Diversion: Christmas in Congo

For the last 3 posts, I have been sharing our early days in Congo on this blog. Today I want to share with you what a typical Christmas in Congo is like. Transport yourself to another world, the Third World country of the Democratic Republic of Congo, formerly Zaire, formerly Belgian Congo, and see that many of our traditions will not find themselves out there whatsoever. No Christmas trees. No decorations. No Santa. No gifts most likely. No snow. No malls. Try to start with a clean slate, which means erasing your childhood and adult memories that equate Christmas to you. As best as I know how, I will describe to you the surroundings that you would wake up to on Christmas morning. Here we go!


Christmas in Congo

Your bedroom consists of one small wooden bed frame covered with a grass-filled "mattress" gathered by you on a dry, sunny day. No dresser or chest of drawers enhances your bedroom, just a small trunk with yours and your siblings clothes locked inside; no comforters or soft sheets to cover up with, just maybe clothes or old rags. If you have visited the local boutique lately, you may have been able to purchase a small, lacey curtain to cover your screen-torn window.

The living room consists of a couple of unupholstered wooden chairs surrounding a small coffee table, and off to the side of the room is a somewhat larger table and two more chairs used for guests who drop by to visit and chat. The coffee table may boast a daily crocheted by the woman of the house after attending the Women's Literacy school where she has learned to sew, write her name, and read the Bible for the very first time. Some of the walls may be lined with Penney's catalogue pages with which children have been rewarded for memorizing Scripture in Sunday School. No Christmas tree will light up the room, and no decorations will give a festive mood.

There is no inside plumbing, no closets, no picture windows. The home will either be made of cement block, approximately 600 square feet with a tin roof, or it will be a mud/stick dwelling with a thatched grass roof, about 400 square feet. As many as four children will sleep in one bed. The average-sized family has eight to ten children because so many die in childbirth or from malaria, typhoid, measles, pneumonia, or who knows what. So your home may have three bedrooms with four or five kids in two of the bedrooms and a third "master bedroom" for the parents.

Your feet will not feel the comfort of rugs, but instead a dirt floor. There will be no pretty dishes, no wallpaper, no paint on the walls, few towels, no TV, and no kitchen cupboards. An outside kitchen, which is really more like a smoke house, sits close by. That way, if the kitchen catches on fire, at least the whole house doesn't burn down. meals are cooked over an open fire, no ovens, unless you have had one made out of mud brick. In either case, the aroma of Christmas cookies will not entice your senses.

Stark is the atmosphere, drab the surrounds, but stout are many hearts because their faith in Jesus is rich and firm. However, Christmas is still Christmas, and children are still children. you can make a big difference in the lives of these hard-working men and women of Laban and their precious families. One option we offer every Christmas is what we call The Dream Package. For $300 you can feed an entire family of 8 to 10, consisting of a meal of beef, rice, gravy, bread, chicken with palm oil and tomato sauce, luku (like a thick, thick porridge), greens, beans and cokes for the family. This Dream Package also includes a new cloth for the mother to make her a dress, a new pair of shoes or shirt for the father, clothes for each of the children as well as a toy. Will you pray about how you can make their Christmas Day special.

Your kindness will brighten up the dullness and flood their lives with holiday cheer and the love of Christ.

Blessings!