December 2009

"I’m dreaming of tan Christmas...just like the ones in Africa. Where the sand is so deep and the mosquitos seem to not sleep, but the love…it stretches so wide. Oh, I’m dreaming of a tan Christmas…”

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Welcome to the December 2009 Installment of the Elisabeth Chronicles. I changed the popular Christmas song to be a little more fitting for life here in Senegal. The sand is everywhere and the mosquitos never leave. However, even with those minor inconveniences, I love living here so very much. God has blessed me more than I can imagine this year and I can’t wait to see what He has in store for me next year.

I have been blessed with the opportunity to go back to Alabama for Christmas, which I’m very excited about. It will be very nice to see family and friends again…and even eat American food again.  But even as exciting as that is, I know the real reason for Christmas is not presents, good food, visiting family, etc. The real reason for Christmas is celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ.

And now for a little fun reading…The Birth of Jesus in the Words of my 3rd Graders

Now the clock struck the time that Augustus said he needed to count everybody in his empire. So Joe, which was short for Joseph, took Mary, his fiancee to his family’s city which was Bethlehem. They lived in Nazareth so it was a long ride. Joe and Mary probably rode on donkeys since cars hadn’t been invented yet. Mary was pregnant with God’s son. God was so sweet that he sent his son to our Earth to live and die, even though it made him sad.

When Joe and Mary got to Bethlehem they stopped at a hotel but the man that owned it said he was out of rooms. Then he told them that they could stay in his barn. After they’d tucked all the animals into bed, Mary and Joe were ready to go to bed. But God had other plans for them. Jesus was born that night, but since it was too late to go to a baby store and they probably didn’t have them anyway, Mary wrapped Jesus in a blanket so he was warm and snuggly and put him in a manger, which is a feeding place for animals.

That same night there were shepherds watching their sheep nearby. Angels appeared to the shepherds which probably scared them. But the angels weren’t trying to be scary. They wanted to tell the shepherds that Jesus had been born. When the angels went back to Heaven, the shepherds decided to make a visit to see Jesus. Also there were wise men who came to see Jesus and gave him gifts of gold, cents (frankincense), and a mirror (myrrh). They gave such nice gifts because Jesus was a king. He was a king because he was God’s son.

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For those of you that already support me each month financially, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. If you do not, and would like to, please contact me at enichols85@gmail.com or call my parents at 205-225-0255 and we can tell you how to do so. Any donations you make would be tax-deductible.

Merry Christmas from Africa,

Elisabeth Nichols
enichols85@gmail.com