Thanksgiving times three

The week before Thanksgiving, I emailed my mom expressing my sadness that I would miss the annual Hasslen celebration of family and friends from all over the world. And worse, I had no one with whom I had been invited to share the day. But in the end……I had not one, not two ,but THREE Thanksgiving celebrations this year, and they couldn’t have been more different from one another.

Here is the highlight reel.

Thanksgiving #1:

I was invited to the home of an American couple, who invite missionaries every year for Thanksgiving. They are in their late 30s and have ten…yes you read that right, 10 marvelous kids!  They are all home-schooled, bright and very engaging. The other guests were also delightful and the food was AMAZING! People brought dishes to share, but Jenny our hostess is from Virginia and cooked up some nice Southern Thanksgiving dishes as well! I decided to walk the couple of miles home to my house because even though I had on my turkey eating pants and was not too full, I had remembered to wear my Keens so that I could walk off some of the food in anticipation for my next Thanksgiving feast on Friday night.

Thanksgiving #2:

My American friend Natalie, 34, started a non-profit in Kenya that trains community organizers. She decided to prepare a vegan (except for the turkey) Thanksgiving feast for her Kenyan staff and some of her expat friends. I told her I would help her cook and host. She had asked me to be at her house around 2pm. When I got close to her house I called her. She told me she had a little more shopping to do and she would pick me up on the way to do her shopping. Being the daughter of a mother who likes to have most of the meal cooked well in advance, I found this act of last minute shopping a bit disconcerting. But this is the new less-uptight-more-go-with-the-flow self, so I hopped in the car and kept my big mouth shut. It didn’t stay shut for long when Natalie described how helpful her househelp had been. Natalie had asked her to take the meat out of the coconut in preparation for a dessert she was making. The househelp, being unfamiliar with coconuts, didn’t understand and the only meat she saw was the rather large chicken (read 10 pound turkey), so she cut it up and boiled it. I kid you not! Never one to panic, when Natalie asked what I thought we should do with the turkey, only one thought came to mind. “We’ll curry it,” I said. And so we had maple-roasted vegetables, greens, arugula salad for which I made a maple vinigrette dressing, mashed lentils and squash, green beans with almonds, cranberry sauce, stuffing and curried turkey. We didn’t start cooking until 4pm and we started eating around 8:45. There was little food left as about 20 people showed up. Natalie made a vegan pumpkin cheese cake, vegan pumpkin muffins and vegan chocolate peanut butter fudge for dessert. She and I divided up the dishes that needed to be made and a Kenyan friend of hers was our sous chef. It was so much fun. We rocked that kitchen…by they way we had very little in the way of the right kinds of pans for cooking, but God is good and the food was delicious and we are still friends. All’s well that starts in chaos.

Thanksgiving #3:

Every year sometime in November or December, Wezesha throws a Thanksgiving celebration for their supporters and uses it as a chance to get all their students together over the holidays. This year it just happened to be on Thanksgiving weekend. It was also special because they had quite a few students graduating and in their last years of high school and they gave very moving testimonies about how Wezesha had assisted them. We ate traditional Kenyan food but this celebration was the most in line with what I think of as being what the holiday of Thanksgiving is all about -  Giving thanks to God for what he has done in our lives, the people he used to make our dreams a reality and the friends and family he gave us to support us along the way. And please know, those of you who have helped support these students, that without you their education would not have been possible!!

In the US, we have a special day for Thanksgiving but we should really celebrate our thankfulness everyday. That’s my excuse for writing about Thanksgiving a week or so after the event!

I am thankful for the time to write today. I’m thankful after a week up country (I’ll write about that next) that my girls and I are home safe and sound, I’m especially thankful for all the busy work details buzzing around in my head. I don’t like to be idle and God has seen that my life is full of meaningful activity. And more than anything I am thankful for each of YOU who makes my work possible.

(I'm uploading this without photos. Will try to post some soon.) 

Thank you God for the ability to be thankful every day!