Christmas Program Highlights

At 2:00 am on Saturday morning, January 5th, I thought, "we'll never get it all done. There's just too much." Dave had built a temporary wall for the front of the meeting "hall." Seth and Timothy Boyd had built a framework for our night sky. We had hunted and hunted for Christmas lights that were all one color. Finally we found a string, only nine meters long. We had to use the colored ones we bought, too. We placed black plastic over the frame and punched holes in the plastic to let the light shine through. The idea came from the time we spent back in Kansas years ago. We used cardboard boxes to make a "well." (Here's Pavel sitting in the finished well.)But the treats needed to be sacked and the costumes needed to be touched up and the cardboard boxes needed to be painted and the dishes needed to be done and . . . you get the picture. Allona and Vova were sick.

Saturday morning we had Christmas program practice at 10 am. Then our friends stuck around to help. One person burned the trash. Some of the youth helped sack treats.

This is Tolik. Another friend sewed and ironed costumes. We got to bed at a decent time with everything pretty well finished. God had made a way.

Sunday morning we sang Christmas carols. Sunday afternoon we tried to pick everyone up for a last minute practice.
Four pm, program time, came all too soon.

Our program was about the Saviour with promises from Genesis to Revelation. Our skit was about one of the Magi who taught his younger student that there was a time and a purpose for everything. One of this man's companions was full of gloom and sure that nothing good could come from following the star. Another was eager and impulsive. King Herod was wickedly clever. But the wisemen paid attention to the dream that had disturbed the eager Magi from the start and did not return to him. The wisemen meet Jesus in an ordinary home. But God witnesses to their hearts that this is no ordinary child. They return home understanding that this was God's time to send the Saviour of the world.

Several highlights (pictures taken during practice, not the program):

• The senior magi (Seth) teaches his apprentice (Dima), that there's a time for death and sacrifice.

The child acting as Jesus makes a play cross

The magi meet a Hebrew woman (Varduye) and her daughter (Olya) at a well and ask for a drink. She tells them the local beliefs about the star.

The wise men (Artyom, Dima, Dima and Seth) go to King Herod's court

Mary and Joseph (Tanya and Alyosha, a married couple) relaxing

The substitute Herod, when the "real" one had to go home to help his sick wife.

The children sing their special Christmas songs.

The half-sick sound man who played eastern music for the wisemen, thunder for Herod's court and made the birds sing.

The reason for a Christmas program, reaching out to families who don't know God. Dima, in costume is very faithful and shows a real, continued hunger for God. He got his mother and a friend to come to the Christmas program.