The day before we had celebrated Christ’s birth in unusual ways. The first of these was the calendar date: January 6th.
We had wandered around all day trying, as always, to tell people that Jesus’s true church had been restored, that we were no longer in darkness. We slid around as we walked on the ice-covered sidewalks, walled by grey concrete buildings. Each house we visited greeted us with food- just as the week before had done with the seven day celebration of New Years. Each house had a large table set up in the main room. They covered the old wood with lace and colors, an evening gown for the tired servant. On that they stacked plates of food- sugared figs and dates, cabbage stuffed with meat and rice, a cooked bird, pickled vegetables, the traditional flat bread, lavash, torn and laid as napkins, bowls of bland chocolate, and, of course, a corner dedicated to hard liquor and juices.
Any time we went anywhere that week we were forced to eat. The unfortunate part was that they kept the same food on the table all week, only cleaning the dishes and resetting a place after a guest would leave. It was within this time that I was forced to eat pieces of pig head suspended in some ungodly gelatin. But I successfully avoided cow-hoof soup the whole year and a half I was there, living, cradled in the armpit of the Middle East, smothered by Turkey and pressing into Iran, while Russia weighted heavily somewhere above.
Armenia.
That year their Christmas was on a Sunday. We wandered into a crowded Armenian Apostolic church. The black gothic stone walls whispered down our backs, the cold empty air feeling wet and dark, only to be pinched by the flames of small lit waxy candles.
But this day it was anything but quiet in this ancient skeleton- there was a hoard of dark haired people surrounding something, yelling and thrusting their cut water bottles into the air. It was hard to see but in the middle of this Wall Street chaos there was a lamb, being sacrificed on an alter. The people wanted to get some of the blood in there empty bottles. To this day I have no idea why.
But I DO know why we no longer have animal sacrifices. I should have stood up right there and proclaimed the truth. But we were frightened and had taken off our nametags just in case we weren’t allowed in. Suddenly a boney hand landed on my shoulder. I jumped, afraid it was a priest, but softened as I saw it was Haroot, our investigator- A 50-something year old man with white side burns, an odd love of American jazz music, and a talent for number magic tricks. He once described me as a delicate floating bubble on a lake. We left the Christmas blood bath with him and went to visit one of his friends.
There we were given more food. Harisa. Puffy rice and chicken bits mixed together with a creamy sauce, the traditional Christmas meal.
I ate it several times that day.
Sitting in a taxi on the way home that night we saw an exodus of people going back the opposite direction, through their crumbled town, into the city center. Each person was carefully carrying a tall skinny white candle. It was lit and they guarded the flame with their hands and cups that they cut the bottom out of. There were hundreds of them, walking dreamily on, ready to end the Lord’s birthday with one of the only things they knew- candles.
We were always asked by the people if we too burnt candles in our church. They were always very disappointed to learn that we did not. So I in turn would ask them why they did burn candles- and nobody ever knew why, save it were tradition, which is the motive they have for most ways of life.
But one time someone gave me an answer. A lady from a village.
Because. Everyday we live in darkness. Our country is sad and beaten upon. So much has been taken and only empty promises are left. But when we go into a church and for a moment light and watch the flame, well, then, for a moment we see light, and we see hope.
I never looked at a bud of light the same way again.
And so the New Year had begun.
And on to the next day. January 7th. Monday. The one day of the week that we have to be a little free, to go and write to our families. Every time we indulged and went to some mafia owned restaurant. Preparation day was heavenly. Except, of course, this particular p-day.
I woke up with an uncomfortable, yet familiar feeling in my stomach. Whatever it was that was down there, it wanted back out. No mercy.
I’ll spare the details. But know this: I spent three solid hours in the frigid bathroom ejecting all of the previous week and celebrations into a bucket and a rock cold toilet. And I couldn’t stop, even when there was nothing left in me but the acid in my stomach. My muscles continued to spasm, looking to get rid of a few vital organs if needed.
When Elder Harrison and Elder Bullock came over to bring me crackers and the softest toilet paper they could find- I never could have known. As I lay on the hard floor, unable to sit up for my blessing I never could have known. And as Elder Harrison laid his hands on my head and healed me through the power of God, I never would have known that three years later he would be doing the same thing. Only this time in America. Only this time he ran to Wal Mart. Only this time I lay in our bed as he blessed me.
Only this time he was my husband.
And only this time I was sick from the tiny prune-sized child I held in my womb.
This Christmas and New Years I light a new candle and protect it’s fragile flame.
There is light. And there is hope.
