SUNDAY

I miss Auntie K. I used to go to her home on Sundays, and watch the cat that lives across the street. She went back to the states to be with her family. She's not coming back. She sent my bowl and my mat home with me. How sad is that? So, now Lady doesn't take me there anymore. I have house church at home.
Lady was walking to the store today and got invited to a Christmas Program at a City Harvest Church. The girls (about 25 of them) were from a girl's home for disadvantaged girls. Some are learning to be tailors, and some are learning about computers. Most are orphans. The girls sang a song and did a dance with sticks. Most of the churches are having their Christmas parties now. Lady went to another one last night. The tradition here is to go caroling to all the church members' homes. It takes weeks to do this, in some cases. Our landlord's church caroling team came here last week. We thought they were coming to our home, but they went upstairs. We didn't know how it worked, but someone explained it to Lady. There are lots of Christmas decorations around, but still many, many temples, gurus, and mosques. We have a very large mosque nearby, and hear the call to pray at 5:30 AM, and other times throughout the day. We often pass girls in full burka, with nothing showing but their face, or sometimes only their eyes. Lady speaks to them and they giggle.
So, there's a lot going on this holiday season. It is very different from China. The Christian church there has a Christmas Program, but other than a couple of songs, it really has nothing to do with Christmas. There's no pageant. In China they are really good at having a Christmas celebration without Christ. Here, there are all kinds of programs, but we haven't seen the story of the First Christmas yet, but we do see people freely worshipping the Christ of Christmas. That's different.