Tag Archives: holidays

Team Celebrates Holiday in Hospital

From a worker in Central Asia

Every year, starting about a week before New Year’s, various families and groups of friends set off fireworks, culminating in a grand display all over the city at midnight on New Year’s Eve. I’m not sure where the people get the money to personally buy such impressive fireworks, and I’m certain it is quite dangerous, yet it’s more impressive than anything I’ve seen in the US. Fireworks aren’t sent up in only one location, but rather from thousands of yards all over the city. Then, in the wee hours of the morning, the family (including the youngest children), sits down to a feast. Continue reading →

Revenger or Forgiver; Which are You?

From a friend of WEC

Old Bedouin tribal law allowed revenge up to the fourth generation. If someone killed your great grandfather you, as great grandson, could in return kill someone from the tribe who killed him.

But anger in our emotional arsenal won’t wait for four generations. It wants satisfaction now. Joab killed Abner for killing Joab’s brother. Absalom, David’s son, killed his half-brother, Ammon, for raping his sister, Tamar. Continue reading →

Christmas and Shipwrecked

From a worker in Asia

For various reasons this year has seemed more unChristmas-like to me than any other year. The only Christmas music I could access on my computer was Handel’s Messiah (13 tracks), so I listened to it MANY times. One day last week I was riding the bus, and everything in my personal life, this country and the world seemed overwhelmingly hopeless. Continue reading →

Thanksgiving on a Road Less Traveled

From a worker in the Middle East

I love Thanksgiving Day. It serves as a little reminder for me to stop and think about all of God’s blessings in my life. I have to admit I also love the meal. Here we cook chicken instead of turkey. Chicken tastes good, but I imagine it to be actual morsels of juicy, delicious turkey. I take time with my wife and children to count our blessings. As we remember those thankful moments we are struck by empty seats and lack of rustle and bustle. We miss our moms, dads, grandmas, grandpas, uncles, aunts, cousins and friends. Continue reading →