Dear Friends & Family,
Greetings from Kenya! We hope you have a wonderful Christmas and a happy New Year. We pray that in this time of celebrating the birth of the Hope of the world you would experience peace and joy in the midst of all the bustling activity.
We just finished celebrating our first Christmas in Africa, and here are our top 10 new things for us in celebrating Christmas here.
1. We hear "Happy Christmas" instead of "Merry Christmas" (John Lennon must have been big here).
2. It was 80 degrees today, and it's the middle of summer. We hear folks back home are freezing cold and making snowmen.
3. Most people here have never seen snow, except on Mt. Kenya.
4. Nairobi's population has dwindled seemingly in half the past couple weeks, as many people go "up-country" (pretty much anywhere outside of Nairobi) to visit family.
5. Kenyans often think of December as a month to be "thankful" (Americans usually think of November & Thanksgiving).
6. Cooking a nice Christmas meal is a bit of a challenge when the power keeps going out (thankfully for us it came back on just in time).
7. Learning how to cook recipes with "high altitude" adjustments.
8. Starting a new family tradition of root beer floats on Christmas Day (too hot for hot cocoa here).
9. We love technology and are thankful to be able to video call on the computer with family on Christmas Day.
10. Instead of NFL playoffs and college football bowl season, the big sporting interest here is the English Barclays Premier League (a.k.a., British soccer). Turns out a guy I knew in elementary school in Ohio is a star goalie for one of the teams.
Peace,
The Kenya Mears-kats
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