Celebrating Christmas!

There are many things Christians think about when they celebrate Jesus' birth.  A Savior has been born. The Word has become flesh. A child has been born: Emmanuel, God with us. God has remembered the lowly and rejects the mighty in their throwns. A light of revelation for the Gentiles and glory for the people of Israel.

And yet, at Christmas, with food on the table and gifts to share among family, it seems almost impossible to really wrap our minds around the the helplessness and poverty in the scene of a child in an animal's feeding tough. 
 
One aspect of this scene that I'm thinking about this year is that aspect of being pushed out of a hometown or a homeland. Mary and Joseph were first on the move to Bethlehem, which apparently was where their roots were but distant enough that they couldn't find places to stay with distant relatives or inns.  And then the new family fled to Egypt until Herod had died.

Refugees, immigrants, and migrants are on the move every year and this has been a year when refugees have been in the headlines in particular. It is remarkable how quickly Christians become suspicious of vulnerable people.  Although maybe that is not surprising, as the religious leaders and powerful were also suspicious of Jesus, who walked among the vulnerable.

While our circumstances are nothing in comparison to refugees, we are learning what it means to celebrate the meaning of Jesus' birth in a context away from the traditions and gatherings in our homeland this year as well.  At each step we're trying to figure out what is going on around us, what is expected of us, and what we are going to do on our own initiative to celebrate Christmas as a family. While this has taken extra energy, we have been blessed to enjoy good food, music, sharing gifts, several conversations through Skype, and even a visit from my brother Nathan. God has been with us in our vulnerability as well!

Here are some pictures from our Christmas season:

Lia, singing with her Kindergarten class at their Christmas program.

Painting Christmas salt-cookie ornaments.

 Very careful.

Another craft idea of Rebekah's: finger painting the manger scene.

Christmas morning: opening stockings!  (Another note: Lia wanted to wear long sleeves and long pants pajamas so that Christmas would feel cozy.)

Rebekah worked hard to prepare a brunch for our MCC staff and their families who were around on Christmas day, which turned out to be most of the group. Lots of coffee cake, eggs, bacon, fruit, and cookies. (Another note: She did all this without her glasses, which got broken at the beach earlier this week...)

Sharing food.

 Sharing conversation.

Sharing music.

Playing Candyland.

Later in the day we opened presents among our family.  Here, Silas and Lia find Legos from Mommy and Daddy.

Eagerly opening a present from Grandma and Grandpa Good, thanks to our courier Nathan.

 Assembling the Legos as the instructions instruct.  Later we'll disassemble these and get creative.

 Our tech guy with his phone/computer/book.

Our tech guy setting up some new equipment so we can do some recording.  We're a step behind with the Good Charles Family Band project for this Christmas.

 Later in the afternoon we heard music on a loudspeaker coming from the park.  Lia and Silas and I went out to find that the Sandinistas had sent piñatas out to parks across the country.  A line-up of 16 piñatas here in our Linda Vista Norte neighborhood park! 

Sixteen piñatas meant plenty of candy for everyone, even our cautious (but very interested) children who tiptoed around the edge of the candy tackle.

San Juan del Sur, and around (with Nathan!)

We were very happy to welcome Nathan here for a Christmas week visit!  At his request, we tolerated a trip to some Pacific coast beaches around San Juan del Sur.  Here are some pictures from the trip:

At the hotel - Casa Maderas.

Breakfast with our special guest!

Wave chasing at Playa Maderas.

Wave jumping at Playa Maderas.

Sunset watching at Playa Maderas.

Next morning at the beach at San Juan del Sur.  Note the Christ figure above the cliff.

Welcome to Nicaragua, Nathan. This is what we do.

Good morning scorpion.  Glad we saw you first.

Wave jumping at Playa Marsella.

Building our pool.

So long, Playa Marsella!

What is la Gritería? What is Purísima?

Today was the national holiday of Purísma.  From what I can tell, this may be a tradition unique to Nicaragua.  I'm not going to make any claims of fully understanding Catholic theology on this one, but this is the celebration of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, that is, when Mary was conceived, without Original Sin.  This kind of a holiday can highlight the tension between Catholics and Evangelicals, so I'll try my best describe what I observe in this tradition. Since I'm new to this, I also might be missing some significant parts that I'm unaware of.

For nine days leading up to Purísima, Catholic churches are gearing up.  Streamers are stretched across roads, roads are painted with messages, the main street downtown is decorated with extravagant "altars" or immobile floats of sorts.

The "main event" for Purísima is actually la Gritería, celebrated the evening before Purísima, which is the national holiday on December 8. La Gritería, or the Calling Out, refers to the question: "Who is the source of such happiness?" to which others call back, "the Conception of Mary!"

While we've been hearing firecrackers going off over the last number of days, around 6:00 they start blasting off all around the city.  Lots of noise.  And lots of car alarms going off as a result as well. Folks start to make their way out into the streets with their backpacks and bags.  There would definitely be some similarities at this point with trick-or-treating.

Generous families willing to share their resources with their visitors will decorate and set up a figure of Mary.  Then others come by to sing traditional songs and then are given gifts of food, household items, and candy.  The hosts let in a family at a time to come in, sing, receive their gifts and move on to another home.

Then we start to hear some snare drums coming down the street.  These accompany the Gigantonas, costumed people on stilts. I understand that these guys will share a silly "couplet" rhyme for a tip, but I haven't seen (or paid) for this as of yet. (These gigantonas come around at other random times as well, so it's possible that they have less to do with la Gritería and Purísima and more to do with the energy of the event and the possibility of earning tips.)

All this time the firecrackers and car alarms continue in a noisy harmony.  At midnight, these reach their grand finale for the night. (Remarkably, our kids sleep through it.) Today, which was Purísima itself was a very quiet day in the city with most stores closed and few people out and about.  However at 12:00 pm and 6:00 pm the coordinated firecrackers were going off again, and I believe that we'll hear them at midnight again tonight.

The Day of Action of Thanks

I'll have to admit that I have been a lazy Thanksgiving participant.  It has been easy to ride over to our relatives' homes where my mom and others have organized an amazing feast.  And then to sit around and talk while they cleaned it up as well.

Our context this year has made Thanksgiving a very different kind of experience.  For starters, it's a holiday celebrated in the U.S. and a handful of other places, so Thursday was a working day.  And the traditional foods and traditional family gatherings are far away as well.

The U.S. staff of our team decided to invite our Nicaraguan national staff to a Thanksgiving experience, to the extant that it was possible to recreate here.  My job was to prepare my mom's rolls (or use my mom's recipe for rolls to make something bread-like) and to prepare a mini-lesson on Thanksgiving to explain the event.  Ariane, Andrew, and Rebekah divided up other dishes, and PriceSmart (owned by Costco) helped us out with some pies.  All told, it was a great time together with the team and a few extra guests.  And it was a significant amount of work as well.  Musing a little about the holiday's name as it is in Spanish (el Día de Acción de Gracias - the Day of Action of Thanks), it makes me think about the effort and action of giving.  It makes me thankful for all those taken-for-granted efforts of others that I have enjoyed and not always fully appreciated.  So, thanks Mom and relatives for all thanksgiving meals of in the past, thanks to Ariane, Andrew, and Rebekah for their work to get today ready, and thanks to Yolanda, Liseth, Dency, and others for helping in dozens of ways today as well. I have much to be thankful for.

A few pictures from the day:

Visiting Ariane in Matagalpa

On Sunday afternoon we drove north to visit Ariane, an MCC service worker, in Matagalpa.

Matagalpa is Nicaragua's second largest city (although much smaller than Managua - Matagalpa's population is around 150,000 according to Wikipedia) and sits over 2,000 ft above sea level, which offers a very pleasant climate. 

Not long after arriving, we lost electricity which continued for quite a few hours, which was much more than Ariane says is typical for the area.  As a result, I don't have many pictures from our arrival in Matagalpa. After supper, we went out to a little ice cream shop called "Kiss Me" that Ariane told us was the best in the country.  They were running off a generator as the blackout continued.  The ice cream was indeed delicious.

The following morning we rode a hour out into the countryside with other staff from the partner organization, CIEETS (roughly translated as the Ecumenical Center for Theological and Social Studies). We would be joining them as they would give a workshop/training among farmers on ideas related to understanding and coping with climate change.  Before the workshop began, we took a moment to explore down the road some.  This was Lia and Silas's first time really in the "campo" (countryside). Below, Lia plays with sticks.

Matagalpa's location means they have different conditions than other areas that I've already mentioned in the dry corridor.  Still, they have had noticeable changes in when the seasonal rains began, and how consistent or inconsistent the rains are. In the picture below, Lucrecia of CIEETS leads the meeting and Ariane supports the conversation from up front.  Meanwhile, Lia and Silas did pretty well at sitting and coloring while we listened to the presentation/conversation, and shared their paper and crayons with the other children who were there.  Later they need some breaks; we did some more walking and chased the soccer ball down a hill.

Another part of the work CIEETS does is with seed banks.  The idea with seed banks is to store local seed, and when needs to be distributed, the recipient agrees to return 2 lbs for every 1 lb of seed.  Below, some silos.

After the morning's session, we enjoyed lunch with the CIEETS staff and the session participants.  Here's Lia and her coloring friends.  Lia was also happy to find that, inside the house, children were enjoying watching Paw Patrol, which she and Silas currently enjoy through Netflix. As a side note, they've got most of the theme song memorized (in Spanish) by now, which impresses me.

Some more scenery on the way back to Matagalpa:

Back in Matagalpa, at the CIEETS office where Lucrecia and Ariane work when they're not out and about in the campo.

Unfortunately, our time in Matagalpa took a sour turn as we were on way back into town.  Silas developed a fever which left him tired and cranky.  Lia and I went to find him some Tylenol and juice, came back to Ariane's apartment, and then set out walking again to find the "Monkey Park," where we were hoping to find playgrounds and, actually, some real monkeys too. We were disappointed to learn that the park was closed until the end of the month for repairs.  We met a kind older gentleman and his grandson who were learning the same thing, and the offered to give us a ride to the other park in Matagalpa.  We rode with them to the other park and found out this park was also closed and would open again tomorrow.  Lia was disappointed and frustrated.  We went back to the house, where Silas was still sick and cranky, pulled out the laptop and let the kids watch some Paw Patrol. Thank you, Netflix.

The next morning, we would leave Matagalpa as Ariane would head out to the campo with CIEETS in a different direction.  Here we are in front of Ariane's apartment, before leaving for Managua:

Lia was hoping to get back to the "other park" to spend some time before hitting the road.  We drove over and learned (at 7:45 am) that it wouldn't open until 10:00.  Once again, disappointed, I told them that we would go to the Luis Alfonso park (a.k.a. the splash park) back in Managua. 

It should be noted as well that Rebekah took her first turn at driving on the return trip, first putting in some highway miles and then driving across Managua back to our house in Linda Vista Norte. She'll sleep well tonight.

Special thanks to Ariane (and the CIEETS folks as well) for the warm welcome and the good work that is happening around Matagalpa!