A Very Romanian Thanksgiving

In the last 10 years I’ve spent 7 Thanksgivings away from home, 7.  My teamates’ jaws dropped when they heard that figure, I hadn’t really even thought about it before.  I’ve spent Thanksgivings all around the US with college friends, two Thanksgivings in Thailand, and of course countless with my family in Seattle, but as great as all of those memories are, this Thanksgiving, in Stejeris, Romania, was the most memorable of all.

The day started out with french toast for breakfast and a Bible study.  We let a giant pot full of chili simmer on the stove while we discussed faith and what Jesus says about it.  The smells wafting in from the kitchen made my mouth water.  I wanted nothing more than to devour a big bowl full of it.  But the chili wasn’t for us…

It was frosty outside, almost like it had snowed, so we layered up, strapped on our shoes and began our one mile hike, chili pot and 3 loaves of bread in hand.

When we reached the next village we took the first right down a dusty, gravel road and our destination, a small, gypsy compound came into sight.  This was the same gypsy compound we visited our first day of ministry.  The place where the kids run around barefoot, although it’s 20 degrees outside.  A place of poverty.

So, that first week of ministry we, as a team decided we would forfeit our food budget for one day and we would bring these families, lunch on Thanksgiving. 

As we approached the houses the women warily poked outside.  By this time we had visited them three times, so they were familiar with us, they knew we were Christians, but because of the language barrier they didn’t quite understand our intentions for the day.  After a good deal of miming we conveyed that they needed bowls.  So the teenage girl, Edet ran inside and emerged with 3 bowls.

We filled all their bowls with chili and handed out the bread.  I wish I could say they dove right in, devouring it, but I think because we were the guests and we were not eating the situation suddenly became akward.  They took the obligatory bites and the little kids had a heyday, but the older ones held off ’til later, I’m assuming at least.

The coolest part of our day was seeing the mood over the family change completely.   When we had visited before there was a feeling of sadness, depression and overall quiet in the place, but today they livened up.  There were smiles and dancing.  Lauren brought out her guitar and we were singing Christmas carols together, then before we knew it they were playing songs on her guitar.  We had fun, and it looked like they had fun.  It was so rewarding to see their smiling faces.

After we said our goodbyes and handed them the rest of the chili and bread we headed back home to get to work on dinner.  I was in charge of making the mashed potatoes.  I have to say they turned out pretty well for it being my first time and I used a fork to mash them, aka spent the afternoon building muscles in my right arm.

Everything was finally ready around 6 o’clock and I must say our spread didn’t look to shabby!  We had chicken (because Turkey is a little hard to come by here), the mashed potatoes, gravy, homemade stuffing, homemade applesauce, biscuits and deviled eggs.

It was all so good!  We’ve been on a severe food budget this month so we gorged ourselves.

After dinner we sat down to play 3 in a hat, watch “National Lampoons Christmas Vacation,” and of course eat desert!  We opted to go a little less traditional with deserts.  There was no pumpkin pie or apple pie.  Instead we had No Bake Cookies and Dirt and Worms (aka Dirt and Farm Animals in our case), and they were absolutely delicious.  The perfect way to end a perfect day.

I hope that next Thanksgiving can live up to this Thanksgiving!  Until then I have one thing to say…. I can’t wait for Christmas!

Wishing you a happy December and an excellent Christmas!  From Team Unchained Rhythm!