Okay, so truth be known, Thanksgiving is one of those days
in the year that is really hard to celebrate if you live outside of the US (or
Canada too, though they celebrate their Thanksgiving in October). All the things that are important for
the day ~ turkey, stuffing, cranberries, pumpkin pie or some other variation,
green bean casserole, Macy’s parade, American football ~ really don’t have much
to do with why the day is celebrated and set apart.
It was President Abraham Lincoln who set the 4th
Thursday of November apart as a national observance of giving thanks. Here in my world in Belgium, life will
go on as normal ~ though we are canceling our women’s Bible study for the
morning but it has nothing to do with Thanksgiving (too many people were
missing out today and we’re finishing an 8 week course on when God’s people
pray….and we want to finish well!)
Since it’s Thursday, I will hang out with our group of ladies at the
local refugee center. And, you
guessed it, our theme for the day:
Thanksgiving! It’ll be a
chance to introduce the ladies to American Thanksgiving (and yes, I cooked
down a pumpkin and made pumpkin puree in order to make pumpkin muffins, 2
different recipes, yummy!) But
more importantly, we’ll take a few moments to reflect on giving thanks. It’s not just the one who has
permission to stay in Belgium that needs to give thanks. Each one of us, no matter what our life
situation is like in this day, needs to give thanks.
I love the idea that President Lincoln set apart this day
for giving thanks. Set apart: it’s the simplest definition of the
word “holy”. What could be more
holy than taking time and giving thanks for all the good there is in life? Our craft project with the women today
is decorating a glass jar with beautiful paper and then taking the opportunity
each day to write on a slip of paper a note of thanks. Even in the midst of the
immigration/asylum seeking process, there is much to be thankful for. My prayer is that the women will
understand how important it is to say “thank you”, “merci”, dank u wel” and
“vielen dank” in any of the official (and unofficial!) languages of this land
where we will celebrate Thanksgiving today.
So, bring on the kalkoen (turkey). The pompoen tart (pumpkin pie) is already baked, the
aardappelen (potatoes) will be roasted with herbs in the oven and the
veenbessen (cranberry) sauce is a new recipe this year…..initial taste tests
scored good results! And may there
be a Thanksgiving celebrated in your life every day of the year, not just that
one Thursday in November. We have
so much to be thankful for ~ every moment that your heart beats and your lungs
cause you to breathe in air and you don’t even have to think about it is cause
for giving thanks.
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| Jar of thanks ~ not only was the project fun, and the food yummy, but great conversations around what we have to be thankful for ~ it made the day seem less lonely being so far from family and friends back in the US. |
