Thanksgiving 2010

Since our holidays and Thai holidays are not the same, it can be quite difficult to fit in celebrating our holidays that are important to us. Maybe it's just because Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, but in one way I hate having to "schedule" it in. Even when I schedule it in I can't seem to get more than about five hours to celebrate it (and that includes the baking time but not prep work). On the other hand I'm thankful that there is work to do and that we are blessed with so many open doors that keep us busy. So my flesh part wants to miss family and tradition, but I can feel God's Spirit calling me to really be thankful.

So with that here are some things I thought about during the holiday...
~I'm thankful that God called us to serve here. I didn't know much about Thailand before we came, and I never pictured us living in Southeast Asia. Now that we're here I can't imagine us being anywhere else for such a time as this.

~I'm thankful that God blessed us with great families. They are very supportive of us and treat us in such a way that being away is as easy as it possibly can be. And I'm thankful that some have come to visit us and that Hope has committed to work here also.

~I'm thankful that God has blessed us with so many "houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and farms." I know that even though persecutions are included in that list from Mark 10 that they're not without purpose. God has told us we would have them so that we would not think that persecution was His way of telling us that our ministry was ineffective or that we were unusable. It's a choice--I can either think about what I've left or what God has given me. He has blessed me with all of the above--wonderful friends to work with, family to serve with, and people who have become like family to us. I certainly do not feel alone here.

~I'm thankful for the time we got to spend together as a family. We had a lot of fun in the kitchen working, cleaning, cooking, and eating together. And we fit in the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving videos also. :)

Here are some of my favorite pics from the day...

Pawn was out early cooking the old school way. She thought she might as well use some of the wood we had outside the fence for grilling her pork. The pork was delicious, and it just might become a new family tradition!Here we are together in the kitchen. Rusty's behind the camera of course! He's waiting to be our trustworthy taste-tester!
Hope added in her dad's homemade rolls this year. Last year she contributed the broccoli and rice casserole, but she couldn't find the kind of cheese she wanted. I think the rolls were excellent and didn't realize how much we had been missing by me not taking the time to make them in years past.Here's the finished table. I always think it's going to be a lot of leftovers, but only the dressing and sweet potatoes seem to last for several meals.
This was not the best photo we took, but it's my favorite. I had set the camera up to take five shots and told everyone that. Pawn still got excited and let out an oh, oh, oh! right in the middle. That made us start laughing creating this picture.

Hope everyone else had an enjoyable Thanksgiving! Now on to Christmas which is going to be an even busier time! :)