(Tammy Christenberry, a retired school counselor, attends First Christian Church of Sedalia, MO where she shares her gift of teaching with a Bible Study class on Sunday mornings.)
“O Holy Night, the stars are brightly shining. It is the night of our dear Savior’s birth.”
Sometime in 2004, my worship leader approached a few of us about going on a singing mission trip. He said he would call his contacts in Italy, Ukraine, and some other country I don’t remember and see where the Lord led us. That night I told my husband that I would be traveling to Ukraine the following year. I was teaching many Ukrainian students at the time and knew God was going to teach ME something in Ukraine.
And teach me He did! One can live with a single salt packet at dinner! One can cut in line if she wants a pastry. One can teach children who don’t speak your same language. One can look at bean and sunflower fields and see why Missouri feels like home to our Ukrainian friends. One can work on new music in a motel room at midnight. One can catch the contagious excitement of planting new churches.
But one lesson stands above the rest. While at the Tent church (not really a tent), our leader Bob played “How Great Thou Art” on the trombone. It is a favorite among Ukrainian Christians. The way they worshiped, some with faces to heaven, others with hands clasped and tears streaming down their cheeks, the way we worshiped beside them/with them gave me a hope for this broken world I’d never experienced. I learned that we were one; we are one. Jesus is the Hope who brought us together on that June day. Jesus is the Hope who continues to unite families, communities, and nations, despite political, social, and economical differences. Jesus is the Hope who will bring all believers together in our eternal home with him.
Do you have HOPE? To borrow from a song,
“Hope has a name; his name is Jesus.”
“A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn!”
