Deciding to stay on the mission field over Christmas is never an easy decision. Your heart wants to be elsewhere, but your pocketbook won’t let you. Having extended our budget for mission trips and conferences this past year as far as we were able, the finances just would not allow us to go home to be with family. So Pam trimmed the tree and baked some cookies and we hunkered down as best we could in our newly adopted land.

The situation was helped by an unexpected snowfall that covered the nearby park and garden with what in Canada would be considered a light dusting. For southern England it was a shock to the adults and delight to the children who made the most of what little they could find.

Our Horsham office had decided that they would all like to go the Winter Wonderland Fair going on in Hyde Park in London, so we bundled up with our colleagues and their kids and spent a very pleasant afternoon among the rides and market stalls of the fair. It was cold enough to make ice and busy enough to stay warm among the crowds, and with a spirit of camaraderie our staff enjoyed the day.

We followed up that event with a Christmas dinner that was a little more unusual than the typical meal. One of our staff had a raclette stored away, so we dragged that out and each of us brought something for ourselves and something to share with another and we had an abundance of food and fun that encouraged us all.

Trevor and Shirley, who host the Home Group that we attend, also had prepared a Christmas meal. Shirley is a wonderful host who knows how to lay out a lovely table, and the food once again was far more than any of us could eat. This is the same Home Group that has hosted all the Teach Beyond folk who have attended Trafalgar Road Baptist Church, and they have a special heart for those of us who are missing family at Christmas.

Despite our appreciation for our own church, we decided that it would be nice to take in a carol sing at the Anglican church in town. St. Mary’s dates to the 13th century and is a beautiful old building with a timbered roof and lovely stonework and stained glass. Like many of these old churches, the acoustics were wonderful, and it was a real joy to sing the old hymns in a very packed sanctuary all decked out for the holidays.

But the highlight of the season for us were the tickets to see a production of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker at the Albert Hall. The production and dances were glorious, as was the music resounding off the wall of that historic venue. Our seats were the cheapest we could get, but there really are no bad seats in that hall and we could hear and see everything without obstruction. It was a glorious evening, and fitting finale to what had been, in the end, a most blessed Christmas in Horsham.

December 2022