“ And whenever the Christmas season comes, this is the joy.”
“We celebrate Christmas along with our poor Christian members. We buy and give the new clothes to the gypsy children and also gypsy women.”
“We exchange gifts. Sometimes we give surprise gifts. Sometimes I buy surprise gift to Jandi* , she never knew what I’m going to buy.”
“There’s a song called, you know, I Miss my Home, During Christmas. So I remember back at home because they love to sing because they’re away from home.”
“Mainly our target is to share the good news, the love of Christ God who send his son to this world.”
Welcome back to the Harvest Bridge Podcast. As we celebrate the birth of Jesus this Christmas, we are reminded of our deep connection to our brothers and sisters throughout South Asia. Much like our own traditions in the United States, families in Myanmar, India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, and the Andaman Islands fill their homes with decorations, prepare special foods, exchange gifts, and gather for worship. Children are given new clothes, neighbors share meals, and churches brim with music and celebration. In many ways, their observances look familiar. Yet Christmas in South Asia also has its own distinct traditions.
For many of our partners, the season is shaped by intentional outreach: providing meals for widows, offering clothing to families in need, welcoming neighbors into their churches, and creating spaces where everyone can hear the message of Christ’s birth. In communities where believers face pressure or persecution, Christmas is both a joyful celebration and a courageous act of witness.
In this month’s podcast, you’ll hear about pastors who decorate their homes on December 1st because the children they care for simply can’t wait, feasts that begin fifteen days before Christmas, and the preparation of traditional food. You’ll also hear about Christmas ministry as churches fill beyond capacity and believers stand outside so neighbors and friends can have a seat. Carolers walk village roads and gifts are shared with widows, gypsy families, and abandoned older adults. House-to-house visits are offered quietly in places facing violence or persecution.
Our partners describe Christmas as a season of joy and excitement, but also a season of courage. In some communities, simply gathering for worship or offering a Christmas lunch invites opposition. Yet year after year, they open their doors, their tables, and their hearts so others can hear the good news that God has come near.
Let’s begin by hearing about a few traditions from some of the Harvest Bridge ministry leaders at home during Christmas. First we’ll hear from Jandi* and Shalva* in Nepal, and Pastor Thang in Myanmar:
“We exchange gifts. Sometimes we give surprise gifts. Sometimes I buy a surprise gift for Jandi, she never knew what I’m going to buy. And sometimes children buy, sometimes children give surprise gifts. So then we cook, you know, local good food, like we call roti. It’s a kind of a local bread, but it is, you know, not like bread, but it is in a round shape. So we cook food and different foods, not one kind of food. And also we buy a lot of fruits, lots of foods, fruits. And sometimes, you know, people started having feasts at their home, even 15 days before Christmas.” – Shalva
“At the first day of the month of December, we decorate our house, and we have a lot of Christmas song practice and singing. So for us, even from our childhood, Christmas is the only occasion that we add meat, you know. So the rest of the month we don’t have much meat, so that’s why Christmas will be the only festival that we enjoy eating meat as much as we can.” – Thang
“So we do a lot of things at home. We decorate our home with the lights, Christmas tree and any decoration items, like stars or some balls like that, decoration is going with the lights and flowers. So during Christmas time, all the Christians’ houses will be full of lights. Then the second thing we do, buy new clothes for children and others at home. We prefer buying new clothes during the Christmas time. So we may need to buy two months before, but we wait until Christmas because that is a, you know, a fun time and celebration time.” – Shalva
“So that’s where we try to enjoy ourselves and singing, praising God through all the Christmas songs. And then, mostly every night, you know, the children sing, and they practice and they sing again. And then we have throughout the month, we all are so excited. It is a peaceful month and a joyous month for us at home. There’s a song called, you know, I miss my home during Christmas. So I remember back at home, because they love to sing, because they are away from home. So I think this is a song that goes like this: “I miss my home during the Christmas, the Christmas season.” This is one of the best Christmas songs. . . So we hope to sing again this year. I hope I will try to explain when they sing. They are very excited now. They asked me to decorate the house now, but I say, wait til December first.” – Thang
Pastor Pan* in Myanmar and Pastor Darpan* in Bangladesh also shared their Christmas traditions at home. Pastor Pan shares what Christmas was like before the coup.
“Whenever the Christmas season comes, this is the joy, the joyous time for my family, as well as my children, as well as my community, as well as my church. My family used to celebrate Christmas at home, thanking our God for giving His Son Jesus Christ and the one who came to save us from sins. And on the day of Christmas, in the evening, we used to invite our families and friends, and we used to have dinner together at home, and we used to make fun at the time, and we used to cook traditional food like corn, many, many vegetables, and at least we kill one pig or several chickens, and we cook it.” – Pan
“It is a very joyful day. And some people, relatives will come, you know, the house where Jesus Christ was born (nativity scene)? This little house we prepared inside our house, and give it some pictures. And we collect the Christmas cards. And we keep the Christmas cards inside of this house and decorate it. And the lighting, and make the cake, giving offer to the relatives. And varieties of the cake we wanted to make, not like the European style or American style cake. It is our natural, it is our local traditional cake. We burn the rice and mix the water and some things. And we prepare locally, local style. And every year, all the young boys and girls, they are waiting, when the Christmas will come, and our guardians, like mothers and some sisters and other relatives, they will prepare in the home openly, not inside the house, they prepared. And sometimes at the midnight, people are waiting [for] when it will be complete and they will offer. And not only that, in our family, with the people we were waiting, waiting that the carolers are coming. Carol party. They are coming to celebrate. They are singing the drums, and some other musical instrument – enjoying and shouting with the music.” – Darpan
Home is where the celebration starts, full of lights, food, gifts, and traditions passed down through generations. But Christmas grows even bigger when the community comes together in the church, transforming personal joy into communal worship, outreach, and welcome.
“Then we have a Christmas celebration in the church. What we do? We ask all our believers to invite their neighboring people, neighbors, we ask them to invite their relatives, we ask to invite their friends. We ask them to invite their co-workers. Then they bring them to the church, and we present a Christmas program they enjoy. And also we share Christmas message to them. And also we give some kind of small gifts to them. And those who are interested, they can, you know, open themselves to believe in Jesus. So this is a kind of a gospel festival. We turned Christmas festival into the gospel festival whilst celebrating publicly in the church, because during Christmastime, there is no restrictions, even from government. We have freedom during that time. On Christmas Eve, one day before Christmas, during the evening time, we have a church, church family celebration. You know, we don’t invite other people, only church believers we invite. And we cook very good food for them. Then we share the food. And also we celebrate Christmas with the dances, you know, [using] talents God has given to them. They sing, you know, some caricatures somebody. It was so lovely, you know? So that kind of fun we make during Christmas Eve. The next day, we have a Christmas celebration open for everyone, to the community, to the neighbors, to the friends, to the relatives, to the co-workers, all are invited there, and we give them the seats. And the believers stand outside because we have limited seats in the church, so we ask them to pack in the church, and the believers provide them seats. Then we also feed them.” – Shalva
“We used to celebrate Christmas, not only [with] our family, but also with my community, as well as my church. Especially in the morning, we used to have a Christmas service in the church, and we have lunch together at our church. And at that time, we used to invite many, many non believers, like, for example, my neighbors and our church members are also invited, their neighbors, their friends and who are non believers. Because we invited [them] for lunch so that they can hear the Word of God, they can have the good news of salvation and preaching in the service. Now this year also, we are planning to have an outreach with my co-workers as was, as my church leaders, but we cannot do as we wish because of the ongoing violence. And before the coup, we used to have carol singing and visiting house to house, praying for one another, singing Christmas, the Christmas song for the family, and this is one of the joyous and the happiest work, the happiest moments, especially for the young people. But this time, we miss this opportunity because of the ongoing violence. So, but, we are planning to have an outreach program in the daytime and we are going to divide two or three people, at least two or three houses per day. We are going to visit them. And of course, we would not share the gospel directly, but we will invite them to come for the Christmas service. We will ask them to join our Christmas lunch so that just before Christmas we are going to have a Christmas service, and I can give the Christmas as well as the gospel message.” – Pan
“So we celebrate. We offer the cake. We offer rice pudding, we share a lot of things. Those who are the rich, rich people or have the ability, they can arrange some things, like a video, and give it a big screen and showing the Jesus, Jesus film. And [at] night time, like midnight, it is a cool time – people put on the warm clothes, like as a blanket and [in] the open sky, the cold is coming, but people are hearing, people are seeing, and the neighbors, non regular people, they enjoy, like this. So this is the day, this time we share a lot of things with them. Mainly our target is to share the good news, the love of Christ – God, who sent His Son to this world to save us, as we are the sinner.” – Darpan
Priya, who leads a ministry among the gypsy and tribal communities in southern India, also shares about the outreach she carries out during Christmas.
“ The day before Christmas we go out and spread the gospel with our church group and women’s group. Every man and children will come along with us. We sing a song on the street and take a musical system with us. And we sing a song, proudly said that Jesus is born for us. And, this is our outreach carol we call, this is called Carol Round.During the season, gypsy people celebrate Christmas at their traditional function. They eat and drink special food. Some, some of the old people, they drink wine and make fun of that. Many of them come closer to Jesus, especially our gypsy children. They are sincerely close to God when they go out the next day, they share the experience about the Christian celebration at their classrooms.Some challenges are there, a lot of quarreling them, nonbelievers are fighting with them. We celebrate. We celebrate Christmas along with our poor Christian members. We buy and give the new clothes to the gypsy children and also gypsy women. Sometimes we buy the clothes for the widows and abandoned people in our church.Last Christmas, we didn’t have much money to buy a lot of stuffs like biyanis and clothes and cakes for the gypsy children and also for the abandoned women and the elderly people who are staying in a gypsy colonies. But by grace of God, we provided them at the time. I believe that God provided us on time.” – Priya
Alongside the celebrations, our partners asked us to pray with them in very specific ways. Here’s how we can stand with them this Christmas.
“First of all, we need to be thankful to the Lord. Despite all the crises, we are still alive. So we have the opportunity to continue the works.This is the first important thing for our partners, is to be faithful to the Lord and to the ministry, as they’ve been faithful so far, so that they will become an example to the people. Like heroes in the ministry. And at the same time, during Christmas, as we all celebrate in different ways of celebration – some might be in small numbers, some might be a big number, no matter whatever – small or big – let this Christmas season be a chance of joy when they have peace. Trials, sorrow, sadness, you know, difficulties. This will be a real joy as we celebrate Christmas, which is very close now.” – Thang
“During Christmas season, these conservative Buddhists know that some Buddhist people are becoming believers – are following Jesus. That is why some of the conservative people don’t like Christmas. They hate very much, since they hate the Christmas and this season, they hate the pastors like us, the missionaries, the evangelists, those who are preaching and sharing about the Christmas season, they hate. But we were not harmed by them directly, but they oppose us by stopping people to come, stopping people to join our service, stopping people to join our lunch. If they cannot stop, they are going to hear the good news of Jesus Christ. That’s why they don’t want. They are asking to stop their families, their neighbors, not to go to the church, not to go for lunch, so and so. Of course, we faced such a kind of persecution during the last Christmas, but by the grace of God, we were not harmed by any one of them directly. And this year also, I want you to pray for safety and not to face great persecution, and also pray for more souls to be saved, as we are going to witness the Lord to the unreached people. And also, I want you to pray for the believers. As there are many believers who are suffering and struggling and disappointed, discouraged. So I want you to pray for those people to grow their faith in Jesus Christ in the midst of many hardships and difficulties.” – Pan
As we hear these stories, we’re reminded that the meaning of Christmas is the same no matter where we live: Jesus has come, and his presence brings hope. Our partners’ experiences reveal a resilience and faith that inspires us. Their celebrations are joyful, but they are also brave. Even in the midst of scarcity and opposition, they continue to open their doors, share their tables, and proclaim the good news. As we pray for them, may we remember that we are bound together in the same story, the story of a God who draws near to us all.