Christmas Dinner

From St. Mark's booklet "Thoughts on Advent"

December 22, 1984

Scripture:  Romans 16:25-27

Christmas dinner was a plate of spaghetti at 8:00 p.m. in a bamboo busha mess hall after a long, grueling day of unloading truck parts from the rail siding--parts desperately needed to build the Ledo Road into China.

The other lieutenant with me looked at the spaghetti and with ample sarcasm said, "Oh, this is great! This is what we always have at home on Christmas Day!"

This was Christmas, 1943 in Assam, a northeastern province of India.  We had waited for weeks for this shipment of parts, while more and more vehicles broke down in the mud and muck.  Since Christmas was expected to be a casual day of light duty, the arrival of our so-called presents was not a time of cheer.

The "goods wagon," as the freight cars are known in India, had to be unloaded as soon as possible.  We used gangs of coolies to help our Gi's unload the heavy boxes.  Coolies were paid about $15 a month, plus a minimal amount of food and a place to sleep in a bamboo shack.

Time has dimmed the memory of why we ended up with canned spaghetti,instead of the special fare of canned shredded chicken.  Fortunately, we were able to temper our feelings with a blend of humorous sarcasm.

I can only hope our hard-driven coolies had the same gifts to soothe their loss of a pleasant Christmas. Day.  As I think back, we gave little thought to their feelings and welfare.  If we had noticed that in this poverty-ridden group were a few fellow Christians who knew the meaning of Christ, wouldn't our day have been really enhanced?

This piece was written in 1984 by our former member Ted O' Neill.  We welcome other contributions from members on a Christmas memory or  an inspirational piece.