LEBANON (MNN) — Imagine explaining the gift of salvation to people who have never given or received a gift.That’s the situation Victorious Mercy Lebanon I faced this recently.
For celebrations and gifts
Nuna with Victorious Mercy was teaching Syrian refugee children about celebration and the birth of Christ at their school. She began the lesson by asking her students to talk about the different gifts she had received. No one had an example!
Nuna soon realized that these children had never celebrated a birthday and rarely had big celebrations. The closest thing would be a feast on a holy day.
Nuna says: “Even the teachers who said they didn’t come here during the war… had never celebrated a birthday before they came to our classrooms, and they had never celebrated a birthday in their lives. . I asked the teacher, “Why don’t you do this?” She said, “That’s not in our culture.”
This culture clash forced Nuna to make some quick changes to her lessons. Much of the language that Christians typically use to explain salvation is foreign to these children. If you’ve never received a free gift, it doesn’t mean much.
(Image credit: Ahmed Akacha from Pexels)
“Just explaining the gift of Christmas to them was harder than I expected. I was expecting to just talk about Jesus as a gift to humanity coming to save us, but I We simply focused on enjoying giving to others, and of course we got to the point where God gave his only begotten Son.”
New focus this year
Over the next year, Triumphant Mercy plans to focus on celebration and gift-giving within the classroom, as gifts are very rare in this student culture. They already celebrate children’s birthdays, but this year they will discuss the motives for giving gifts, the reaction of the recipient, as well as celebrations to commemorate important occasions and add joy to life.
“I think people need to understand that God loved festivals. He instituted celebrations, just like wedding celebrations are long. The festival will last a long time. The tabernacle will last a long time. It was a big party, and God loves a celebration.”
This idea that God institutes a celebration and wants His people to rejoice is a strange concept to many who come from Syriac culture. They experienced a lot of pain in the war, but more than that, without Jesus they miss out on the underlying joy that Christ brings.
“We believe that wherever we are, whoever we are, whether we are refugees or Lebanese, whether we are poor or not, we have the joy of Christ to give to our society and to those around us. It doesn’t matter. There is joy within us. There is hope within us. There is celebration within us and we cannot depend on circumstances. Everything will work out perfectly and It’s not because we can celebrate now because everything is better. No, we celebrate simply because Christ was born and we’re happy that he came to live with us. He is Emmanuel. He is with us. That’s why we celebrate.”
Let’s participate
Victorious Mercy has already seen children respond to the gifts of Christ as they continue to explore gift giving. Pray that God would open the hearts of children, parents, and teachers to understand God’s gift in salvation. For more information about Victorious Mercy, click here.
Image courtesy of Antoni Shkraba Productions pexel.