One holiday that Ugandans know how to celebrate is New Year’s Eve. My goodness. Christmas can go by without notice but New Year’s…It was as if the whole country was in Kampala celebrating all night long! Almost all the churches plan an overnight service of praise, prayer, and preaching from around 9 in the night to 5 in the morning. There’s nothing like stopping at midnight – people just expect to spend the whole night out.
Michael and I spent it with some friends at Watoto Church in Kampala (former Kampala Pentecostal Church), only staying until about 2:30 in the AM. It was an incredible way to bring in the New Year. This church was planted by an American missionary couple and it’s doing great things around Uganda. The church itself was packed with thousands of people inside so we ended up with the masses outside in the parking lot following the service on the big screen. The praise and worship there was almost purely western with a few African songs in the mix. It was a nice taste of home as I felt like I was back in chapel at IWU - the major difference being that these people know how
to dance!Christmas on the other hand didn’t seem to come with all the bells and whistles that I’m used to. Decorations are sparse and don’t appear until the day has almost arrived. In fact, we put up decorations at my mother-in-law’s house ON Christmas day. Most people don’t do Christmas trees, probably because they’re all fake and could only be chosen by Charlie Brown himself as a sufficient decoration. Anyways, I’m not trying to bash Uganda for lacking Christmas Spirit, but I just couldn’t help but notice how toned down it was compared to how we do it in the US.
Here, Christmas is about spending time with family and going to church. I think people exchange small gifts here and there, but no massive gift exchanges for the most part. Michael and I along with many of his brothers and sisters, travelled to Iganga to spend Christmas with Mom and Step-Dad. We basically went to spend time together as a family and eat a lot of food! It was a great weekend to relax and take village tours, visiting other friends and relatives. We spent almost every evening gathered around the laptop enjoying episodes of “Tom & Jerry” – a show which is apparently a hit in any culture! We also ate all the mangos we could possibly stuff ourselves with…well, at least those who were used to eating them. Most people had around 10 each. I managed to get 4 down – quite an achievement for me!
On Christmas Day, everyone goes to church. In the village where we were, Michael was the preacher of the day! I was so proud of him. He simply felt like it was something he needed and wanted to do, and asked the reverend of the church if it was okay. The reverend was
actually relieved because he wasn’t feeling well and was looking for someone to preach in his place. The church also responded very positively. They were very attentive, and some said it was the first Sunday all year that they hadn’t fallen asleep in church!I definitely missed being with family back home – spending Christmas Eve at Uncle Tom & Aunt Kay’s, eating the best Chicken Noodle Soup on the planet! Missing these traditions is inevitable, but it was also refreshing to celebrate in a different way and spend time with my new family.
Now we are just looking forward to what God has in store for the coming year! Be blessed in 2010!
