The Christmas Blog - by John

Twas the night before Christmas and all through the veld… Uh, no, we’re not going there. Instead, we reflect on the year and the grace of God that brought us to this most un-Winnipeg like place, and send best wishes to all our friends and family.

• We think of our families at home, and thank them for their thoughts, gifts and prayers.
• We remember our fellow MCC Trainees, who are also experiencing Christmas in a different place, but in the same spirit.
• We think of our friends at home, who we miss, and we wish they could share our experience more fully.
• To everyone who is reading this blog, whoever you are: Thanks for taking an interest in our lives. If we can ask one thing, please send us a chatty email filled with the details of your lives.

It’s been less than a year since we first felt the tug to go do something different, and look where we have ended up! We encourage all of our friends and family to continue to server their brothers, sisters and neighbours wherever and whomever they are.

Today we have already opened our presents, and are going over to Chuck and Heather’s for lunch. Chuck and Heather have invited a number of other families, should be fun! We had a big thunderstorm last night after a hot day in the 30’s, but it’s a little cooler today, with mist in the valley. Now, a few updates on our recent experiences:

Skype

We have been using Skype over the last few days to talk to our families back in Winnipeg, and it works great! For the uninitiated, Skype is a program that allows you to talk computer to computer, for free. We have found that the voice quality is better than the telephone, although there are delays. Funny thing is, even though it costs us a little bit because of the internet service we have (2 Rand/Megabyte), it’s actually cheaper to talk to someone in Winnipeg with Skype than to make a local call, and it’s even more ironic when you realize that we are using our cell phone as a modem to get to the internet. We would encourage you to download Skype at www.skype.com and give it a try. Our Skype ID is wielerfamily. Talk to you soon!

Christmas Eve at the Mega Church

Last night we went to the Christmas Eve service at the local Mega Church. It was…something else. The program started with the praise band cranking out extremely loud and non-traditional arrangements of carols, some to a reggae beat. This was followed by a drama, but before the drama began, an announcement was made that they couldn’t find enough kids to participate, so the kids parts were being played by adults. OK, this should be interesting. The stage was dark, when suddenly eight rather older ladies, dressed like teenagers from the 50’s, bounded out on stage and started dancing to the music. Then they started singing, or rather, lip-synching along with a pre-recorded soundtrack. The whole show in fact was played off of a CD, with everyone lip-synching. It was one of those American made, ultra-poppy Christian kids drama/all-dancing/all-singing/Jesus-affirming/ultra-commercial/over-produced/Britney-meets-Mother Mary-meets Barney types of shows, you know the kind. Could be cute in a kind of diabetic-coma-inducing way if actually played and sung by live children, but way, WAY over the top the way it was presented here. The oddest part was the fact that the soundtrack had children’s voices singing and speaking, but it looked like everyone on stage was 50 and older.

In any case, the ladies shook and wiggled while “singing” about humility, a troop of “solid gold” dancers dressed in sequined vests added a certain Vegas touch, and it was all wrapped up with two guys in a camel costume, a very brief manger scene and a faith affirming voice-over message. It was a long, long way from a Christmas Eve service in our tradition, that’s for sure. Nonetheless, the audience…er… congregation seemed to eat it up, and when the balloons fell from the ceiling at the end (really), there was tumultuous applause. We’ll chalk this one up to cross-cultural differences.

Here's a picture of our tree, with actual presents under it, and more decorated.

And here our our beautiful girls in their new clothes.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Years to all, please email us and let us know what Santa brought. We wish for peace and health for all, no exceptions.