Christmas Caroling

I wanted to write a little bit more about our Christmas celebrations from this past year. One of my highlights is always Christmas caroling. This year I went twice, once for the Friday Night Bible Study Christmas Party (the Friday before Christmas) and the second was with the CMS students that live on campus (on Christmas Eve). I always love the chance to work up and down the streets with the students and fellow teachers singing favorite Christmas songs. I would like to quickly share a couple of quick stories from the two activities.

First, during the Friday Night Bible Study time, I was leading a group with an 8th grade student accompanying me. This was pretty exciting because this student has been helping with guitar off and on this semester and continues to improve at it. It is nice to see him taking ownership and interest in helping us lead songs at Friday Night Bible Study. As we were heading back to church, a lady rushed up to me and told me to stop at small shop. Upon arriving at the shop, I found that was a store that sold ghost money. Ghost money used in Taiwanese folk religion to offer a sacrifice to local gods, in hopes of ensuring better luck in the future. The lady brought out here baby and wanted to listen to us sing songs. Immediately I decided to sing Silent Night, which is the only song that we have a Chinese verse for. The lady and her child seemed to really enjoy the music, and I pray that it can be a witness to the love that God offers them in Christ Jesus.

The second caroling experience was with the students who live at school. On Christmas Eve we all met at 8:30pm and split into 3 groups. We then went to different streets near the school to go sing Christmas Carols. One highlight from this actually came the day prior to our caroling. I went to a local tea stand to buy a green tea (my usual) and the owner asked if we would be coming around the next day to sing Christmas songs. I was really touched that he remembered and was anticipating our arrival. I told him that we would, and he was excited. He knew that Christmas was approaching and that we would be out celebrating and singing. I praise God that things like Christmas caroling can make such a strong impact. It is just one simple way to share the love of God with others.