vious ones. For starters I celebrated it in Kenya with my internship team instead of in Nebraska with my family. But as totally different the two places are they are somewhat similar. I’ve learned from being away from home this Christmas that Christmas isn’t all about the traditions, decorations, food or even family. Christmas is about celebrating Jesus’ birth and praising God for sending a perfect Lamb to bridge the gap between sinful fallen men 
and God. He brought us Immanuel (God with us) so that He could be with us for eternity. Also this place has in a way become my home and my teammates and leaders are like my family. Not only that, but I think Christmas is more so about people who aren’t followers of Christ. ‘For he came to heal the sick not those who are already well.' So even though I missed my family (A lot!) and the traditions and all the yummy food I was praising God and sharing the birth of our Savior with people who don’t know Him.December 24th-
All of us interns gathered at the Witt’s house for a Christmas breakfast and present opening and eventually Christmas supper. During the afternoon though w
e prepared 90 bags of practical things for the village we were going to spend Christmas day with. We sorted out Kilograms of beans, rice, flour, sugar, and corn. It was fun working as a team knowing that we were helping people who had little to nothing.December 25th-
The day had come! It was Christmas morning! As I rolled out of bed hardly eager to greet the day my housemate Brenna brought me a homemade mocha frappie and told me to get out of bed! I gleefully took the drink and enjoyed it and went back to sleep ignoring her last words. As I laid in bed I thought back over my past years of Christmas mornings. H
ow the night before my older sister and I would secretly watch as Mom and Dad wrapped the stocking presents. We’d guess on what we would find the next morning and could barely sleep with all the excitement. As I got older of course it was less exciting and I would rather lay in bed and sleep than get up early to open presents. But there was still always the excitement the fun in cooking, preparing the house and being with family. I loved waking up to the first blanket of snow and going to candle light services at church. All of these memories were coming back to me and I knew as I finally got out of bed that this day was nothing like those. Instead of a Christmas sweater or Christmas PJ’s, I put on my purple dirah (typical clothing of the village we were visiting) and a head scarf.We arrived at the village and started to chop veggies… Drew, Ke
lly and I cut tomatoes, green peppers and onions.. lots and lots of them. Some of the Mama’s and the younger curious boys helped us too. We enjoyed a delicious meal of Pilau (Rice and goat meat with potatoes, tomatoes, green peppers and onions for flavor and pilau spice) and kachumbari (Onions, tomatoes, green peppers).Throughout the day we arranged games like, bean bag toss, gunny sack race and tug of war for the kids to play. It was fun to watch them laughing and enjoying some new and very different games.
By the end of the day God had brought to my memory a story that Jason had told us at Bible study illustrating when Jesus told Peter to
feed his sheep in John 21. He didn’t say feed my sheep who are thankful, or who are nice to you or who like you. He just asked do you love me? Then feed my sheep. God was showing me what real serving looks like. It’s not about what I get in return or how good I feel about myself. It’s about the people I’m serving. It’s not my responsibility to make them grateful either, God is concerned about my heart as the giver and server.So this Christmas we did something different we took what God has given us and brought it to the people. Instead of receiving gifts we gave and were able to bless many people. Through this I know that I was blessed as well, it was fun to spend time in the bush with the villagers and to eat and spend the day together.
