As these thoughts came out of my mouth, “This is my first Thanksgiving away”, I was quickly reminded with a flood of memories that indeed it is not. My last experience away from my family, nine years ago, found me near the Amazon in Brazil, teaching in a missionary school. That day I was surrounded by only a few Americans, and others were foreigners who gladly joined us for a day of thankfulness to our Lord. It was a memorable day. So this is the second time away from my family and I guess it can still be a first…the first time celebrating with my WR family and being in the Philippines. We were the only team in the Philippines that weren’t working alongside foreigners. So it was up to us to put together a Thanksgiving celebration. It was also a duel celebration, since Krystle’s 23rd birthday was also on that day. So we had a lot to be thankful for! We were all longing for a home cooked Thanksgiving dinner so off we went to the Supermarket. Thankfully about a five minute walk away was a new mall with a pretty loaded grocery store. And the age old question is “Did we find a turkey?” And unbelievably, YES!!! So we eagerly bought it without the knowledge of whether we had an oven to cook it in. And sadly to say we didn’t, but the guys on our team are genius’s and forged ahead to the unknown. With a grill, and some coals the turkey was grilled over a bucket and an open flame. It was an amazing feat and quite entertaining to watch. In the meantime, Krystle and Traci were in the kitchen preparing the rest of the fixings. There was mashed potatoes, candied yams, creamed corn, green bean casserole (with onions potato chips crumbled on top…no onion toppings J ),stuffing, gravy, rolls, and even three kinds of sparkling juices. And it was all accomplished without an oven. Who would believe it! The whole atmosphere of the day was relaxing, peaceful, and fun. We enjoyed checking up on each other, chipping in to help, and encouraging each other on. I was able to fill my creative outlet and was in charge of creating a harvest atmosphere. So I took on the centerpiece and made the table ready to hold a feast. I had such a good time putting it together! And I was even ok that I didn’t do anything in the kitchen. As we sat down you could see all of our impressed looks. It truly ended up being an unbelievably great setup. Seth took on the job as the carver, and we all bowed our heads in a heartfelt prayer to the Lord. It ended up being a feast! The turkey rocked! As we ate and stuffed ourselves, we all took a moment to express what we were thankful for. This brought back great family memories from the past. The wonderful evening was wrapped up with a celebration of apple pie and carrot cake from Bob’s bakery Café. We sang and celebrated the life of Krystle and joined in a competitive game of Boulderdash. It was all decided that since we didn’t have the choice to be with our family, that this Thanksgiving turned out to be a pleasant surprise, and indeed we did celebrate it with a newer formed family. The evening ended with us connecting with our families, sharing laughs, over the phone hugs and kisses, and stories of what Thanksgiving already brought and what it would bring for those celebrating it thirteen hours later. I felt filled, sustained and quite blessed over the whole day. Thanksgiving is a day to be grateful for what the Lord has done and provided. I have an all loving, powerful, great God, an amazing family, wonderful community of friends, and an awesome year of ministry of loving and serving people. This to me is enough, and for that I am grateful.
