Christmas at Faith Alive

On December 19th, the Faith Alive Family held a carnival for their orphans and vulnerable children at the Faith Alive recreation center and car park. This was made possible through the generosity of many supporters of Faith Alive here in America. Dr. Chris reports that the celebration was a huge success and was one of the happiest moments for him and his family.

Merry Christmas Nigeria

Tonight is Christmas Eve - the celebration of the birth of Our Lord. Last weekend, despite the blizzard, some of our parish still made it to church and brought in their Advent Conspiracy boxes. There were some creative ideas and boxes!

I have loved our Advent Conspiracy series. I really slowed down this Advent and tried to keep focusing on what Advent is really about. I only spent one day in the shopping mall. It was crazy crowded. Merchandise was strewn around the stores in disarray. It made me feel sad.

I pray that many parishioners decided to spend less on material things and give more relationally. Hopefully they donated the savings to our Advent Conspiracy program to bring clean water to Abuja and Jos. Our family is giving relational gifts to our parents. They have been saying for years to please stop giving them gifts. We are so blessed to have all that we have. It only takes a little from each one of us working together to provide clean water to the wonderful people of Abuja and Jos.

The two trips I have taken over the past two summers to Faith Alive in Jos has changed my life. My faith was deepened. My perspective on material wealth has changed and my heart grew bigger. I will forever be grateful to our church for allowing me to go, but most of all for the people in Jos. Even though they suffer and are very poor, they gave me their love and happily shared all they had with me and the rest of my team.

Tonight we celebrate God giving the gift of His Son to us - the greatest gift of all. May everyone here and in Nigeria accept this great gift and experience peace and joy this Christmas.

"The angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid; for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For today in the city of David, a Savior has been born for you who is Christ and Lord'."

Luke 2:10-11


Teresa Pompa

Advent Conspiracy

Lack of clean water is the leading cause of death in under resourced countries. 1.8 million people die every year from water borne illnesses. That includes 3,900 children a day. We can help.

NATIVITY:NIGERIA will help provide clean water to two communities with whom we have developed close relationships over the past 3 years. We will undertake projects at both Anawim Home in Abuja and Faith Alive Hospital in Jos. Find out more by clicking the link below:

http://www.churchnativity.org/water.php

A Different Kind of Love Story

I would like to recognize World AIDS Day. It was on Dec.1. Please see Erika's Blog.

I love the CD message for small group this week. As many of you know, the Advent Conspiracy founders are speaking to us. Some great points from the message are made that I had never thought of. One of them is that the story of Jesus Christ is a love story. We know this but we are in the wrong story when we worship things instead of God. We yearn for Him. We are made to long for Him - to want a relationship with Him, but instead we fill our emptiness with things. We love things. We buy each other gifts of things. Instead of giving them our love and spending quality time with them and really being disciples of Jesus Christ, we run around stores. The high we feel from this is not the Holy Spirit.

Another point made is that the shepherds were told about Jesus Christ. They were an unrecognized group in society. Their status in society was very low. Yet God chose them to announce the birth of His Son to and to lead the way to Him.

I now realize the people in Nigeria we met are the shepherds. They are poor, sick and suffering. They are also stigmatized in society. They are a left out group of people who feel like they don't belong. Yet they are disciples every day by leading the way to Him.

Who did Jesus Christ come for? Not the pious, high ranked people of that culture. He came for the poor, sick and suffering. Those people in that time were thought to be sinners that were cursed by God. The thought was that your status in society was a reflection of your status with God. Of course, that was that culture's view and not God's. The eyes seeing them were not God's. Do we see with our own eyes or the eyes of society? The closer we get to God, the more we can see life through our Savior's eyes.

Nigeria opened up my eyes. So to them I will always be grateful. They helped me see the world through our Savior's eyes. And it isn't very pretty. But the good news Jesus brought wasn't that everything would be pretty. It was that you don't have to die to be saved. We can experience heaven here on earth. The kingdom we thought could only be entered when we go to heaven, was here now. Jesus was coming now. But you have to want to enter His kingdom. You have to believe it is true and make a choice now to turn your life over to Him. Only then can the Holy Spirit enter your heart. Then you will know the greatest joy you have ever felt. And no, He didn't promise it will be perfect while we are here on earth. We will continue to have to suffer. But He said He will walk with us through our suffering and that we can feel His presence now if we choose to. But we have to offer it up to Him.... and trust Him. The Nigerian people I met understand this.

May you all experience this joy this Advent season. Let's make this Christmas about a different kind of love story.

Teresa Pompa

Holiday Shopping Intervention

A holiday story from Pam Mercer, a Home Team member:

Missionaries from Anawim Home returned with tracings of feet and waist measurements for the boys of the St. John Bosco hostel. The goal was to send back a new outfit for each of the boys to wear to mass on Christmas Day, a true treat for them as they don’t get new clothes very often at the orphanage.

After estimating sizes, I headed off on my shopping excursion in search of warm weather clothing for the boys. As it was already late November, finding a selection of shorts ranging in sizes 8-18 seemed like a difficult task. I searched sale racks, clearance items and full price clothing without much luck. Everything was so picked over and choices were few.

While moving throughout the store I noticed shoppers carrying lots of items, most of it merchandized just for the Black Friday shoppers. Shopping for orphans in Nigeria and watching people toss “stuff” in their carts really emphasized for me how commercialized Christmas has become. I felt enlightened and filled with the spirit of Advent Conspiracy, but still had nothing in my cart.

I finally came upon a clearance rack filled with short-sleeved white polo shirts and enough in all of the sizes we needed. Still no shorts, but I was feeling better and decided to take the shirts and head off to another store.

I struck up a conversation with the gentleman who checked me out. He was from Lagos, Nigeria and blessed all of us over and over. He told me that Nigerians don’t worry about the weather and what they wear like we do here. He said pants would be fine instead of shorts, so off I went with a happy heart and tears in my eyes believing that I got in this man’s line for a reason—a divine reason.

Now my job was easy! I picked up 8 pairs of khaki pants, wrapped up the outfits for the boys and boxed them up for their journey to Abuja. When volunteering for this little task of shopping for boys a world away, I had no idea of the spiritual impact it would have on me in my own world.