And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying "Glory to God in the highest , and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!" Luke 2: 13-14
As my own life demonstrates mankind is in rebellion with God, whether or not it is spoken or intentional. We are all in desperate need of a savior which brings us to the purpose of Christmas, the birth of Christ, the arrival of God in human form, the purpose of Easter, which is the crucifixion, and then the resurrection of Christ.
Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem, put to death, and resurrected for God to reconcile his people with himself, his people with each other, and his creation with himself. It is hard to separate Christmas and Easter, because the two go hand in hand. Because from him and through him and to him are ALL things. And “all things” includes God sending his son and sending him to die.
We hope that this Christmas God brought forth more joy and peace in your hearts, and the desire to glorify the One who sent his son to save the world, for His glory and our good.
First of all, December is Melissa's birthday month, so Happy Birthday Melissa!!!! :)
This sweet girl is one of the many reasons I love my job. She teaches me arabic, and she is 3. And when I say teaches, I mean translates back and forth from to english to arabic...amazing.
Christmas eve service at Maadi Community Church
At first, we were not going to spend money on our own stocking, so we borrowed two from the lady I work for. As the spirit of Christmas began to sink in we no longer wanted to be Jerry and Caroline. I found this talented, nice egyptian man named Mahmoud Farag, and he hand stitched stockings for our first Christmas together. Names in English on top, Arabic on bottom.
Unwrapping presents. Ben got a tabla!!! (egyptian drum)
And I got a bike!!!!! I had been wanting one since we moved here, but I forgot about it when Christmas came around. Ben hid it with our boab, Hassan, and surprised me on Christmas morning!!! It now has a basket on the front so I can put groceries in it!!!
However, we will be investing in a helmet. On my first day to ride it around, I got lost in a village for 2 1/2 hours trying to find my arabic school, I rode by an all girls school and a mean one threw a rock out the window at me, and then as I go around the microbus that stopped right in my path, a car comes flying from around the bus and almost hits my front tire, I jump off.
For Christmas dinner we went over to Skip and Bonnie's. AND we had ham, it was amazingly delicious! They graciously opened their home again to about 5 or 6 family's who had nowhere else to go for Christmas. Here we all played white elephant.
This picture represents Team Long. The gift I chose was this skirt in the picture, and I loved it!!! Ben happened to open a toy scorpion, haha. So if anyone stole my skirt in the game, I would steal Ben's scorpion and he would steal my skirt back. We ended up with it. Team Long.
We now have a new Christmas tradition, bottomless chips and salsa from Chili's. Man, do we miss mexican food. Chili's is the only place with bottomless chips AND they actually taste like tortilla chips! :)
I have saved the best for last. My sister and her fiance sent us a Christmas package filled with skittles, starburst, beef jerky, pringles, candles, christmas socks and the list goes on and on. I cannot describe to you in writing how excited we were and are when this happens. We consider ourselves extremely lucky that we have family that goes through the trouble of doing this for us.
We are anxiously awaiting the arrival of Ben's parents on Friday. They are going to be the first family members we have seen in 4 months!!! We are going to show them all around our town and then travel to where Moses received the ten commandments, and then to where Jesus spent most of his life on earth...eek!!!! T-minus 48 hours!!!!
Merry Christmas,
Sarah
Update on Matt Chandler: http://fm.thevillagechurch.net/blog/pastors/
John Piper teaching on hope, at the village church: http://fm.thevillagechurch.net/resource_files/audio/200912271115FMWC21ASAAA_JohnPiper-SubjectedInHope.mp3
We have been counted worthy to fight and suffer this battle. Suffer well church.
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