When Christmas Took The Long Way Around..

There are days here that feel like survival.

And then there are days when something softer slips in through the cracks.

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Christmas came in January

Not because we planned it that way. But because the boat was delayed. And then the rains came — and when the rains come here, they do not politely mist.

So when the gifts finally arrived, long after December 25th had passed, we made a decision.

We would pretend.

We woke the kids up early and told them Santa finally made it.

I don’t know if they believed us.

But they loved the idea that Santa had to deal with muddy roads and transportation delays just like they do. That even magic had to bump along these roads and wait its turn at the water crossing.

They ran outside half-awake and completely ready.

We played games until we were tired. They ate treats we normally wouldn’t justify buying. We let them stay up far too late watching movies. There was popcorn and candy and hot chocolate. There were squeals. There was that rare kind of contentment that settles over a room when no one is thinking about tomorrow.

From a distance, it looked like a normal Christmas morning.

But it wasn’t.

It came after flooding. After waiting.

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Absence is not abandonment 

Groups haven’t been coming for years because of the political violence. The chairs that once held visitors sit empty. The hugs that filled this space have been replaced with distance.

And yet.

Tom and Sharon refuse to let December pass unnoticed. Year after year, relentlessly and passionately, they pursue Christmas for these kids and for our staff. They gather gifts. They recruit an army. They remember names. They fill stockings even when our budget barely stretches to rice and beans.

Watching kids clutch their treasures, I had that end-of-a-Christmas-movie feeling. The kind where you’re smiling, but your throat feels tight. The kind that makes you think about your own childhood — about the effort behind the magic you never saw.

The truth is, we cannot afford the extra. Most months it is everything we can do to cover the essentials. And some months, even the essentials feel uncertain.

It is easy to quote the verses about not worrying about tomorrow. About God providing for today. And I believe that.

But I also know there are nights when bellies rumble because nothing was eaten that day. I know the look on a child’s face when soap feels like a gift — because it means they get to feel clean — but you cannot snuggle with soap at night. You cannot build a memory around it.

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Because maybe it isn’t that the words don’t matter. 

They do.

• The scriptures we cling to when the pantry looks thin.
• The prayers whispered over sleeping children.
• The quiet assurance that God sees what the world does not.

Those things matter deeply.

But they are not the only things that matter.

And yet, the silly things.

• The decorations.
• The treats.
• The staying up too late.
• The pretend story about Santa trading his sleigh for a tap tap and a bus because the river was too high.

They interrupt survival mode. They carve out a memory not shaped by scarcity.

None of it fixed the instability. None of it guaranteed tomorrow.

But for one night, joy was louder than lack.

And maybe that is the tension.

We pray for daily bread. We stretch what we have. We trust.

And still, sometimes, joy shows up disguised as candy, wrapping paper, and a muddy bus ride from the North Pole.

Not to solve everything.

But to remind us these kids were made for more than just making it through.

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Worth every mile

That morning I walked through one more time before we woke all the kids up. I couldn’t help but smile.

It takes effort to create joy in hard places.

And we did it.

Christmas came in January this year.

Proof that sometimes love takes the long way around — and is worth every mile.