Christmas Delayed

Mid-March, and great anticipation as we visit the Post Office in Arua to see if there is anything in our PO Box. Often there are letters, or our Guardian Weekly, but at times there’s a slip of paper, a real source of excitement because it means the Post Office have received a parcel or packet for us.

And so it was this day in the middle of March. It always takes some time for the PO officials to rummage their way through the piles of parcels and large envelopes, sometimes having to go through them several times. But always, eventually, they come up with the goods, today a large brown envelope – not the DVDs or chocolates we’ve been waiting for, but exciting none the less, and more so because we have no idea what it is.

We always wait until we get home to open these treasures – it heightens the level of anticipation. So having arrived home, we made a cup of coffee and proceeded to investigate the contents of the envelope. From the envelope that had travelled so many thousands of miles from the UK, we pulled a large sheaf of coloured card and paper, and emblazoned on the front were the words “Happy Christmas”.

The parcel was a collection of Christmas cards ‘To the children at the Church of Kuluva from the children at St Denys Junior Church.’ The Ugandan Postal Service had truly excelled themselves – only two-and-a-half months late!

What should we do with these cards? Leave them until next Christmas? Just hand them over to the Pastor to make a decision? Forget about them? None of these options seemed right. But with the cards there was a poem ‘Jesus and the Donkey’. As far as I could recall, the only place the Bible actually mentions a donkey and Jesus in the same verses is on Palm Sunday: ‘Jesus sent two disciples....”Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there with her colt........the disciples went and did as Jesus instructed them. They brought the donkey and the colt, placed their cloaks on them, and Jesus sat on them.......”’

Of course, that was it! Why not bring Christmas into Palm Sunday and Easter? Why not wish the Children at Kuluva a Happy Christmas, invite them to welcome Jesus on Palm Sunday as King, just as the crowds of Jerusalem welcomed him, not to forget him as quickly as they did, but so that he could be born anew in their hearts to be their king for life?

So here we are on the day before Palm Sunday, and that’s what we’ll be doing tomorrow. Another bridge built across the miles from our home church in Leicester to our home church in Kuluva and a bridge across the Church Seasons to celebrate the greatest bridge of all from God to each one of us.