What a neat Christmas! I do miss being home, but I think this has been about as good as an away-from-home Christmas can be. You sure can't beat the weather--mid-50s (upper teens Celsius) at night, upper 70s (mid-twenties) during the day. Sunny and warm. Nice.
We are amazed at how much Christmas is celebrated here. Looking at the decorations in the malls (and ignoring all the folks in robes), you might think you were in America somewhere. True, they don't mention Jesus anywhere, but then again neither to the malls in America these days. I've had several locals--Arabs, Indians, or Pakistanis--wish me a Merry Christmas. A lady at church this morning expressed her amazement at the same thing, and said it was a bittersweet feeling because, while we enjoy broad (for this region, anyway) religious freedoms in Qatar, people in America, the land of the free, are being forbidden from displaying a creche in a public place, or singing Christmas carols at school, or even saying "Merry Christmas" at work. All I can say is that the ACLU had best watch out for the Muslims, because they typically aren't as nice as the Christians when you start tromping on their religion.
We had a nice Christmas Eve service at church. It was long, but nice. Several people from the congregation sang, played instruments, performed skits, puppets, etc. for a couple of hours. The Shaw twins--they have five kids, and two of the girls are redheaded twins--played a piano duet, and Dr. Shaw (he's a hawk vet) and their oldest daughter sang a duet while Mrs. Shaw played the piano. A gal named Amy played the flute, and also played a piano solo. They capped it off with a dramatic reading of "'Twas the Night Before Jesus Came," a sobering twist on the old classic. So, we did it up right on Christmas Eve. Prestonwood's got nothing on us. :)
Kendall brought the message this morning, and did a great job with Romans 12:1-2. It's the first time I think I've ever heard anyone use the phrase "boo-yeah" in a sermon. We had Christmas dinner yesterday with them, and it was great...turkey and dressing, sweet potatoes--even a "test" batch of Pakistani yams, which weren't orange but tasted pretty good with brown sugar, butter, and marshmallows on 'em--and several more "comfort foods."
After church today, we went out to the dunes again for a cookout fellowship. This time, we stayed a bit closer to the road so regular cars could get to the site. Sort of. Everyone was impressed that we made it in our Camry. I'll admit that it was a bit touch-and-go a couple of times, but driving in sand is easier than the muddin' I used to do in high school (OK, maybe some in college too). When we first arrived at the cookout site, there were about thirty Arabs on four-wheelers zipping around us on the dunes. It was pretty neat. The men were thinking that they'd like to take one for a spin, and the women were thinking about all the people they knew who'd broken their neck on one. The four-wheelers finally moved on, and we set about building a fire, climbing up/sliding down the dunes, and just generally fellowshipping. We discovered that frozen shawarmas, wrapped in tinfoil and heated over a fire, taste pretty good. By the time we finished eating, it was dark, and Zach and I pulled out our instruments and led some Christmas and praise songs. We may end up getting drafted into one of their worship teams, some of which could use the help.
On the way home, our son said that this was a nice place to live, but he would be glad when we got back to our home in America. I have to agree with him...Qatar is a great place, and we're making some great friends, but I still miss Texas!
Oh, yeah...and we still don't have our boxes. Or our car. :P
Posted by jon at December 26, 2003 02:01 PMI am glad your family had a good Christmas. We enjoyed ours too!
Posted by: John - at December 29, 2003 05:39 PM