Joy & Love

The 4 themes of advent are Hope, Peace, Joy and Love. 

Advent colorings from years past

Every year we remember these words and use them to enliven our thoughts and prayers of the Christmas season.  It’s become a bit of a tradition to find coloring pages with each of these words on them and for the kids to color them each weekend of advent.  Then we hang them around the house, to remind us of these wonderful realities that have come into the world and into our hearts.  

But this year we’ve been reflecting on them in a new way.  A bit of divine inspiration caused us to use these words as the themes for our English clubs the last two weeks. The insights have been meaningful.

The first week we organized a simple game in which we passed a ball to someone and said one of the 4 Advent words.  That person was then required to share a small anecdote about experiencing this word from their life.  (We gave them a few minutes to try to think of a story for each word, so nothing would take them by surprise.)  Thus, we threw the ball to one person and said, “Peace”  The one who caught the ball came up with the story of when his mother was very sick and went to the hospital.  When she was better, they all felt peace.  And so the game went on to the next couple people, each telling a small anecdote, until someone threw the ball and said, “Love!”  The one who caught the ball had no story.  He couldn’t think of anything.  We gave him a different word and continued to play, but then the ball was passed to another and the word “Love” was repeated.  And again the person had no story.  We were very careful to explain that we were not talking about romantic love, but loving your mother or father, a friend, etc.  Still they couldn’t come up with anything.  “That one is very difficult,” one of them said, and then all the others nodded their head in agreement—it was difficult for them to think of a story about experiencing love.  

“and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all…”

Newly colored JOY

The next week we decided to approach the words from a different angle.  We asked the questions like:

“How would a hopeful person respond if they didn’t have any money or job?”
“How would a peaceful person respond if a thief robbed their house?”
“How would a joyful person respond if they see a beautiful sunset?”
“How would a loving person respond if a beggar asks them for money?”

We asked the opposite as well: “How would a hopeless person respond,” etc.

And at first this was difficult for them to answer.  They were confused. “If you didn’t have any money, then you will not be hopeful,” they explained.  They understood these words as emotional reactions to situations we encounter, not as steady realities of the heart.  Thus you are joyful when you pass your exam and crushed when you don’t.  You are peaceful when everything is okay and anxious when things are wrong.  But we challenged them to think about a person whose heart is always hopeful—no matter what the circumstances.  Then they started to think of examples, “The hopeful person who has no job and no money doesn’t give up. They keep searching, because they have hope that they fill find something.”  Or “The peaceful person can say ‘Praise God’ even when his house is robbed.”  There were many smiles as they thought about what a person with these qualities would be like in difficult situations.  It felt like a breakthrough in their understanding.

Is joy a reaction to circumstances or from within?

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”

At Christmas, we remember where these heart realities come from.  How the Light that brings Hope, Joy, Love and Peace came into the world to give them to all who call on his name.  As Christmas approaches we hope you will be able to reflect on how much each of us needs these things—Love, Joy, Peace, and Hope—to not just react to our circumstances but to have our heart filled and so to rise above our circumstances. How different could our lives, the world be? May it be!

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We were able to get our computer back up and running with our latest backup— we are very thankful! The sick teammate for whom we asked prayer is feeling much better, but now another has gotten sick. Please continue to pray for health. Our traveling teammate got a negative COVID test and made it off the islands, but got held up in mainland Africa as airlines/countries keep changing their COVID policies, so she has had a rebook/reroute twice. Please pray that she can make it all the way home for the holidays without any further difficulties. Our small-island colleagues’ travels back to Clove Island were much smoother than their first boat ride and they made it back home to the small island safely. Tom had a good talk with an island brother that just reaffirmed their trust in each other and their willingness to work together to reach out to others.  

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Please pray for Dunga. Her father’s side of the family have scheduled a family meeting to confront her about her beliefs on Dec 26th (previously it was her mother’s side). Pray for peace for her, for soft hearts among her family and for her to have the right words to respond to their concerns. We are having our annual Christmas party with our English Club on Wednesday, but we haven’t been getting big groups lately and that night we will be competing with a wedding event next door. Pray that we would still get a good group of people and that all that come would hear and understand good news. Pray for our teammates as they share both in group or individual settings about the holiday (one is having a party, others are showing a film, all will be visiting friends). Pray for our team’s celebration of Christmas— it is a time of year where homesickness can be hard— pray for a sweet time as a team-family. Pray also since our neighbors in our same building are having a wedding on Christmas day— pray that the music wouldn’t be so loud that we couldn’t enjoy the holiday in our home (sometimes wedding music can be deafening).