Feliz Natal!

Oi, todos! Tudo bem? Hoje estou com saudade para meus amigos e minhas familias no Brasil. Estou achando sobre Natal para eles. Eu fiquei triste porque eles sao muito especial para mim, mas eu nao posso emborar ai.

Hello, everyone! How are you? Today, I am missing my friends and my family (adopted) in Brazil. I am think about Christmas for them. I became sad because they are very special to me, but I cannot be there. So, maybe we could talk a little about Christmas in Brazil. The tradition of my host family is that they will go to Christmas Eve service at 8 or 9 p.m. and return home around 11 to have their midnight feast, open presents, etc. late into the night.

My American family will be attending church at my parents' church, where we grew up, perhaps for the last time, as Dad is retiring and they are planning to build a house in another town closer to the grandkid. After our candlelight service, around 7:30 p.m. it starts, we will return home and perhaps watch a movie or read, then go to bed, get up and open presents on Christmas morn, but usually we have breakfast first. My mother insists. When we were younger, forget about it. We woke them up early and tore into those presents. But my Mom has trained the grandkid to wait. And so, unless it's under the tree and unwrapped, he does. Breakfast will be Swedish tearing (from Mom's cultural background), a sausage and egg caserole which is fabulous, and eggnog or orange juice. Sometimes we also have a frozen fruit salad as well.

Then it's time for the greed! HEH HEH HEH. I am having a hard time getting enthusiastic about Christmas this year. It has been so hard for me. I lost my second fiance in five years. And this time, she broke it off, and I have no idea why, except, by the way she did it, I know she is not for me. Very selfish person. I am so in debt from the seminary degree that I am not even using, that I can't fulfill my dream and hit the mission field. I feel like I have not accomplished much at 35, and yet I have been to Africa 4 times, Brazil twice, Europe several times, and taught and performed music, I had a national Christian single that was in the top 200 Christian radio stations and still gets airplay. I have released two albums, written songs that are sung in churches around the world in several languages. But I am not where I wanna be. And I am alone without children. And I just am losing hope about that. I am frustrated that God gave me the desire for these things yet He keeps allowing me to fail in these areas. It just doesn't seem loving to me. So I guess, if you pray, you can pray for me about that. Because I am really angry about it. And I don't know what to do.

Anyway, I didn't plan on writing about this here, but oh well, holiday nostalgia. Hey, I'm not even sure that many people read my rantings on here anyway. Just know of one or two. So, I hope your Holidays are blessed and great! May God richly bless you in the year to come! Mawu nayra wo ka ka ka!