Our Second Christmas in Mattru

Christmas is a good time to get homesick when you are in a foreign country.  The thought of family and friends having a good time celebrating and remembering the birth of Christ, or more particularly, thinking of past Christmases seems to bring out melancholic thoughts and emotions.  And melancholy is not fun this time of year.  So how do you combat that natural tendency when you are overseas at Christmas? We don’t know how you would do it, but this is the way we worked it this Christmas.

Just a few decorations go a long way when you want to commemorate Christmas and Christ’s birth.  A manger scene (minus baby Jesus until Christmas Eve, Heleen is strict about that!), a star with a battery operated light, and just a few white Christmas lights help a lot.  Also, we had access to a lot of Christmas music, which we played and played.  We treated ourselves to some new albums of Christmas downloaded with i-tunes.  One of our new favorites was “A Treasury of Christmas Music” by the Daughters of St. Paul (despite the fact that he never married).  But perennial favorites like the Messiah, and the Christmas Oratorio by Bach never were far away from our hearing.  We enjoyed music so much during this Christmas season.

On Christmas Eve baby Jesus arrived in our Sierra Leonean nativity scene!

We even had poinsettias blooming in our garden!

 Hospital activities abound during the Christmas season as well.  We had our 2^nd annual Christmas party, funded by ex-missionaries and friends of the hospital in America.  What a wonderful time it was, with the usual pomp and circumstance and designated program that such an activity requires in Sierra Leone.  However, it was very enjoyable, because each department was invited to contribute something as well.  Delightful music, dancing, and delicious food followed.

Contribution Pediatric Ward

The Christmas Party on Saturday was preceded by a friendly match on Friday between the hospital staff and Centennial Secondary School teachers. The hospital won 2-1!

 A week later we had our Christmas celebration with the children with disabilities. Including the children we had about 70 people there. We heard the Christmas story, colored pictures about Christmas, practiced spelling words like S-T-A-R and J-E-S-U-S, counted 1 to 12 with the Twelve Days of Christmas and ate a delicious meal!

Listening to the Christmas story told by Sylvanus.

The meal was cooked by our friend Esther (left), who has a son with disabilities, and served by Naomi (middle; a pastor's wife who attended our training on disability) and Musu (right; a nurse and auntie to a child with disabilities) 

On Christmas Day Jon made rounds early in the morning, and while Heleen attended the Christmas service he delivered a baby by C-section.  To make the day festive for the hospital, we sang Christmas Carols with a small group of colleagues and used some of the generous funds contributed towards the Christmas Party to feed a nice meal of Jolof rice to all the staff that were having to work. All the patients and most of the family members got to eat as well.  We then went to the house to celebrate.

Last year, we had primarily ex-pats, our mission team, and Peace Corps volunteers here for Christmas, but with no such possibilities this year, we invited a number of people over to our house on Christmas Day for our own Christmas festivities.  We had our friend Esther make some delicious chicken and macaroni and potato salad, while we contributed baked cookies.  We had made plenty of extra, as so many people were telling us “Mi Krismas de pan yu”, or “My Christmas depends upon you.”  We thought that one way we could respond was by inviting them to partake of our Christmas meal if they came around on Christmas Day.  So we were not sure who all might be present, but in the end we had our good friend Olmeh, Philip, who cleans our house once a week, Sylvanus, a friend from Mattru whose father is Pa French (see our next blog).  He recently moved here from Freetown and has been helping a lot with the disabled children, and Esther and 3 of her children plus a cousin who was with them.  Also, Samuel, a boy we know who ‘just happened’ by at lunch time. Later in the day, we fed several of our regular people who often come by… Kona, a somewhat eccentric widow lady who often needs food (and who carries a scrap of paper with Heleen’s name on it in her head tie), and Tommy, an old “pa” who likes to come visit.  Ngadie, the deaf lady who does our laundry stopped by and finally Dr. Harrison and his wife Flaviour and daughter T.K stopped by after all the food was gone!  But we had a nice time visiting and making the acquaintance of little T.K. their 6 month old daughter.  That was especially nice, as we knew that Dr. Harrison would be soon leaving for Nigeria after his almost 2 years here in Mattru.  In the evening, while Heleen started our traditional puzzle, Christmas Baby No. 4 was also delivered by C-section!

As we have passed into a new year which we plan to spend here in Mattru (surprise, surprise), we would encourage all of us in 2019 to Seek First the kingdom of God, Knock Often on the door of his mercy, and Ask Prayerfully for sustaining grace to endure.

Early in January we had to say good bye to Dr.  Harrison, who had to return to his home country Nigeria.... This leaves Jon as the only doctor. We are praying for someone else to join him!