The Christmas season has officially begun.  From now on we will be deluged with commercials for every toy in the universe and sappy coffee commercials, where the actors have a great love of family and the aroma of the brewed black beverage.

We will never forget one particular Christmas.  Because we were ministering in Wales for six weeks, we decided it would be best to rent a holiday flat for that length of time rather than foist ourselves upon various long-suffering friends.  We rented a flat on Caswell Bay, near Mumbles, near Swansea.  When we told others about our temporary home, they “o-h-h-h-ed and a-h-h-h-ed.”  Yes, the holiday flat right on the beach indeed had a beautiful view, with windows facing the sea.

However there was one thing those “others” didn’t know about the flat.  Because it was December, the cold north wind huffed and puffed and tried to blow our house down.  It didn’t succeed, but it did blow through the faulty weather-stripping between the windows.  We spent many happy hours stuffing tissue into the cracks.

Because the flat is normally rented by sane people who want a holiday by the sea during the summer months, there was one lonely wall heater in the front room.  Of course this heater didn’t come close to warming up the bedroom or bathroom down the hall.  Try to imagine a bathroom full of ice sculptures:  frozen works of art resembling a bathtub, toilet, sink, etc.  I discovered a clever way of warming up the bathroom.  I’d send Ron in first to take a shower, filling the room with hot steam.  Then I’d come in for a relaxing bath in the cozy room.

That year (the winter of 1998/99) a respiratory flu was attacking hundreds of innocent bystanders in the British Isles.  The sickness spread quickly, with a menace.  Ron and I couldn’t out-run it.  Hospitals were filling up and soon the morgues were so full, they had to put bodies into refrigerated trucks.  [When I wrote home about that my Dad said, “We’re thankful you’re not in a refrigerated truck!”]

Although we both felt sicker than dogs (how sick ARE dogs?), we were scheduled to share with our puppets at a gathering on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  Our good friends Jim and Sandy had a ministry to International Students, but on Christmas Eve they had a party for their close friends, which included our puppets (and us as well).  The party on Christmas Day included university students from China, India, Brazil, and several European countries.  After we shared our play on the true meaning of Christmas, a man from China commented, “That’s an interesting way to spread your propaganda.”  [We are happy to report that through the years many students accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord as a result of Jim and Sandy’s ministry.]

We left the Christmas Day party as soon as we could, as we were feeling worse and worse.  At home we went to bed to feel rotten.  We threw a party: a pity party.  But first, Ron took a photo of me looking sickly while sitting at our little kitchen table decorated with a sprig of holly (our Christmas tree) in the middle, and several presents we had received.

Yes, we felt incredibly terrible, which leads me into Ron’s malapropism for the day.  “When the bottom’s been pulled out from under you.”