I have a friend named Claire, she is about 7 years old, and she gave me possibly the best, most selfless gift I've ever received.
About a month or so before I left Uganda, one of our mentors asked me to visit a few homes to check on their health and sanitation.
Claire was beaming the day we went to visit her home because she got picked up from school by a muzungu in a car, she got to eat popcorn in the back seat, and best of all - we were going to her house.
Claire is one of the smiliest kids I've known. A little chubby compared to most of our kids, a contagious giggle, mischievous smile and always ready to get in on a hug.
As with most slum areas, we wound our way through muddy dirt passage-ways to the curtained door of her house...a house little more than what most of us would call a walk-in closet. The small room fit a bed and a couple chairs, nothing else really. At night, Claire, her mother, and an aunt cachexic from AIDS share the mattress; the remaining floor space is bed to a young mother and her newborn that the family has taken in.
Claire's mom couldn't have been happier to have visitors. She is a heavyset woman and told us that she wishes she could feed the family healthier food - but her cheapest option is to buy greasy snacks from street vendors.
That day we talked about options for the family - for better, safer housing, and small business opportunities for the mother. We talked about what a good and kind and smart girl Claire is. She told us how Claire comes home from Saturday Club on top of the world because we give her lots of hugs. Had I never visited her home, I never would have guessed that such a joyful little heart could persist despite the daily dirty hardship that is so normal for her.
Weeks later, at my going away party, she handed me a box in shiny silver wrapping and wanted me to guess what it was.
"...a giraffe?"
Giggle. "No."
"A hippo?!"
More giggles and smiles, "No." And unable to wait on my silly games any longer, "It's kind of like a doll."
At that point, activities called us away from opening the present together. Days later I finally sat down to unwrap my gift from Claire. The shiny paper was so used and dirty I felt like I probably needed to wash my hands a few times. As I opened the top of the box, a pair of arms and a pair of legs popped out like a Jack-in-the-Box. It was a Woody the Cowboy doll (from Toy Story), very loved and dingy, but cowboy boots and hat intact. She gave me her doll.
She gave me her doll.
She has nothing, and gave me her best most loved, all the while smiling and giggling joyfully.
It's Christmas tomorrow, and I can only think about Another who knows the cold of naught. That baby Jesus who had no crib for his bed, asleep on the hay, and woke up for the first time, poor. Cows making noise, stars twinkling instead of a roof. This Jesus understands Claire.
I had a hard time helping to decorate the house for Christmas with my parents. So sweet to be in the same place as my family this year, but handling festive decorations transported me back to my first Christmas in Uganda. Coming home from the Christmas church service we saw a small family sitting on the side of the road gleefully eating ice-cream together. That would be the entirety of their Christmas decadence.
The week after Christmas that year, we asked the kids to share what they enjoyed about Christmas - what made it special. One little girl stood up immediately and with pride told everyone, "We got to eat chicken."
If I could choose anything right now, my Christmas wish, I would be with my kids (all 400+ of them), and give them all squeezes, feel their velcro hair on my cheek and their little arms so tight around my waist.
Instead, this year I'm singing a old familiar Christmas carol with new and urgent meaning for me:
no crib for His bed,
The little Lord Jesus
lay down his sweet head.
The stars in the sky
looked down where He lay
The little Lord Jesus,
asleep on the hay.
The cattle are lowing,
the poor Baby wakes,
But little Lord Jesus,
no crying He makes;
I love Thee, Lord Jesus,
look down from the sky
And stay by my cradle
till morning is nigh.
Be near me, Lord Jesus,
I ask Thee to stay,
Close by me forever,
and love me, I pray!
Bless all the dear children
in Thy tender care
And take us to heaven,
to Live with Thee there.
This year, these words are my prayer for my kids (the ones I know and the ones I've never met the world over) who will celebrate Christmas mostly without. Those last words - "Take us to heaven, to live with Thee there" - I feel them so heavily. Not in a sad or morbid way, but as words that hold a reassuring longing for the Rest of utter completion we will finally find in heaven with our King of Kings - our Jesus who became poor for us on that truly Holy Night.
[For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.]
2 corinthians 8.9
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