What kind of joy?

Albanians know how to party!  

Whenever they get the chance to gather together and celebrate, the music turns up, the food and the wine flow and the dancing begins! 

It is always fun to see and experience and quite a contrast to the typical Dutch celebration :).

There will be lots of it over Christmas and New Years as families and friends gather.  

At times as I admire the joy of their celebrating and time together, I can also be fooled by it. For as authentic and real as the happiness and fun of the moment is we all know that it so soon recedes and only temporarily covers what is really happening inside.  Inside the family, inside the marriage, inside the heart.  

The party, when it is a temporary reprieve from reality, always ends.  

That is why the news of Jesus Birth is really good news of great joy for all people.  It offers a joy that is not a temporary escape from reality but is solid and lasting. It is not based on what we have done or how our life goes, but is based on what Jesus has already accomplished and what he is doing for us today.   

This Saturday we will be having our Albanian Christmas outreach.  We will do a candlelight service with songs, and readings and I will talk about the joy of Christmas.  After the service there will be desert and social time and maybe even some music and dancing.  

We would appreciate your prayers. Our hope and longing is that many Albanians who know only the joy of a good party, would begin to taste of the greater joy of Jesus.  And that those who know the joy of Jesus would be unashamed to testify of it to those around them because it really is "good news of great joy that is for all people".