Christmas 2007 to New Year 2008

It's 21.40 on 31st December 2007 after the strangest Christmas we've ever known. Even now it's just struck me that this will be the first New Year we've known that won't be ushered in with the chimes of Big Ben and the strains of Auld Lang Syne on the radio or TV.

Christmas morning dawned sunny and hot after the first Advent-less approach to Christmas and Christmas Eve without a Midnight Christmas Communion in 38 years. We awoke to a house without electricity or running water as the power cable from the hydro-scheme had been severed by termites, and the water is dependent on an electric water pump. We were very grateful to have a cooker running on bottled gas as this meant we could still entertain the guests we had invited to share our frozen chicken from Kampala.

The Christmas morning service began at around 10.00 am. Two-and-a-half hours later it was still going strong, although by that time the spirit of Christmas joy had been somewhat stifled by prayers against 'the spirit of disco-dancing' and a condemnation of condoms! We, very wickedly, left the service before the results of the competitive Christmas collection (don't ask) had been announced!

This service at Kuluva was a far cry from the 3-hour Carol Service we attended at St Philip's in Arua the previous Sunday - a service of 11 Lessons and Carols with added contributions from the children and a hilarious Nativity Play by the Young People. The blond-haired, blue-eyed female baby doll which took the part of the baby Jesus was an entirely new interpretation of the Christmas story for us, and one of Herod's guards was truly terrifying. I had been invited to preach at the service by a colleague from Ringili, and finally got up to preach after two-and-a-half hours of the service in a highly excited atmosphere following this performance and a truly lively rendering of Joy to the World. I really enjoyed the service, and the opportunity to preach a Christmas message made me feel it really was Christmas. Unfortunately Anne's experience was less good because she didn't have such a good view as me, and was also sitting in front of the PA loudspeakers. The average age of the 200+ strong congregation was probably less than 30. It was an encouraging celebration and a good start to Christmas.

Christmas Eve was spent muzungu-style in the grounds of Radio Pacis - the Roman Catholic local radio station. A group of some 50 ex-patriates sang Christmas Carols in candlelight around an absolutely enormous Christmas tree growing there, festooned in literally thousands of lights. Singing was followed by food accompanied by 20 different flavours of ice cream produced by our American host who runs the radio station. It was a good 'do', but it was a universe away from Uganda.

The start of Christmas Day we've already described - but it did improve. We spoke to our children on the phone before we ate, then had a truly scrumptious Christmas dinner with our 3 German and 2 Scottish guests from Kuluva. We all wore silly paper hats and sang around the dinner table before they left us to a quiet end of the day with an hour's worth of Christmas Carols on the remaining battery in our laptops, and (but don't tell anyone) a couple of glasses of wine from a bottle we'd smuggled in from Kampala.

So now we await the New Year. We can hear strains of a Lugbara knees-up drifting up to us from Kuluva Chapel. We'll probably go down there later. But then tomorrow morning a service at which I am preaching. New Year is at least as big as Christmas here. And the only real negative on the horizon is having to have our rear shock-absorbers renewed. They were finished off on our 1000 km tour of the diocese before Christmas.

We are quite looking forward to a period with slightly fewer new experiences than we've had over the past 2-3 weeks, just to re-group. But the New Year promises to be challenging and stimulating.

We pray that you will all know God's blessing in the year ahead.