When Christmas is about worship

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MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Tuesday, December 23rd.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: How African Christians celebrate Christmas. It’s a holiday celebrated around the world, but not always in the same way. For many African Christians now living in the US, the holiday is a very different experience.

Here is WORLD’s Todd Vician.

MUSIC: And there won't be snow in Africa this Christmas time, the greatest gift they'll get this year is life…

TODD VICIAN: The 1984 hit single, “Do they know it’s Christmas” awakened many in the West to a terrible famine in Ethiopia. Many who listened to the haunting lyrics and donated millions for famine relief may have thought…

MUSIC: Do they know it's Christmas time at all?

But Christmas has been celebrated on the African continent since the days of the early church.

GIDEON IRAKOZE: So we try to go to church like two hours ahead, you know, do prayers, reading the Word, preparing when Christmas, when the December 25 hits, which is midnight. Start shouting, singing, praising, welcome, you know...

Gideon Irakoze came to the United States almost 20 years ago after growing up in a refugee camp in Tanzania. The camp was a mix of Christians and Muslims, and the Christmas celebrations centered on the church.

IRAKOZE: Christmas in our refugee camp, it's more about singing. It's a celebration wise, eating a lot of food, a lot of praying, a lot of dancing, a lot of, but in the church wise, you know, it's always about church wise…

While the setting was far from ideal, he misses the celebrations of his youth. He says they were more “religious.”

IRAKOZE: We do more passionate. We also do from the heart. It's not about decoration wise. We don't really do much of decorating. We normally just do as a church and after church wise is more kind of like spiritual wise, remembering Christ be born and welcoming him in our hearts.

At first Irakoze struggled to understand American Christmas traditions. The Christmas tree and its lights made little sense. But perhaps more perplexing than that:

IRAKOZE: Who's Santa Claus? What's going on with Santa Claus? How does he go through a chimney bringing a gift of what of a salvation or something? Is he bringing a Biblical Gospel?

Joseph Boomenyo, who immigrated from the Democratic Republic of Congo, was surprised by what he saw as a shallow version of Christmas worship in his new country.

JOSEPH BOOMENYO: In Africa, Christmas time is more of church time. There will be a lot of conferences. Sometimes people take three to five, five days, they are going through the Bible teaching about what Christmas is all about.

The son of a preacher, who now pastors his own Swahili church, grew up in between pews but didn’t miss the message each Christmas. The holiday festivities were about forming faith.

BOOMENYO: One thing I learned while I was still a very young, young kid…. I was introduced to the message of Christmas. I participated in, starting from the children ministry. We're doing a lot of dramas about Christmas, and we grew like that, very, very, very, it's a landmark in terms of our spiritual or our Christian life.

Churches in Africa typically hold very long Christmas services that include preaching, choirs, and elaborate nativity plays that go late into the night. Congregants also share favorite meals after worshipping.

JEREMY MANONO: We celebrate, like on Christmas Eve. We sleep in a church, like, doing prayers, singing, all that stuff. And also we, we go home and we come back like, in the morning to do like, the regular church service, you know, singing.

Jeremy Manono also came here from Congo where Christmas extends beyond the church and home.

MANONO: We visit each other, different families. We go house to house to eat, you know, and talk about Jesus being born, you know, a victory, all that stuff, good stuff.

Manono and Irakoze became friends in Texas, and now perform traditional songs with other African immigrants. They’ve found that although celebrations look and feel different, the difference opens doors at Christmas time.

AUDIO: [Synthesizer music, “Thank you very much, God bless you.”]

On a recent Sunday afternoon, they sang in a city park for the Refugees Christmas Party. It’s an outreach event held by a local nonprofit that seeks to minister to immigrants who are here lawfully. They’ve shared the Christmas story with thousands of families for 15 years.

AUDIO: But the angel said to them, there was nothing to fear. I come to bring you news of a great joy…

The immigrants receive presents, listen to music, can take Bibles printed in their heart language, and hear the story of the birth of Jesus.

AUDIO: [Swahili]

Manono says what he appreciates about American Christmas is the way even non-Christians take part in the joy of the Advent season.

MANONO: In America is like, it's, it's kind of like the holiday, like anybody, but over there, mostly, you know, Christmas is mostly like Christian, you know, religious celebration, religious holiday. But here is, like, the whole country even if you don't go to church, you don't attend any religion is like, it's a celebration. So which is, which is good.

Across cultures and over time, these traditions continue to point us to what Christmas is all about—a Savior born for us, all of us.

AUDIO: [Swahili]

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Todd Vician, in Fort Worth, Texas.

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