MY CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR EXPERIENCE

Well, time runs so fast, a moment  passes like wind, some moments leave you with totally no thought, others leave you with memories that remains part of the rest of your life. Some of these memories give you a smile on your face whenever you think about them. Yes, the last Christmas and New Year have left me with such memories which even as I write gives me a smile. I spent my Christmas with my host family Rudölph in Bremen one of the beautiful cities in Germany with so much to see and many nice place to visit. When we arived there, the whole city was diplayed with Christmas decolations most of them in Bremen culture and symbols in houses, streets and other special buildings. what made it more beautiful is the thousands of people in the city during this time mostly tourists like me. I was privileged to take a guided tour with other tourists, most of them could understand German so posibly they should be from other parts of the country. This gave me a chance to visit other important sites of the city and part of its history. Yes on a different day we also visited Wremen at the North Sea and Bremerhaven where we went into the Museum of Sea Creatures and other small beings. On Christmas Eve like any other family in Germany we stayed togather lighting up the Christmas Tree and exchanging presents, singing a few Christmas songs and later attended Mass in the Cathedral of St. Johanes. All in all it was well.

As if this was not enough on 28th December 2013 I took up another important tour, a Taize Tour in Staßbourg, France. This was a Religious European youth meeting organised by Taize Community from France. This event is held every year in different countries in Europe and last year Straßbourg was chosen. The event attracted more than 20, 000 young and older people from all over the world but mostly Europe. I was part of the Group from Germany Mainz Diocese. 

When we arived everything looked awkward with so many people in the city and mostly speaking French so it was difficult to identify those who had come for the Taize program. we arived at 13hrs but still upto 20hrs we did not know where we would lay our heads in the night. Things started to look promising when we came to Wachen the Centre of activities for this meeting, because then we could meet the all 20,000 people at once flowing like water in one direction and everything looked well!! Yes we had meals together and later we  had the first prayer meetings. We had five different prayer halls but similar prayers were conducted in all at once. Finally in the night we were driven by buses to our host community Brumath about 20km from Wachen the meeting place. I and my friend Christopher were taken by our host French family Plumere together with other three guys from Ukraine. Every morning we had communal Taize prayers and Bible sharing in small groups in our meeting hall in Brumath. Togather we were about 400 in this community mosty from Italy, Poland, Spain, Ukrain and German I was the only one from Africa Zambia. Every afternoon we were driven to Wachen for common prayers, Serminars and other Activities. On 31st December, 2013 we had New Year countdown celebration, welcoming the Year of Blessings 2014. Well midnight in Zambia was one hour earlier and everybody joined me in welcoming the New Year for Zambia. It was well!!! At midnight we had a common countdown. I hope you can have some imaginations of how it was. The whole activity was awesome it will remain in me till then. Thankyou Cornelia for your support.