It might seem odd to you that I'm writing about thanksgiving when there’s less than a month left till Christmas. Well, in my opinion it’s easier to write about and event once it is over. And it just worked out for me to write about a season behind.
Well I just wanted to share a bit about our thanksgivings in Congo. When most people think of thanksgiving they think of, turkeys, stuffing, cranberry sauce, smooth mashed potatoes with gravy, corn, squash, pumpkin a great variety of pies and desserts, colorful leaves, bare trees, and pilgrims with black hats and Indians with bows and arrows gathered around mounds of steaming food. Our thanksgiving was a bit different than that.
Like many other years we’ve spent in Congo, we invited people over for thanksgiving meal. Because we were inviting our whole team, which has grown amazingly in the past few months, my mom asked each family to bring an assigned dish to the gathering. That way we didn’t have to cook all the food for the thirty people all by our selves.
The Wednesday before Thanksgiving we made our traditional name place turkeys. The turkeys are made out of construction paper, glitter, glue, and creativity. It was really fun. After four hours of trying to not get glue all over us and cutting and tracing, we were finally done with the thirty turkeys.
We had been waiting weeks for thanksgiving and than suddenly it was thanksgiving and we had tons to do. People were supposed to come around 2:00 in the afternoon so we had to get done before than. We had to make the food, bake pies, clean and decorate the house, and figure out where everyone was going to sit. I might not seem like a lot, but it took every bit of time we had before everyone came. In between helping in the kitchen with preparing the food, making the pies, and washing dishes, I ran back and forth from the other missionary houses on the compound doing errands. I hauled chairs, carried plates and silverware, and borrowed several other things. That was fun.
Finally the house was decorated and clean. The many tables were set neatly, the turkey name places were all thoughtfully arranged on each plate, the floor swept, and the windows washed. And all the food was cooked and the pies baked even though we had had a delay set us back a bit. Our gas bomb ran out. That means that we couldn’t use our stove of oven until we could get a new gas bomb from the hospital. Thankfully before we were to behind in our schedule, somebody was able to bring a few over from the hospital in a truck. It all worked out anyways because everybody was late but just on time for the food. Ah! The food. That’s one of the very good things about Thanksgiving. Instead of turkey, we had delicious African duck, and we had the best stuffing ever, mashed wild sweet potatoes and gravy, a huge pot of rice, a African dish called saka-saka with beans (saka-saka is made out of green leaves cut in thin little slices and cooked), squash, really good dinner rolls, pumpkin bread, cranberry sauce, and a cabbage salad. Well we don’t have pumpkin here in Congo, but we do have squash and they taste a lot alike. So our pumpkin is squash. It’s really good. And we don’t have cranberries in Congo either, but there isn’t really a substitute for cranberries so when we came home from America we brought along two cans of cranberry sauce from Family Dollar. All the food was really good. And oh, I haven’t even mentioned the desserts yet! We had chocolate and vanilla pudding, pumpkin pie, pineapple pie, caramel pie, and chocolate pie. Soon everybody was very full. But before we started eating, we went around the room and several people said what they were most thankful for. It was a great Thanksgiving, and we had a lot to be thankful for. Actually we all have a lot to be thankful for all year long, every year of our life. We as humans tend to not think about what God has given us and just focus on the difficulties of life. This is my challenge to you and me, be thankful everyday not just one day of the year! And I encourage you to open your eyes to what the lord has given you! And to end this off, I Wish You a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
