is a story-telling culture and the students really seemed to enjoy seeing the story of Christmas come alive in a way that made more sense to them. I'm so thankful we had that as a tool to share the Good News.
As far as personal decorating, we were able to find a Christmas tree for our apartment. Our good friend graciously helped us shop for a tree and decorations. It was a bit of a challenge, but we managed to produce a decent looking tree that Java had no trouble posing under. Next year I plan to pull it out of the box and put it up much earlier! Maybe I'll bring a few Christmas carols with me next year too so I don't accidentally almost miss out and forget to rejoice in the celebration of our Savior's birth!
"What color should I make the hands?" one of our English library workers asked me during one of our help-us-decorate-the-English-library-for-Christmas-days. He was coloring a paper cut-out manger scene and wasn't sure what color skin Joseph was supposed to have. I told him to color it brown because Jesus and His family were from Asia. He thought that was funny and asked me if Christmas was American or Chinese (interesting!) I told him Christmas is for all people which led to an interesting chat.
Christmas in Cambodia was not like any Christmas I've ever experienced. The tropical weather and the noticeable lack of Christmas music playing everywhere made it very difficult to remember to even celebrate. For me, it was more of a discipline to celebrate than an expectant awaiting. That truly threw me off, but also forced me to take a deeper look at the relevance and eternal implications of the incarnation. You can't see in the photo, but on the map on the wall we placed a little star by the Mediterranean Sea with a the words "Jesus was born here". Putting Christmas into context, and particularly a Cambodian context, seemed to make the snow, the jingle bells, the reindeer and even Santa Claus himself all gloriously melt away. Christmas is a true story that can be shared in any culture, language and climate. The silliness of the extra things we tend to add to "Christmas" become all the more obvious in a culture that doesn't naturally relate to any of those things we often associate with the Christmas season.
I think my favorite story sharing event we did was watching "The Nativity" movie in the library. We projected the film onto the wall so it was nice and big. As we began watching it with a small group of students, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the dialog was very slow and easy to understand. I also didn't realize until watching the film again how close Khmer culture seems to be with ancient Jewish culture. There were a lot of parallels between agrarian lifestyle, arranged marriage and even living under the rule of a king. Cambodia is a story-telling culture and the students really seemed to enjoy seeing the story of Christmas come alive in a way that made more sense to them. I'm so thankful we had that as a tool to share the Good News.
As far as personal decorating, we were able to find a Christmas tree for our apartment. Our good friend graciously helped us shop for a tree and decorations. It was a bit of a challenge, but we managed to produce a decent looking tree that Java had no trouble posing under. Next year I plan to pull it out of the box and put it up much earlier! Maybe I'll bring a few Christmas carols with me next year too so I don't accidentally almost miss out and forget to rejoice in the celebration of our Savior's birth!
