As has become the custom at the Christmas Day service, instead of delivering a prepared sermon, the pastor calls upon members of the congregation to share personal faith stories. These sharings are summarized below.
Wilhelmina told of her visit to a school for deaf and dumb children in South Africa, a school to which she often has brought items of aid from donors in Canada. Although many could neither speak nor hear, the children wrote and put on a play, all on their own, to show how they had been touched by the generosity of Canadians.
It was an adaptation of the story of the Good Samaritan. A child was dressed as a poor man who had been attacked by robbers. The children had spread tomato juice on his brow, to simulate blood. As he lay there, a minister came by, but did not want to get involved. He was followed by a priest, who also did not want to get involved. Finally, a Canadian woman came along. You could tell she was Canadian because she was dressed in red and white. And she bore a handbag with a large maple leaf upo it. She stopped to help the poor man, rubbing maple syrup onto his wounds, in order to heal him. (Cans of Canadian maple syrup were among the goods which had been donated to the school.)
Roger told a story from his youth, of an occasion when he had directly experienced God's helping hand. He grew up in a rather non-religious household. Although Christmas was celebrated every year, his parents never went to church. Although the household had a huge family Bible in the front room, he was the only one to ever read it. As he grew up, he slowly found Jesus on his own. His parents were also wanderers, moving from city to city.
On one trip from Los Angeles to Denver, the family was crossing over Loveland Pass in Colorado. (This was before the days of the Eisenhower Tunnel, which today bypasses the steep grades of the pass.) All of the family belongings were loaded into an old bread truck, which his father drove on ahead. He followed with his mother, who was driving an old 1952 DeSoto, while pulling a 1963 Chevy Monza with a tow-bar. As they drove up the pass, his father geared down and down, as the heavily-loaded bread truck went slower and slower. Finally, there were no more gears left to gear down to. The engine stalled out while attempting the grade, even in first gear. It was dusk, and the sky was overcast and the wind cold, as his family stood alone by the side of the road, barely half a mile from the crest of the hill. The traffic passed by without notice, much like in the Good Samaritan story above. Roger prayed for God's help in this seemingly helpless situation. Almost immediately thereafter, a big semi-truck rig, without a trailer, pulled over and offered his assistance. Once he had ascertained the problem, he pulled his rig up behind the bread truck and touched bumpers. Then he pushed the bread truck up the steep grade, until it cleared the pass. As the bread truck began rolling down the other side, the trucker did not even stop for thanks, but simply passed ahead with a simple toot of his horn.
Rosemarie recounted how, as a working, single mother, she feels God's presence and helping hand in the same way as described above, but every single day. It is God's loving presence and strength which gets her up in the morning and gives her the ability to get through each day.
David, who works with prisoners, told of a prisoner who came to see him. The prisoner was seething with rage, a rage he knew he could not control. Another prisoner was riding him and hassling him and causing him to lose face. This other prisoner would come up to him in the cafeteria line, for example, and blatantly steal his food from his plate. Although the troubled prisoner had only a few months left in his sentence, and knew that any trouble he caused would keep him in jail, he could see no way out. Not to stand up to his tormentor would mean a serious loss of face and no one would respect him. All would then torment him. He felt like someone was going to die, either him or his tormentor.
This prisoner finally went to speak with an old-timer, who was serving two concurrent life sentences for murder. "What should I do?", he asked. The older prisoner looked at him and simply said, "I wish for you peace." Slowly, over the day, these words helped calm the raging soul of the prisoner. He found it within him to gain some peace. He was able to confront his tormentor in a forceful, but non-violent way, and stake out his position. There was no fight and the prisoner's release was not held up.
These simple words of blessing: "I wish for you peace."