Christmas and a Brackenhurst Retreat

Puppies born on our
compound this month.

Looking back on the December 21 entry I realize it will take a while and some mental gymnastics to recount everything that has happened in the past 12 days. It could easily fill two posts, but in the moment, time did not allow any opportunity to sit down and write anything down before now.

We are back in Arusha, the first weekend after the Christmas/New Year's holidays. The kids are starting school again on Tuesday and they are doing the last of their homework assignments they were given over the break. I am a bit sympathetic to their complaints as I do not remember getting much homework over Christmas break in the past, but they get about a month off, so I guess it is necessary. David had a long math test and 5 essays, and Oren had Maths, Geography and a number of paintings and drawings to complete for Art.

Looking back from the last entry, I would note some of the highlights of the days leading up to and through Christmas. One of the big ones that took quite a bit of time as the day approached (Dec 23rd) was our Christmas choir concert, a lessons and carols service two days before Christmas. Despite practicing weekly since September, we still required several extra rehearsals in the last couple of days, particularly since one of the pieces involved a cello, trumpet, piano, speaker, and soprano soloist, none of whom had been able to practice with the choir until 2 days before we were presenting. Despite the fact that it felt a bit stressful and required a lot of extra work, it really seemed to pay off at the end. The music really sounded quite good. My particular favorite was a piece called "O Come Redeemer of the Earth" which had a Celtic sound, very haunting and beautiful.

Our involvement with the adult choir was only the beginning of our responsibilities in the service as Rebecca was also invited to preach. She did a powerful sermon on the Incarnation: "God was born!" a mantra she repeated numerous times in the sermon. It was a joyful message as well, and she began a light-heartedly recounting that she had told Oren she was preaching for this service and wanted his input. Oren responded by saying "Mom, most of the people coming to this service may only go to church once per year. So you'd better not be boring!!"

Oren was right. The church was packed to the rafters thanks to many general announcements through local community web forums and social media.

I had agreed to have our Sunday School children sing 2 songs as well and we had been practicing during Sunday School for the past 4 weeks. It is always a bit risky to know whether the kids would show up for an evening service with their parents, but I did give parents a lot of warning about the evening and the kids' participation. We prepared 2 songs: One Swahili one called Kristo Kazalewa (Christ is born). The other was a Calypso called "See Him Lying on a Bed of Straw". I took a chance on the second with two kids singing solos on two verses (David and his friend Sammy) and a small trio of girls singing on another verse. On the evening of the service they were all there without a minute to spare, so did not get to run through, but sung it beautifully none the less. (Here is a web link. Sorry my voice is a bit loud because I am right next to the camera).

Our final contribution to the evening was a large gingerbread church, we had made the prior afternoon. I am happy to say it was completely demolished and eaten within 15 minutes after the service. (It is great to make them but they are too big to keep around the house and nibble on through the holidays, especially with the ants.)

Making a gingerbread structure of some kind is a tradition for us. Last year we tried a train, but decided to go back to the more traditional building as sugar in the tropics tends to melt over time and run, and eventually fall apart. We made a very solid church and steeple using magnet blocks as templates for our patterns. I found a very good construction gingerbread recipe which made a good solid, non-leavening building material. We also improved the royal icing by mixing it with an electric mixer which stiffened it up very nicely. I made some improvements, the main one was the addition of treacle, instead of brown sugar, and chai spice instead of ginger, so there was cardamon, clove, and cinnamon as well in the mix. The gingerbread was actually delicious. We also use a trick to epoxy the sides together by using molten sugar for construction (a bit dangerous) but much sturdier than using icing for bonding the sides. David helped with the construction and all of us decorated it. It really looked great and we had a great time working together to do it.

 I was still going into the office even on the 24th, and there is a fair amount to do in December, unfortunately, because we receive reports about mid-month that need to be reviewed and processed. We also helped Jessica recover some things, like buying a new phone after her theft ordeal that was detailed in the last blog.

But by late afternoon we started our Christmas eve ritual. Rebecca worked with the kids to bake cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning and many to give away. She made several dozen with David and Oren's help. We also listened to the Festival of 9 Lessons and Carols by the Kings College Choir on the BBC. It was perfect timing for us, in the late afternoon. We also called family in the US to wish them Merry Christmas. When we had put all of our gifts under the tree it looked pretty full thanks to the visit of Grandma Jean and Papa Dave earlier in December who sherpa'd over gifts from family in the US.

The last thing before bed was to watch The Polar Express. I think the appeal is the look of a cold snowy Christmas. It is quite a contrast to the warm weather here. Although we continued to have heavy rains through the month of December.

Christmas morning was fabulous as always. Somehow I was the first down and awake, but David followed shortly thereafter. We had a great time opening gifts as a family and felt very blessed to have family members send us a number of excellent board games that we really wanted to play here including Bohnanza, Quacks of Quedlinburg, and Castles of Mad King Ludwig. We had played several rounds of each by the end of the day.

Christmas dinner was unique this year in that we did not go to anyone's house. Instead, our Bible study small group all met at a safari resort called Rivertrees. It has beautiful grounds and offered a buffet. A group of about 20 of us gathered on a table set on the lawn under a large tree. The scene was completed by a troop of colobus monkeys that decided to pass through above us. It was a great time to be together and it is amazing how much time you have to talk and do things with the kids when you are not spending hours preparing or cleaning up for a meal. It was a real treat and a great time of fellowship.

Oren and David's best friends are Harry and Sammy Their family is from Australia, and Mike and Katie are good friends of ours. It was great to see them having a good time together. Oren and David gave them a book of poetry by Shel Silverstein (A Light in the Attic) which they all sat around in twos and read at different times during the day.

This was not the last we were to see of our Australian friends over the holidays though. Thanks to their recommendation, we decided to go to a retreat week at a place outside of Nairobi called Brackenhurst. It is a large campus/convention center with places to stay, eat and meet. It also has beautiful grounds and lush flowering gardens. The whole place sits amidst a large tea plantation which is quite picturesque.

Our family left for the retreat a day early so we could spend a day in Nairobi. We had nostalgia for staying at the Amani Gardens (formerly Mennonite Guest House) which was a frequent waypoint when we traveled back and forth to Burundi and other places. We also wanted to see some of the new malls in Nairobi.

We decided to take a chance and drive. It would be our first time crossing an international border by private car since moving to Tanzania. We did some advance prep to be sure we had all the right documentation and only had a small issue at the border as we did not have the original registration document but instead a certified copy. they did let us through though. The time at the border took less than an hour. The whole trip to Nairobi takes about 6 from Arusha. We arrived in the afternoon and made our first stop at a mall called "the hub". It was actually very nice and our favorite place was the bookstore where we bought about $100 worth of books. Oren got most of the rest of the Tintin collection we were missing, and David got Diary of a Wimpy Kid series books. I picked up a copy of Hemmingway's "The Snows of Kilimanjaro". (I had just finished Delia Owens "Where the Crawdads Sing", a great read!)

We continued on to the guesthouse and got there in the evening. Rebecca and I have both been there in the last year but it was the first time in over 5 years for the kids. David remembered nothing of it. Oren did remember the big swing. We enjoyed a relaxing evening and shot some baskets on the court they have, and had pizza from their pizza oven. We also played Bohnanza, one of our Christmas games.

The next day we got up and headed out to Brackenhurst. We did stop briefly at 2 Rivers mall to see how it compared. It was impressive because it has a large ferris wheel and other amusement park rides. We continued on to our final destination on got there around 3pm. We registered with many other arrivees and found our room.

There were about 4 families from Tanzania we knew as well as many other families with kids we did not know. Oren and David immediately found their own age-mates out on the main lawn and started hanging out and talking. They were thrilled to have so many new and old friends around. (They did not even miss having screens for the whole week!)

We made good connections with the adults as well. The retreat has programmed and free elements. There was a morning time of worship and hearing a guest speaker, then free time in the afternoons with optional activities. On day one, we participated in a high ropes course that was on the campus. Great fun and exercise. On day 2 we took a walk through the tea fields to the old plantation house and heard a lecture about the production of tea. It was fascinating and I was amazed how labor-intensive tea production is.

On the last day, the afternoon activity included camel rides and a giant blow-up water slide for kids. We also organized a great game of ultimate frisbee in the afternoon. That was new year's eve and we had a talent show, evening service, and then close to midnight we all went around a bonfire and roasted marshmallows. The fire was appropriate because the weather is quite cold in the morning and evening as Brackenhurst is at high altitude.

Rebecca and I really enjoyed all of it, especially because all of the lectures and times of reflection included a kids program, so we adults could have time away from them. That was probably one of the best parts of the retreat. Rebecca also brought her guitar and I brought my djembe and we participated in leading worship several times. It was great to have some adult interaction and serious spiritual reflection without having to parent at every moment. It was also great to be with our friends from Tanzania and to meet many other people doing similar things. It was a very encouraging experience.

We drove home on Friday, New Year's Day. We stopped at the Hub mall once more for some hiking boots, it has an amazing sports shop called Decatholon there where you can get very reasonably priced sports and camping equipment. Then we headed home. We hit the border in the early evening and there was no one going through at that time on New Year's day. It took us about 15 minutes to get through and we drove back to Arusha in the dark and got home by 8pm.

We will seriously have to decide if we want to make this an annual thing but it was appreciated and needed this year.