Feed One Another

I grew up in a little town called Kiserian, Kenya. Kenya is a third world country and most people live in extreme poverty. I however remember people planning for Christmas. We have large families and for the most part only one or two people in a family are gainfully employed and the families do have dozens of members.

The members who were the bread winners probably worked in Nairobi which for most of them would be hours away from the village. The cost of travel in itself would be about a month’s wage. Depending on the tribe you came from a good Christmas consisted on 1 huge meal of either chicken or goat. The only way that the people in the village would have a good Christmas meal is if the bread winner was able to come up with enough work to finance a bus ticket and a few dollars for a few chicken or a goat. This person would line up outside different businesses everyday of the year and if he is lucky enough he will have enough day jobs to make enough money to do this. Around October, (the home stretch, the last inning to Christmas) most people would tune into an AM radio channel that broadcasts messages to people in the village (because most villages were miles away from a phone this is the only way to get a message to the people in the village.)

So every Saturday between 3pm and 6pm thousands of people would tune into 1100 am and pray that they hear a message like this. “This is Japheth Otieno Ouko, who hails from the south side of lake Victoria, I want to send my greetings to my mother Mary Akinyi, my dad Tobias Odhiambo ,………..(insert a gazillion other family members here), I want to tell you that I’m going to make it home for Christmas and there wont be any chickens being pardoned when I get there.” You can only imagine the joy and celebration that takes place in this family in anticipation.

As I read these verses and look back at my life, my family, I wonder whether you can join me in remembering what Christmas is about. Family, friends, JESUS, love and joy to the world.

Can we remember what Christ did for us and use this time to share the joy, maybe if we do this we actually can have a special Christmas without the pressures and depression that comes from the Gospel of MACY’s Chapter 13.