Christmas Eve

This evening, walking home down a dusty red dirt road, having finished a couple fudge deliveries with John, I said to him, "When I get old and you are all grown up, this is going to be the way you remember the life you had when you were little." Maybe a bit too contemplative for a six-year-old (is he really six already? I had to re-add up the years just to be certain). But I smiled at the thought of how my kids will remember their childhood Christmases some day.

In the morning, we sang Christmas carols as a family, and were even joined by two of our neighbors. Later in the morning, a dear couple we had lived beside in Bangui came by for a visit. It was sweet to see them, though our hearts felt heavy as we talked about what we were doing this same morning two years ago...and as we shared our ongoing sadness at the loss and turmoil our loved ones in CAR have experienced between then and now.

A fun moment was watching the kids opening cards we recently got in the mail, posted all the way from the U.S. to Cameroon. Nobody minded that they were Thanksgiving cards. Thanks, Grandmama and Granddaddy! Lois was overly delighted to have her own card: mostly, I think, because it was a piece of paper that we did not snatch away from her. We never ever let her hold a piece of paper with any value (it's not without reason that we have given her the nickname "La Destructa.")

Lois was quite taken in by Julia showing her how to prepare njama-njama.

I was pleased when Julia told me that one of her friends who is back in town for Christmas, having traveled from TX, has told her that in Dallas there is such a big Cameroonian presence that you can find pretty much any ingredients for delicious Cameroonian food right there in the Metroplex. She said there are people there who grow the vegetables one can find here, and there is a market where you can buy them, even if they are a bit pricier than here. Who knew?

I love how every time you make friends in a new country, and begin to learn more about the culture, a door to a whole new world seems to open up. Kind of a cool thought to imagine getting a chance, perhaps, to interact with the Cameroonian community in Dallas at some future time!

So, njama-njama a type of greens that is prepared with red palm oil, tomatoes and onions. It is served alongside corn fufu (something kind of like polenta). All five of us love it. We ate it for lunch and had the leftovers for supper.

Thanks to some marshmallows and walnuts that travelled to us by a ship across the Atlantic, and to a blend of chocolate from our neighbor and local Cameroonian chocolate bought at a tiny shop on our road, I was able to make a batch of Mom's famous fudge recipe. A spontaneous decision, but definitely the right one. It made it feel so much more like Christmas. And it brought back plenty of memories. Memories of stirring the pot for Mom at our little Lauderdale house (at that time it seemed like the stirring was SO hard and took SO long!) And memories of mixing up a big batch of fudge at in the quiet and spacious downstairs kitchen of the house where we spent an unexpected Christmas in Gamboula on our way to Cameroon in 2012.

We had a nice Skype time with some family members, which included a bell-ringing rendition of Jingle Bells.

Now it's half an hour before midnight on Christmas Eve, and the obnoxious music at the bar(s?) nearby is blasting through the windows as it does most nights. It will probably continue all night long. Incongruous, in a way, with the peace- and joy-filled advent we are celebrating.

But at the same time, kind of not. This noise--too loud, too late, too much--is half of the meaning of Christmas, the reason Christmas had to happen anyways. The forms bending low under life's crushing load, the strong hate that mocks the song of "peace on earth," the dark shadow of death hanging over our days, the noise of selfish strife and truth-drowning noise in the crowded city streets. All of these are the early verses of the hymns. It's the heavy half of reality: the sinful in need of forgiveness, the sick in need of healing, the estranged in need of restoration, the blinded in need of light, the dying in need of eternal life.

Come, thou long expected Jesus, 
born to set thy people free; 
from our fears and sins release us, 
let us find our rest in thee.  
Israel's strength and consolation, 
hope of all the earth thou art; 
dear desire of every nation, 
joy of every longing heart.

There is a bright answer to the question, to all those things that are so wrong, to the emptiness and the need: Jesus, the Light, the Life, the Door, the Lamb. We rejoice that He came. We long for the day when He will come again, our long expected Jesus.