Merry Christmas

As the Maasai say it, "Merry Christmas!" -yes that's right, they don't even try to translate Merry Christmas into Maa, they just say it in English. We had a period of about 10 minutes in church today where every group of people (children, youth, women, men, leaders) had to stand up and say, "Merry Christmas" to everybody else. Whoa.
Other than gratuitous English usage, Christmas was a bit strange in general. I'm so used to the Christmas hype starting around the fourth of July, that it was weird for Christmas to sneak up on us. Without wreaths everywhere, strange blow-up snowmen and santa clauses, more lights than in all of Kenya and Christmas themed everything, Christmas take on a different feel. In a lot of ways it felt like just another day. Most of the morning we relaxed and read books as we waited for church to start. We had a meal with everybody from church, but we do that at least once a month. In some ways, we lost the "feeling" of Christmas because all that I've learned as "Christmas" is not here.
At the same time, Christmas was still special. Steph and I celebrated on Christmas eve with our own candlelight service. We had time to reflect on "God with us" and even had our own communion (I hadn't had communion since August since they don't do it regularly in Najile). Also, because of the rain, there was a clear sense of God's blessing. To have so much rain at once was hard to imagine after months of drought.
So, Merry Christmas! I hope you all were able to appreciate the traditions of Christmas, as without them Christmas just is different. Also, take time to remember the gift of Christ and the reality of "Ketii Enkai te nebo iyiook" -God is with us.