a different kind of christmas season

Two years ago today, I returned home from my first trip to africa. My world had been changed forever.
For three months, I lived with no running water or electricity, eating beans and rice and maybe an occasional potato, three months with not one familiar face, watching as my Savior took away everything familiar to me and revealed himself to me through the faces and hearts of the african people I was living with. In a short three months, my world was shattered to pieces. The stories brought me to my knees in tears as I listened to a young girl tell me that she lost one of her three children to starvation, but that she trusted the Lord was going to provide for their meal tomorrow, of a soldier tell of how he left home to defend his country and returned to find that his family had been killed by the very people he was sent to fight. And yet these people were so full of joy, radiant at the knowledge that they were loved, protected and known by their heavenly Father.
Coming home, I flew through London and had a several hour layover. I left the airport and walked through Hyde Park at daybreak. Being only a few days from Christmas, the entire city was decked out. The window displays at Herrod's alone were proof of the commercial holiday season. The city was beautiful, but something was missing. The people I walked passed in London seemed to move from one event to the next, they had everything they needed to live comfortably, but they still looked empty. Life in Africa was the journey, the ups and downs of everyday happenings, the faith that a little boy born in a manger over 2000 years ago was sent to save them, and had changed their lives and mine, forever.
Christmas has always been a little better to me because of africa as I am reminded to live the journey and not the event.