by Linda Stuart
It was hard to generate Christmas cheer that year, our first outside the U.S. Everything felt wrong, from the fact that we were in the middle of summer to the tacky decorations. It didn’t take me long to realize that the biggest problem I faced was my own attitude as I adapted to a new culture, language, and home.
The next year wasn’t easier. We finished language school in December, packed up our apartment and flew across the country to our new city. “Creating memories” suddenly meant attempting to fry cookies on the stove top since the oven didn’t work and trying to salvage Christmas morning with sick kids as our bodies adjusted to the new, hot climate.
Then there was the year we visited our family back in the States. That Christmas was full of the glow of lights diffused through a thick layer of snow, Bing Crosby on the radio, candlelight, cocoa, and the familiar comfort of friends and loved ones. It was heart breaking to leave all that behind once again.
Why did I feel deprived on the mission field, and why did Christmas seem to magnify my sense of loss? I had always tried to celebrate with my focus on Emmanuel; the traditions were simply the things that represented the season and enhanced the celebration, like decorations and cake at a birthday party. But were they more important to me than they should be?
I leaned into the questions. I continued seeking to maintain and create traditions and to make Christmas meaningful for me and my family. Sometimes I spent too much energy searching every store for the right color of sprinkles to put on the cookies. Other times I created space for silence and reflecting on “God with us.” Like the Magi following the star, I wanted to come face to face with the source of the light.
At some point during one of those years, I finally understood something about Christmas that is not a secret: the Christmas story is a difficult one. From the very beginning, there is an unexpected and inconvenient pregnancy, long and tiring journeys, inadequate accommodations, and even danger. There is heat, dust, and discomfort. Doubt, fear, and pain. I saw that some aspects of my own context that I had lamented were much closer to first-century Bethlehem than anything I had grown up with.
The backdrop of the dark, oppressed world that Jesus was born into makes the contrast of the advent of the Light of the world even more brilliant and miraculous. For every earthly difficulty, there was a heavenly plan directing the story. Miracles, provision, and salvation. Precious gifts and worship given to a King, and the dawn of peace on earth.
This year, more than a decade after that first overseas Christmas, I look ahead to the season as one of quieting my heart in contemplation of the miracle of God incarnate. I plan to celebrate with friends and share my own traditions with them. I hold peace and joy even as I watch chaos and angst unfold around me.
Our family has put down deep roots in our host country, even as we look ahead to transitioning back to the States in the year to come. The contrast still exists; we live in a broken and dark world. To celebrate Christmas is not to ignore that darkness, but to dispel it. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5). We celebrate with hope in the One who entered into the darkest of places to be the Light.
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Linda is a Wisconsin girl who relocated to the Amazon eleven years ago — and is still getting used to the heat. She and her husband, Peter, who serves as a pilot to remote jungle villages, have three sons and live just outside a city near the airstrip he flies from. Linda enjoys reading, baking and sharing North American treats, and opening their home to travelers passing through.
