Day in the Life: Christmas in the Desert

We rode in “Jeeps” to get to our campsite upon arriving in Wadi Rum!

When met with the idea of sharing a day in my life on the World Race through our blog, I was excited and it seemed like a fairly simple task. However, I had unknowingly scheduled to select a day during Christmas week to document, which means it would be a long stretch from ordinary. So, this blog is going to be pretty casual and will be depicting something far from our typical day, but I will share a more typical, feet-on-the-ground-kind-of-day with you soon! 

To set the stage, the weather was cool and dry, around 45 degrees Fahrenheit and sunny. We arrived in Wadi Rum on the 23rd of December. On Christmas Eve, a group of us spent the whole day climbing the most memorable rocks, sand surfing on the red dunes, and drinking paper cups filled with the most delectable, sweet, perfectly spiced tea around campfires in various desert spots. 

Climbing rocks and thinking thoughts.

Sand surfing on Christmas Eve! Look at my TL and SQL cheering me on. What great gals. 🙂 

As evening approached, I nostalgically changed into my “World-Race-Best” since my family normally dresses up for our Christmas Eve service back home. My skin protested the chilly air by breaking out in goosebumps as I rapidly layered Christmas leggings under my flowy dress pants and put a comfy sweater over my sleek, black, long-sleeve. It would have to do. I smiled, this is the World Race — A thought that comforted me during the unideal moments along the journey and reminded me how sweet and vibrant life is that I am privileged to live. 

I was recently asked to be part of the Party Planning Committee for our squad, so I made my way across the sand to the congregation tent where we ate dinner and began preparing for our Christmas Eve candlelight service. As I distributed candles poked through trimmed paper cups to catch melted wax, my heartfelt merry. Several of my squadmates commented, “This is so special, we do a candlelight service every year back home!” That filled my heart with bitter-sweet, “mushy” feelings. It was such a struggle to find the petite candlesticks in downtown Ammon but the search was worth it for our little Wadi Rum Christmas Eve Service (much better than the backup birthday candles, haha). 

As we prepped to begin, we asked the Muslim men who were serving us at the camp if they wanted to participate in the candle-lighting. They politely said they would watch. Through prayer, worship, powerful time of Communion, and a special Christmas message, they watched as we praised our precious Jesus around the fireplace in their gathering tent. Lastly, we incorporated one of my squadmate’s annual traditions into the candlelight portion of the service. She taught us that her family typically puts each of their names into a hat and dedicates the candle-lit moments to prayer and prophecy over the name-holder they drew from the hat. 

My eyes welled up with tears as our three new squad leaders began the process, being the first to retrieve a name from my green beanie on the floor. They tenderly prayed for and encouraged the person whose name they drew. It was an honor to witness as they began their season of leadership with reverent service, resulting in the first candles being lit, their holders drawing a name, more peers being encouraged in the Spirit, and more tiny flames illuminating the dark until there were 30 little lights glowing warmly.

We migrated outside with our candles so we could sing Silent Night under the most dazzling stars I have seen. We could not miss the opportunity to reminisce on the calm, bright virgin birth when the sky was midnight velvet pin-pricked with glittering glimpses of heaven. I can only imagine the angel symphonies harmonizing with that sky, the shepherds’ mouths agape with awe. 

What a night. 

Our friend Bradon took this beautiful picture of the Christmas Eve sky. It is about as close to the real thing as it gets, but you have to be there to understand how striking the stars were!

The mountains surrounding us were gold as Christmas morning lit up the world. My husband and I opened the window of our tent to view the landscape as we exchanged the treasures that would always remind us of our Christmas in the desert. Wearing my cozy clothes, I made my way to the gathering tent. Following our breakfast of pita, hummus, cheese, beans, and marzipan sweets, we read Luke 2 as a squad.

Next, we participated in a rather anti-climactic game where tiny gifts wrapped in plastic wrap got unraveled in the order of people in the circle. We did not have dice to make rolling doubles the requirement for passing the plastic wrap ball, and apparently, it is disappointingly easy to unwrap a ball of plastic wrap without oven mitts, so even 10 seconds, then five seconds, and eventually three seconds proved to be too much for our tiny gift-ball to make it around the circle completely. Haha, oh well. The prizes were individual packets of tea and instant coffee, sponges, tiny jars of jam, microwave popcorn, and the prize in the center was a coveted bottle of hot sauce. The very specific-to-world-racer gifts were not fought over too much and were shared by those who had a chance to win them after the fact. 🙂 Not to mention, we finished the official Christmas morning festivities with an entertaining white elephant gift exchange and hot chocolate provided by our squad leaders. Everyone left with a gift for Christmas. 

Our cute-ugly gift table with the 7-inch tree! My gift is wrapped in paper and I doodled a bow, orange slice, and cinnamon stick on it! People had to get creative with their wrapping, haha.

Needless to say, the morning included many laughs and memories made that I imagine taste like honey…

Don’t get me wrong. I missed my new brother’s first Christmas in America and there were occasional pangs of sadness for my other wonderful family and their nostalgic traditions, but this year was uniquely sweet and I know the Lord took care to soothe my heart and keep it in the desert with the lovely people who have become my family in past months. I will cherish Christmas in the Wadi Rum for all my days, and I will be forever grateful I had the chance to sing praises to my King under the stars, not far from where He breathed His first breaths as the Messiah of the world. 

I pray that wherever you are, you can cherish each moment as it will only be in your possession one time. Wow. What a vibrant life we get to live. I pray you take time to appreciate your own vibrant moments today, as I have seen life is so much sweeter that way. 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all!