First, last month, I started reading There is No Me Without You: One Woman's Odyssey to Rescue her Country's Children. It's a disturbing, beautiful book by journalist Melissa Fay Greene, who traveled to Ethiopia to put faces to the staggering statistics about children orphaned by AIDS in Africa. She met an Ethiopian woman who, after the death of her husband and daughter, agreed to take in one of Addis Ababa's AIDS orphans, then found herself mothering many more, and facilitating adoptions to homes around the world.

Then, yesterday, I went to worship and sat under the preaching of Genesis 3:8-24. Pastor Chuck Jacob led us in thinking about what it means to celebrate Advent in the context of the brokenness of the world. We cherish false hopes for Christmas – these will disappoint us, because we are all now living in exile and don't yet inhabit the home we were made for and long for. But in Genesis we see the start of true Advent hope: Jesus entered our exile, and he will come again. And Pastor Jacob started us thinking about what real Advent hope looks like – worshiping and waiting while we stand and fight against the brokenness of the world. He raised the question of what it might look like to celebrate this true Advent hope with our brothers and sisters around the world, especially the impoverished and suffering, like believers in Zimbabwe, a country where 5 out of their 12 million are expected to be starving next year.

And today, I read the blog of Jason Kovacs in honor of AIDS day. Here it is, with his permission. I hope you take the time to watch the video and perhaps go to World Vision for more.

My reflections from this book, sermon, and blog? We can honor Jesus throughout this season by our full and overflowing joy. We can also honor him by our sadness and anger towards suffering and injustice. The apostle Paul said that he was sorrowful yet always rejoicing, and I wonder what that combination should look like for me, living this Advent season, in my comfortable house in Michigan, with my husband and four children.

I really don't know how to celebrate Advent and Christmas with my suffering brothers and sisters. I don't know how to mourn with them while rejoicing in the hope we share. I don't know how to thankfully receive from the Lord the good gifts he's given me but not let the desperate needs of these impoverished and hurting brothers and sisters recede into the background. I don't know how to live in the dissonance of praise and ache, the dissonance of my Christmas tree and stockings, gift-exchanging, music-filled December with the true stories of children, orphaned by AIDS, living in dusty shacks.