by Greg Mundis

Memories

Dear Friends:

The occasion was our first December in Salzburg, Austria, as Assemblies of God missionaries. My wife and five-year-old and three-year-old landed in Austria in March of 1980 and settled just outside the city of Salzburg. For those of you familiar with geography, the small village of Oberndorf, where “Silent Night” was composed and first sung and played, was only about 30 or 40 miles away.

I remember that Christmas because of the excitement of the children, but also because we were in a different culture with a different language, customs, and traditions, and we as a family were caught in between two worlds. Having established traditions in our own country—the U.S.A.—and wanting to adapt and blend in to Austrian society, naturally there were traditions we did not know.

So as we tried to straddle these two worlds, we decided to try to blend those two traditions, and as with any new venture, there were some hitches along the way. For instance, our blending began with the Austrian custom of celebrating Advent. That’s the four Sundays before Christmas that anticipate the birth of Christ. This is an important tradition in Austria, where an Advent calendar is posted, and every day of the week is celebrated, not just Sundays. The calendar is constructed so the children can open a little pocket and receive a small gift each day of December. We thought we would wait until the first Sunday of December to blend in our American tradition of having a Christmas tree. A Christmas tree was not easy to find, but I finally found one. It was expensive even back in 1980 in comparison to the American cost. We had brought some lights with us, so we erected the tree, put on the decorations, strung the lights, and went to church Sunday morning. Before that evening we celebrated our Advent and turned the lights on our tree.

We lived in a small village called Henndorf (which literally means “chicken village”) above a mink farm. Our tree was posted in front of the large living room window by our second-floor balcony, overlooking the farmer’s field. We turned those lights on, and the kids were extremely happy as we began to celebrate the splendid season of Advent with the American tradition of turning on the Christmas tree.

It was a wonderful event until we began to notice that outside along the street by the field, literally hundreds of people had lined up to look at our Christmas tree. We could not figure out what was going on, so we asked a neighbor, who hilariously replied that the Austrian custom of erecting a Christmas tree was December 24 in the evening, and they used real candles. To have a Christmas tree lit on the first of December with lights that flashed was an absolute phenomenon for most of those villagers of Henndorf.

I have reflected on this occasion many times. The thought came to me that more people paid attention to our Christmas tree than  to the birth of Christ. I can almost guarantee that all those people who witnessed our attempted blending of customs and traditions have forgotten that event. In contrast, the persons (not to mention the angelic host) who witnessed the birth of Christ, and those who witnessed His subsequent maturing and life, then His death and resurrection, have gone into the billions.

I pray during this Christmas season that our focus is not so much on traditions and customs and the blending of old and new but rather on the birth of the Person who absolutely changed the course of history: Jesus. The anticipation of Christ’s birth and the receiving of Christ as our Savior makes the season that much more joyous because of who He is and what He has done.

God bless you, and may you have a merry Christmas!

Sincerely,

Greg Mundis
AGWM Europe Regional Director

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