holiday snapshots from a f/Family album

Christmas

Eight children, seven adults, and one granny seated around a table piled high with food. We were three families if you looked at it according to the three key figures: my dad and two of his sisters. We were five families if you counted the number of couples there (two of my cousins had brought their husbands with). But most importantly, we were one family, for even though it had only been five days since my family had landed, it was clear that we all fit together and were accepted despite our idiosyncrasies, eccentricities, differences, similarities.

Halfway during supper, while chatting and laughing with my brother and sister and five of our favourite cousins, I suddenly felt a pang of nostalgia for something I'd never missed at home: the feeling of belonging to something more than just us five. I never missed it though, because I never got to experience family in its broadest, most encompassing sense, in a country where I lived with only my mother, father, brother and sister. It was only every five years when we returned to the Motherland, that we suddenly slotted into a wider picture of cousins, in-laws, uncles, aunts, extensions. And the older I get, the more I appreciate how wonderful the concept of family is - no matter that we have never watched them grow up, and they have no idea what our daily lives exist of - we are family, and that is all that matters. To be greeted with such affection and to be cared for with true emotion by people who, for all intents and purposes, are almost-strangers to us, is the most wonderful feeling in the world.

The New Year
We decided to attend my father's friend's church for the New Year's service. Feeling a bit spare, I watched the members of the church interact with each other. And slowly I started recognising little signs that made it clear that this too was a family: the genuine smiles that members greeted each other with, the care with which a man with muscular degenerative disorder was treated as he struggled down the church aisle, the powerpoint slide of key events that had happened in the year-that-was that was greeted with chuckles at the comical moments caught on camera... This was a church that knew each other and loved each other.

Another precious sight: during communion, one of the elders standing behind the bread dish, suddenly came forward towards the line of church members. Intrigued by this, I glanced forward to see the dignified old man dressed formally in a suit and tie, picking up a piece of bread to place it into the mouth of the man with muscular degenerative disorder. They then proceeded to walk, the old man in a stately manner next to a man who flip-flopped-jerked-in-one-direction-and-then-another because of the failure of his muscles, to the wine glasses. The elder then picked up a tiny tot glass and poured the contents into the man's open mouth, wiping his mouth clean gently with a tissue. This, I realized, was a true picture of the beauty of the church. And afterwards, as my family awkwardly stood up after my father's friend announced that we were visiting from Africa, to have the entire church sing to us a song of greeting, I felt a wave of welcome that only family can offer.

Home
As the plane started its descent into our home airport, I started to feel its presence: the tension that I'd been blessedly free of the whole time we'd been overseas. It wasn't as bad as before I'd left - a few weeks of not being attached to a computer or a phone, and just being told by my parents what to do and where to go, and sleeping and eating plenty, and of course, the thrill of travelling, had made my exhaustion from last year almost completely disappear. But as if the exhaustion had been left behind as a shadow caught in the African sun, I could feel it creeping over me again as I started thinking about all the things I had to do, the people I had to see, the decisions that had to be made..

Praise God, then, that I was given the opportunity to stay at a friend's place near the sea for a few days after I got back, for rest and restoration was just what I needed, and this was just what God provided through my friend. I was the most spoilt guest ever - my host talked to me when I wanted someone to talk to, ignored me when I wanted some quiet, and did all the cooking and washing up. And at some point during the week, I sat on his couch, watching the sea below, and thought back to the snapshot of the elder looking after his charge. It was then that it became clearer that I identified myself almost-always as the elder. But as my friend allowed me to take a proper break by serving me graciously and kindly, and by thinking back to other snapshots which had captured the love shown to me by Family, I realized that I too was the crippled one, the one who could barely move without looking like an oddity, the one who was unable to participate in the body of Christ without help. But, I have also realized that because of the love of Christ and his body, my shortcomings and failures are nothing at all.