I realize we're like, way past it already, and a Valentines Day post would be much more appropriate, but I haven't posted since November (oops...) so I'm going to go ahead and say a very very late Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you from Turkey! I hope that the advent season was an incredibly blessed time for each of you filled with carols, movies, lights, cookies, ugly sweaters, loved ones, and most of all, encountering Jesus in new and special ways.
Christmas in Turkey kinda blows because, well, it isn't celebrated here. Go outside in December and it feels no different than any other month. No Santa Clauses ringing bells. No Christmas carols playing in the malls. No gaudily lit houses. No jittery excitement in the air. The 25th comes and goes just like any other day. In fact, many people don't even realize what Christmas is; on New Year's Eve multiple Turks wished me a "Happy Christmas." This is really disappointing to me because I love all that stuff. Christmas is far and away my favorite time of the year. To not have it all around me (Billy Mack anyone? )is kinda a real downer! And why not kick me while I'm down; it's also the time of year that I miss family and friends the most.
That being said...I had an extremely special Christmas this year. All the complaining I just did about how Christmas in Turkey is the worst? That's exactly why it was a good Christmas. Christmas is harder here. It didn't just happen around me as I went along for the ride. I just didn't wake up one morning to faint Christmas tunes trickling down the stairs while the smell of sugar cookies and frosting wafted into my big nose. If I was going to have a Christmas season this year, I was going to have to make it myself.
So I did. While the outside world went on with life as normal, my roommates and I transformed our house with trees, lights, and decorations. We played carols nonstop. Every night we watched a Christmas movie. We even made sugar cookies (I was pretty money with the cookie cutters). And every night before bed, with the light from my advent candles, I read from an advent book. The result was that I experienced Jesus and the joy of advent in ways I never had. It was more real to me, more personal. It was special.
The advent season was, in many ways, a microcosm of my life here in Turkey. I grew up in a devout Christian home, I had an amazing church family around me, I attended a Christian college, and looking back, I could, in some ways, just sit back and let my relationship with Jesus happen. Now, I am living in the largest unreached nation in the world, and I am constantly surrounded by darkness. Jesus, like Christmas, isn't celebrated here, and he can be hard to find. Meanwhile, Satan is very obvious, and often seems to roam unchecked. Here, I have to really take it upon myself to intentionally seek out Christ, or it doesn't happen at all. The result has been that my faith has grown up in many ways. God works differently in everyone's life, and for me, he has become much more real in a seemingly godforsaken land than he ever was at a conference surrounded by thousands of worshipping brothers and sisters. I've experienced Jesus and the joy of life with him in ways I never had before. Jesus is more real to me, more personal.
More special.