A Dao Christmas

A Dao Christmas
Originally uploaded by Derek & Sarah Grant.

For the Dao people, Christmas began the night before in the school/church building. They had a brief message from our co-worker,
Scott, about the reason Christ came to earth. Then, they spent the rest of the night singing and praying to God. I mean, literally,
all night! They didn't sleep at all, just prayed and sung to the Lord all night to show their appreciation for Christ's birth.
Here's an excerpt from a recent update about that first night:

"Well the long night started out with singing the Christian songs that they had made. They even made up a new song, just for
Christmas. As the night progressed it turned from singing Christian songs, to singing some of the old songs that they used to sing.
We don't pretend to understand, but somehow some of these songs were supposed to influence spirits and demons. We didn't know what
to do, so we just sat there. Two of the men, who are learning to be Bible teachers, sat in the corner, not participating.
Eventually one of them, named Yusup, said "This day is to show God that we think He is Big". Then he redirected the celebration
back to prayer and the kind of singing which worshipped God. Not even a year ago this man was a murderer and an animist (spirit
manipulator). The spirit of God was working in him. We could clearly see it."