Christmas in Burundi (12-25-12)

We shared a Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve with four other couples from the US (“ex-pats,” we are called here) and four children ages 5-13. Three of the eight adults present were medical doctors and three of them (including Darlene) were nurses. The dinner was hosted by Dr. Frank and Carol Ogden on the campus of Hope Hospital of Kibuye, the “up-country” hospital of Hope Africa University (HAU).

Today, on Christmas Day, Darlene and I accompanied Frank and Carol Ogden to a country church, where Carol (an ordained minister in the Free Methodist Church) was preaching at a special Christmas service. The service lasted 3.5 hours (it included eight choirs!), followed by a meal prepared especially for us visitors. Mid-way through the service, a torrential rainstorm broke out. The pounding on the tin roof almost drowned out the service for 30 or more minutes. It then subsided for the sermon itself.

We had come in to this church off the paved road from Kibuye on a dirt track which wound into the mountains ca. .25 miles. We knew, because of the heavy rainfall, that we might not make it out. The road was very bad. When we got stuck in the mud, ca. 12 children and three men helped pull us out. I was riding upfront, and helped Dr. Frank negotiate a pathway through the mud and holes and up the steep hillsides. When we reached the paved road, we all gave praise to God.

Back at Kibuye, the ex-pats (including Darlene and I) shared gifts. They all were very simple, but people were thrilled with the smallest gifts. In the evening, we joined with the medical students on site and went caroling through the hospital wards.

So this has been a distinctive Christmas for us. Not only because it is sunny and warm rather than cold and white, but also because we have observed absolutely no signs of commercialism. We have not seen a single Christmas light or decoration, or any extraordinary expenditure on the part of anyone. In that respect, it seems like any other day…except for the focus on worship, in celebration of Jesus’ birth. Isn’t that what Christmas is/should be all about?