As I look back over a few years, there are so many different memories that come to mind. It is very hard to pick just one. Everything from waiting for my Dandy, my dad’s dad, to make it from Riverside Alabama’s Holiday Inn where he worked every Christmas Eve. Playing a Simon Says type game with my Aunt Mary Bell. By the time it was over those playing as well as those watching were laughing hysterically. Then there’s my first Christmas with my beautiful bride of 14 years. We have created countless Christmas memories from our first Christmas with our two beautiful children, to the Christmas she completely shocked and surprised me with four Delta wood shop tools on Christmas morning. All of these memories are wonderful and can never be replaced. Each one brings a smile to my face and a warmth in my heart.
As I have looked at the news, watched commercials on TV, and been out and about over the past few weeks, with all the madness that surrounds this time of year there is still one memory that resounds predominately in my mind. It was the Christmas of 1995 that I spent away in Amsterdam on a mission trip. I was removed from family and friends and the warmth of home, gifts, and sitting up late next to the fire bundled up in an old quilt and watching the fire flicker until dosing off to sleep. I worked with “Youth With A Mission” in the Red Light District in an area filled with beautiful architecture in a quaint coffee house – YWAM had set up a place for teams to minister to the people. I still have no real way to put into words the spiritual heaviness and deep overwhelming feeling of heartache I felt for what I saw in the ally ways and store fronts and those trapped in them. They were the reason I came there to minister. The image of two young girls sitting on the curb shooting heroin into their veins and then dropping the needle to the curb and walking away when they were done. The lingering smell of the hashes bar door swinging open and the waft of marijuana smoke causing me to hold my breath until I could pass by. At the end of each day, I didn’t want to close my eyes to sleep for fear of the images from the day that would possibly be burnt into my mind.
So you might ask why is this a favorite Christmas memory? Well, being in Amsterdam at Christmas only personified the depravity of this world and the desperate need for the baby Jesus that was born so we would have a bridge to our Creator. I came to realize even more that there is hope. While there, I handed out Hersey Chocolate Bars wrapped in red Christmas paper, with a hot cup of coffee, a smile, and the words Jesus loves you. That simple gesture, each time, gave me the opportunity to share one on one with people about what God has done for us at Christmas in sending His son Jesus. Being able to be removed from the Christmas madness, to focus on others and their needs, and to put my wants aside, well…that favorite memory lingers on.
