THE NIGHT THE ANGELS SANG

I sat there, so alone, in the dark. The sweat was pouring off my forehead, mingling with the tears. The single strand of tiny twinkling lights on the bedraggled little plastic-needled Christmas tree from the Japanese store did nothing to lighten my mood. My pen wrote the words I struggled to share with my family, so far away. One page after another I crumpled the paper and tossed it aside. I really didn't want them to know how blue I was.

My mother had warned me when I left for the llanos (plains) of Venezuela. I could hear her voice now. "You aren't even old enough to vote! You have no idea what kind of pagans you will find when you get there!"

I almost thought maybe she had been right. However, the "pagans" were the other missionary family that lived in the house in front of me. They had some nerve! Here it was Christmas Eve, and while they had invited me to spend the holiday with them, I overheard them saying they wished they could spend the day along! An intruder! That's what I would be. So I declined their invitation.

Actually, until tonight it had been pretty good. I was in charge of the young people from the church in Acarigua. Some of them were older than I was, but I didn't share that tidbit with most of them! They had shown remarkable talent as they prepared for a very special Christmas program at the church.

As I looked around, there were still scraps of the plywood they had used to make the creche, which sat so proudly on top of the church, lighted by a spotlight just above the star. Various paint cans, paint brushes and tools joined the mess, but I didn't feel like cleaning it up tonight. I might as well do it in the morning; I had nothing better to do.

The church had been filled to overflowing for the program. The youth had done a bang-up job of advertising it. A couple of the kids had written the drama they had presented, and they had done a remarkable job.

But now it was over, and I was alone! I popped a music tape into the recorder, and familiar strains of English Christmas carols filled the room, but still left my heart feeling empty. It should be freezing cold. I should be drinking a cup of hot cocoa; the Christmas tree, a real one, should be glistening. My mother should be playing the little Conn spinet organ, with all of us singing carols along with her. There should be snow falling, or at least on the ground. The woods should have shadows shimmering through their branches, making you wonder if the wildlife was scampering about, celebrating the best night of the year in their own special way. But that was Christmas in Minnesota. And this was not! This was Venezuela, and the temperature was still almost 100 degrees, and it was almost 10 o'clock at night.

Suddenly, I thought I had fallen asleep and must be dreaming. Off in the distance I could hear someone singing "Noche de paz, noche de amor." Yes, it was the well-known sound of Silent Night, but in Spanish.

I rubbed my eyes to see if I was awake or not. The sound grew louder, until it was right outside my little quonset hut. I got up and went to the door, and there was the entire group of young people from the church. They were caroling, and it was my turn to be serenaded.

I hurried to invite them inside. I was going to turn the lights on, but they all insisted that I leave them off. They had never seen a Christmas tree before! Suddenly, even my pitiful little excuse for a tree seemed to glow so much brighter than before.

I went out into my kitchen and got a big platter of the Christmas cookies I had baked for holiday visitors. They had never seen them, either, but they ate them with great gusto. I brought out ice cold lemonade, and we shared our joy together. The best part of it, to me, was that I was not alone! This was the life I had chosen, and it was the best life I could have dreamed of. It was just right!

As we talked, I told them what Christmas was like in Minnesota. They tried to envision snow, but it was impossible for them to comprehend it. Suddenly, the ever-present light bulb went off and I hurried back into the kitchen. I opened the freezer door on the top part of the refrigerator, grabbed a heavy spatula and began to scrape the "snow" from the sides and the top of the freezer, pushing it into a huge metal pan. I headed back to the living room, armed and ready to do battle. I set the bowl down on the coffee table, reached in and grabbed a handful of the "snow" and shaped it into a snowball. Soon others followed suit, and there, in my living room, with the fans running to keep it from being quite so hot, we had their very first ever snowball fight! The fact that the floor would be a pool by the time we were finished left me undaunted. It was well worth a little clean up effort!

Just before they left, one of my best new friends, Crucita, came over and hugged me. "Vicente said he figured you were probably going to spend Christmas with the other missionaries, but if you aren't, we would love to have you come and spend the day with us."

The tears once again ran down my face. This time they were tears of joy, not of sorrow. I had never had a better invitation to anything, not even when she added "Vicente is going to barbecue the goat." They could have fed me anything and it would have been divine.

They had been there almost an hour. As they left, again singing Spanish Christmas carols, I went back and sat in my plastic-woven chair, smiled at my little spindle with its lights blinking at me, listened to the music on my tape recorder and began to write to my parents.

"Dear Mother and Daddy,
It is Christmas Eve. Tonight I heard the angels sing..."