Christmas in Kenya

From December 22nd to the New Year, I'm blessed and fortunate enough to have my family with me. What follows are words from my mother about our experience here with Kenyan children in Kikuyu, a small village outside of Nairobi. Being with my family and sharing our time with various Kenyans made for wonderful fellowship; one I'm just beginning to put into words.


The first week we spent primarily engaged in mission outreach with more than eighty needy children. It was physically and emotionally challenging. Most days a warm shower was elusive and we were falling asleep by 9:00 p.m [when we weren’t playing cards as a family or up talking]. Yet, I also realize that my time in Kenya was a remarkable personal Sabbath; a break from the oppressive consumerism and secularization of Christmas— the constant commercials, the garish store decorations and overwhelming materialism. In Kenya we experienced no frenzy of holiday shopping around us, no circling of parking lots, no pervasive muzak, no shortness of tempers.

It struck us that from the time we arrived December 21, until the day we left January 1, we heard only one reference to Santa. Some boys at the Wee School were washing their football (soccer) jerseys in preparation for an upcoming game. They had three pails of water on the ground, and were robust in their immersing and scrubbing and rinsing. One of the boys playfully put suds around the lower half of his face, and looked up at us saying, “See, I’m Father Christmas!”

There was no talk of Santa or presents, and yet we interacted with children of varied means everyday. The children asked nothing of us but to hold their hand or jump rope with them, kick the soccer ball or get Evans to clasp their arms and swing them around. They were truly grateful for the T-shirts we brought them from you at Westminster, the puppet theatre we constructed while there, the puppets made for them by our Youth Club kids, but more than anything they valued the time we spent with them—our mere presence.

In the original Hebrew, Sabbath literally means “to cease.” At its best Sabbath allows us to stop, to get away from work and busyness, and to experience God’s grace in simply being. Kenya afforded us a remarkable escape from the Christmas hype here at home. It was a tremendous gift to experience Christmas not as a shopping extravaganza replete with indulgent celebrations, but as a time of reconnection with God, others, and our own souls.



In one journal entry I wrote:
“Perhaps I’m clarifying the need to reclaim Christmas from our commercialist consumer society—to restore Christmas to a family and faith centered celebration. Not to overlook or ignore the lonely or homebound, the poor, hurting or needy, but to try to distance ourselves from malls and excess. It feels like one has to leave town (or one’s country!) in order to find this.”

Kenya gave us a taste of a simpler, dare I say more meaningful, Christmas. In our time spent being together as a family and forming new friendships, we continuously felt the powerful presence and peace of Immanuel—Godwithus.

Grace and gratitude,
Anne