On Thursday evening, we had a community Christmas, starting with a skit from the kids!
We had practiced Joy to the World & Hark! The Herald Angels Sing in Burmese the day before during Open House, but we only practiced the skit that day. It was utter chaos, but thankfully we had the help of a translator, as “shepherds” and “wisemen” aren’t really in my Burmese vernacular.
We had four kids each reading a part of the Christmas story from the Bible, all in literary Burmese. They were so brave to read it right into a microphone! We picked some of the best students for these roles.
Mary was pretty easy to choose, as sweet Yaminoo always has her new baby brother on her shoulder. Since he doesn’t let any one else hold him, they made the perfect little Jesus & Mary duo. (After which the kids are still calling him Jesus!)
From there we assigned out as many parts as we could, and after one run-through, we handed out costumes!
The kids loved the costumes, and I think it made it feel real for them. As the parents all gathered outside of our gate at 6pm, all the kids suddenly felt nervous and got stage-fright! It was so cute to see them take it seriously and feel like it was so “official.”
We opened up the gate to the largest crowd we’ve ever had for Christmas!
The kids did a great job, reading and following along, making the parents laugh and keeping their attention. Stephen led us in Hark! The Herald Angels Sing while the angels were visiting the shepherds, and then we all sang Joy to the World at the end. The whole skit was probably my favorite part of Christmas this year.
We followed this with a few words of why we celebrate Christmas, why we live here, and how much we love Jesus and all of them. It was getting quite dark by this point, though!
And then we went for the meal. It’s always crazy, and this year didn’t disappoint. There was even a brawl between a few intoxicated men, so it’s never dull. Thankfully, we saved the kids from the stampede, and we had more than enough food for everyone. So I guess we’ll call that a win?
The whole community helped to clean up everything and left the house swept and mopped, which is so kind. It was a pretty amazing group effort, but I’m pretty sure we still fell asleep by 9:30pm!