Hope

Because He Lives

Because He Lives, I can face tomorrow
Because He lives, all fear is gone
Because I know, He holds the future
And life is worth the living, just because He lives.

If you ever want to feel God’s presence, be around when 93 orphaned children sing this song. I guarantee you it will help put life in perspective.

Today was Guardian’s Day at ELI’s children home. It’s a day in which people who took care of the children after their parents died can come and visit them. Mostly its grandparents, aunts and uncles and neighbors who, while unable to provide long-term care, are still important people in the children’s lives. The kids put on a special performance that included dancing, singing, speeches (of course), prayer, memory verse and poetry recitation, and a dramatic reenactment of the parable of the Prodigal Son. (Sidebar – the part about the father killing the fatten calf takes on new meaning in a culture where wealth is measured by the number of cows you own.) The day started at 10 and it went continuously until 3 – and this was a short celebration by Kenyan standards.

In so many ways, the day was extremely special. To see children with joy on their faces is always a pleasure. To watch them as they visited with those who they hadn’t seen in over 6 months warmed the heart. But in other ways, it was a heart-breaking day because there were some children who had no visitors. For them, they relived their abandonment all over again as they watched their adopted brothers and sisters open presents, receive hugs and kisses and be told that they mattered. Although the Director of the children’s home try to make sure that members of the community would be providing gifts for those kids who he didn’t expect to have visitors, still some were neglected. For a few, it was a pattern of repeat behavior, as they had no visitors in April at the last Guardian’s Day.

The Scripture teaches that pure and undefiled religion is to take care of orphans and widows in their distress. In many ways this was put into action today. But in many more, there is still much work to do.

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Hope

The Happy Occassion

I’ve never been one to get all wrapped up in society’s concessions to the Christian faith. Partly this is because I think the fact that our culture has historically been associated with Christian ideas and traditions has caused a persistence of watered down allegiance. Sure, I’d appreciate it if people who celebrated Easter actually acknowledged that it was a day to commemorate my Savior’s death. If they want a day for bunnies and eggs hunts pick some other day of the year. But that hasn’t happened yet and waging a war against it seems kind of self-defeating.

However, I was amused when I attended a local city’s recent Christmas concert. Technically it was called “Joyful Jingles” – presumably to disassociate it with any one of the December celebrations. What amused me was that in the introduction to a song parody about the wives of the 3 Wisemen the choir director performed a magnificent fete of verbal gymnastics to describe Christ’s birth without actually saying those words. She called it “the trip to Bethlehem” and the “happy occasion.” It amazed me because the song was in fact about the birth of Jesus and yet in her introduction she tactfully avoided any mentioned of that fact plainly choosing instead to describe it in the most nondescript way possible.

If you’re going to celebrate a happy occasion, I think that’s all well and good. But please, if you are going to celebrate the birth of my Lord and King – can you just call it Christmas?

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