By: Lenore Buth
Are you thinking Christmas won't be the same this year? Feeling a bit rushed?
It's time for a break. Sit for a moment and catch the joy of these children--and adults--as you watch and listen to this YouTube of some years ago.
First, a bit of background
It all started when James Barthelman and his wife moved from Nebraska to the tiny village of Quinhagak, Alaska, to teach. Quinhagak is a (mostly) Yup'ik Eskimo village, 400 miles west of Anchorage, with no roads to the outside world. At the last census the population numbered 699 residents.
James was to teach in the village school, Kuinerramiut Elitnarviat School.
During the school year he and his fifth-graders came up with making this YouTube video as a school computer project that would involve both children and villagers. Barthelman filmed it, intending that this YouTube would go only to other Yup'ik villages in the area.
But it caught on and went viral
By now well over 1.8 million people have viewed this lively performance, all of it synced with the recording of the Robert Shaw Chorale singing the "Hallelujah" chorus from Handel's Messiah.
That one teacher in one small school never imagined how many people would be entranced by this video.
Quinhagak is a long way from Dublin, Ireland, where George Frideric Handel composed Messiah in 1741. At the time he considered himself something of a failure. Then during a 24-day period he composed the entire score of Messiah, for both choir and orchestra. He said he felt God gave him the music.
Handel never could have foreseen how his music would endure.
Nor that centuries later a teacher and a group of Inuit children would come up with such a creative performance, all of it synced with a recorded choir singing Handel's "Hallelujah" chorus.
Consider this another reminder what God can do with the work of one individual
Although Handel composed many other musical works, only his "Hallelujah" chorus is sung and hummed all over the world. His Messiah is performed every Christmas season by choruses and choirs in huge cities and in tiny villages on every continent.
There's a lesson here for you and me
As individuals and as moms and dads we cannot know what God will do with our work.
Or the work of our children.
I can't help thinking of this Bible verse.
For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:10 NIV
That verse wasn't aimed only at Handel and other famous people. It speaks to you and me, too.
Think you're on a treadmill and going nowhere?
Perhaps today you question the value of your life. Maybe you're facing your first Christmas alone after losing a loved one.
Maybe you're a mom and your family most often notices what you do when you don't do it.
Put a positive spin on that. Being taken for granted also means your family knows they can count on you.
What's more, the family life you create and the love you pour into your days will live on in your children.
Joy comes from giving ourselves fully, knowing that what we do matters, whether we see the end result or not.
God is faithful. What we do in love will live on
Believe it. Let that truth put fresh energy in your tired body.
Someone needs us, needs our kind words, needs our encouragement. Whether we realize it or not, those are gifts, too.
This Christ-mas season let's put aside our usual thoughts of hurry and pressure and think on the greatest Gift.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:16 ESV
Hallelujah!
Lenore