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From: Linda Chase
Greetings from the hot country!
We arrived here in Da Nang and were a little jet-lagged, but recovered in a hurry and were plunged into a busy swirl of meeting students in the University, at the Vision Café and here at home. What a good answer to questions we were asking and thinking about before leaving! Part of that busy swirl revolved around a Christmas pageant that Tim-Anna-Michael were part of last week: Merry Christmas, Danang.
Several groups of foreigners and also some local companies funded the free program last Saturday and Sunday, renting the city's best auditorium. The theater holds only 1,200 people, and this year they were able to raise enough money to rent it for two days, to allow more people to come and share the spirit of Christmas. The free tickets are handed out to friends in the month before and, as you can imagine, attending it is a highlight for our relationships with people.
The program began with thanks to the government for giving permission (there had been a private showing to the government officials earlier Saturday morning and they had also OK’d the script) and then the opening number was the Silent Monks “singing” the Hallelujah Chorus with flashcards that Tim, Michael and Anna were in. 
Then a blacklight presentation of Away In the Manger – the white gloves and hands formed angels, stars, manger with baby, and spelled out words – hard to describe but pretty spectacular.
The curtain opened then to a very large stage with a backdrop which was a street scene from an ancient nearby city, Hoi An, with vendors working in front of their shops, a few bushes and park benches near the middle of the stage, a setting for a manger scene near the left front and a simple room of a house near the right front.
There were 2 intertwined story lines, well-seasoned with wandering carolers, ballet dancers dancing to Christmas songs, etc. The story line on the right was a rewrite of O. Henri’s “The Gift of the Magi” – a poor but loving pair of newlyweds trying to figure out how to buy a meaningful gift for the other for Christmas. He ends up taking his bicycle to the shopkeeper on the streets of Hoi An to get enough money to buy a beautiful gold chain for the pendant his wife's mother had given her. She sold her pendant to get enough money to buy a needed replacement chain and a horn for his bike. In the end, they celebrated the most important thing, which wasn’t material possessions but the sacrificial gift that had been given to them to share with each other: love. The spoken lines were displayed on screens on each side of the stage in English and Vietnamese.
This story was told in several small scenes, each acting as a stepping stone for remembrances of the first Christmas, in one form or another.
Some of the remembrances of course took place over on the left of the stage. A couple with the sweetest 2-month old baby came out as Mary and Joseph. Later, the wisemen found them. A childrens' choir came and serenaded them with some darling solo work. At the end of the show the audience was invited to turn on their cell phones and the flashlight app if their phone had one, and wave them in the air during the singing of Emmanuel.
Then the most important time began: the post-show parties. Everyone invited their friends home for treats or they went out together. We went to a café that sold a special type of local noodles and had a round of iced sugarcane drinks which we used to toast the people who put on the show and also the Jesus that the show was about. Much good conversation followed.
Peruse the complete photoshow of Merry Christmas, Danang pictures here: Photo Album
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