“Jesus took the five loaves and two fish. He looked up to heaven and gave thanks.” Mark 6:41
Well celebrated Thanksgiving Day in Peru two days before our family and friends celebrated in the U.S. because Thanksgiving Day for J Squad was a travel day, which meant we spent 30 hours on a bus traveling from Peru to Ecuador. Our American-Peruvian Thanksgiving was complete with love, laughter, gratefulness for a good month and good company, and importantly there a was lots and lots of food. We held to tradition and ate so much that we were in pain but full of joy. There was something special about this Thanksgiving that had nothing to do with location or the different languages. For the first time, I was a part of a Thanksgiving feast disciple-style.
“The apostles gathered around Jesus. They told Him all they had done and taught. But many people were coming and going. So they did not even have a chance to eat. So Jesus said to His apostles, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place.” So they went away by themselves in a boat to a quiet place. But many people who saw them leaving recognized them. They ran from all the towns and got there ahead of them. When Jesus came ashore, He saw a large crowd.” Mark 6:31-34
Team R.O.A.R. had a very busy month in Huanuco, Peru doing the will of the Father at all times of day and night. I have to admit, I am really proud of us. We listened, sang, taught, and performed in Spanish (though none of us is quite fluent) in the name of Jesus for the entire month. Originally, we planned for our last day in Huanuco to be a day of light ministry, packing, and reflection as a team on a job well done for the Lord. We wanted to rest, and sit at the throne of Jesus and tell Him all we had done for Him this month and to thank Him for giving us the strength to be His Gospel in a language and culture different from our own. Instead, on our last day we found ourselves working all the way up to the end, with a few extra hurdles to jump, and a Thanksgiving feast to prepare. If we had time to think, we probably would have realized that were tired in every way and having enough energy to cook a Thanksgiving feast, clean the ministry area, and pack our lives for 8 months, would be a stretch and a miracle in itself. However, by God’s grace somehow we did it all.
“By that time it was late in the day. His disciples came to Him. “There is nothing here,” they said. “It’s already very late. Send the people away. Then they can go to the nearby countryside and villages to buy something to eat. But Jesus answered, “You give them something to eat.” They said to Him, “That would take more than half a year’s pay! Should we go and spend that much on bread? Are we supposed to feed them?” Mark 6:35-37
We had been planning for Thanksgiving since the beginning of November. We planned the menu, shopping list, and the budget, and delegated tasks. On the World Race we have a limited budget (we spend at most $5 a day per person on meals) so we had to be frugal all month to save enough money to spend a little extra on a Thanksgiving Day feast. (Don’t worry, we still managed to eat more this month than all the previous months. Our days were filled with homemade spaghetti, fried chicken, tacos, mashed potatoes, wasabi noodles, fried cuy (guinuea pig), chilli, pancakes and more. We never came close to starving.
) Even with all of the planning, we still worried on that final day about having the energy and resources to feed ourselves and a few Peruvian family members. We saved up a little over one week’s worth of food money to spend on one Thanksgiving meal for our team and a few guests. We made so many friends this month and so many church people adopted us as their children and sisters, so deciding whom to invite was difficult. Even with all of our savings we were not sure that we would have enough food to feed all of the people we wanted to invite. After much debate and anxiety we chose five people outside of our team to invite to the feast.
“How many loaves do you have?” Jesus asked. “Go and see.” When they found out, they said, “Five loaves and two fish.” Then Jesus directed them to have all the people sit down in groups on the green grass. So they sat down in groups of 100s and 50s. Jesus took the five loaves and two fish. He looked up to heaven and gave thanks. He broke the loaves into pieces. Then he gave them to his disciples to pass around to the people. He also divided up the fish among them all. All of them ate and were satisfied. The disciples picked up 12 baskets of broken pieces of bread and fish. The number of men who ate was 5,000.” Mark 6:38-44
Photo by Brooke Conn
In the afternoon of the evening we were scheduled to leave Huanuco and travel nine hours by bus to Lima, the capital of Peru, we prepared a Thanksgiving feast (within budget) for twelve people. We had homemade turkey, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, potato balls, cheese dip and crackers, cheesecake, cider, sweet tea (there are several southerners on our team), Coke, Inca Cola (a soda made by Coca-Cola not available in the US. except at the Coke Museum), and water.
We prayed and thanked the Lord for our food. We ate and took turns speaking in English or Spanish, recalling the many blessing from God, and telling of our gratefulness to be able to serve the Holy and Loving God. Needless to say, once we were finished we found we had enough food to feed at least 50 more people! At that point, we went around the church campus and interrupted meetings and small group sessions to announce there was free food. We could not save the leftovers for ourselves because we were about to travel for 3 days without a refrigerator. We invited everyone in sight and ate more ourselves until we nearly burst. Still we had 40 plates of food leftover. We left them for the church to serve the community later.
When we were discussing how many people to invite, one of our squad leaders who had already done the World Race once before, told us how God provided for his team in the past. He encouraged us to pray and ask God in faith for a way to feed all the people we wanted to invite. Sadly, we gave into our doubts and did not even consider the possibility that there would be more than enough food. In the end, we had enough to invite our friends, family and even a few strangers.
I have read the story of Jesus feeding the five thousand many times. Yesterday, one of my squadmates asked us to read it again and really imagine and experience it. I realized that I had experienced it this Thanksgiving except in my real-life reenactment I ignored the voice of Jesus saying, “You give them something to eat.” Even in the face of our doubt, our new family and friends were still fed because God is good and blesses us even when we lack faith in His goodness.
The part that really struck me about the story of the five thousand this time was the fact that they were ALL were fed. They ALL were satisfied and the disciples collected 12 baskets of leftovers, enough for all of the Lord’s apostles to eat, be satisfied, and strengthened as well.
Thanksgiving Day 2014 was an AMAZING DAY. We had all the energy, food, and love we needed. It was full of tears at the dinner table and at the bus station where our friends saw us off at 10:30 pm, and where a man whom we only met once sent us away with a large thermos of cinnamon hot chocolate to keep up warm on the journey. We served the Lord this month and we served each other. We gave our all. I pray during this upcoming month that we trust, believe, and know that God will always give us His best, especially when we give Him our best, and that He will always provide for us, and bless us to satisfaction!
