Thanksgiving

Filipinos don't celebrate Thanksgiving.

At least they didn't.

The American missionaries brought Thanksgiving here! They made apple pies, mashed potatoes, turkey, dressing, and squash to share with over 130 people! Together, we shared the story of Thanksgiving and challenged everyone to have a a thankful heart.

The people were so blessed! My friend Tennie (who is from America) said she'd been waiting 10 years to have a Thanksgiving meal like that!

(The photo portion of my computer is not currently working, so I unfortunately can't post pictures here or on facebook. Hopefully I can figure out what I did and fix it soon! I have sooo many pictures that I don't want to lose!!)

At Thanksgiving, I was reminded of a lesson I learned before I came here: "When you have given up everything, give up thanks." We enter into God's presence with thanksgiving and praise. When we look at what we have instead of what we don't have, something changes inside of us. We gain a new perspective on our life that fuels us to give to others in a new way.

The day after our feast, the missionaries, Tita, and I went to give an SSRW training to a group of people who had just bought the curriculum from the publishing company. We gave a CRASH course! I made the missionaries show their stuff. :-) It was a lot of fun! But can you imagine trying to cram in two weeks' worth of training into a 6 hour session with a lunch break and two snack breaks? It didn't happen! So we promised to offer more training at IFL in the future for this group. I hope I will be one of the trainers again. I really enjoy empowering other teachers.

The missionaries have moved on to China now to start their school. They blessed me more than I can express. Often, we would gather together to just soak in God's presence and pray. Their hearts toward Him and their generosity and help towards me ministered so deeply to me. Cathy gave me two wonderful books to read as well as her computer speakers and more chocolate! I am so grateful!

I now have only 21 days until I come back to the states. I have so much to do before then! We are going in a new direction in January with the reading program. I made an action plan and timeline for everything. I gave it to Tita tonight and we will be meeting to discuss it tomorrow. Please keep this meeting and this plan in your prayers. Once we talk about it, I will share a little bit of what I'll be doing.

I don't believe I have posted this yet, but I bought a one way ticket back here to the Philippines. God has made it clear that I am to stay here for another year. So, unless the Lord opens doors and makes provision, I will be in this nation until at least May of 2012. I may make more visits back to the states between now and then, I may not. I may go to other nations from here, I may not. All I know is that I am here. This is where I need to be and this is where I want to be. Where the Lord sends me, I will go. The action plan that the Lord has given me takes me all the way to May of 2012 to see it put into place. After that, another adventure begins.

Do I still get homesick? I'm sure some of you are wondering. The answer is yes. But I get homesick in a different way than I used to. I don't miss the stuff I had. And I get to talk to the people I love, so it's not that I miss them completely. But I miss being known and I miss hugs from the people who know me. I'll be honest, I miss the culture of rest that my home church created. I miss the familiar. But that "missing" just drives me deeper into the arms of my Jesus who left all that was familiar to Him in order to receive me into His arms. He becomes my familiarity, especially in those moments.

Tomorrow celebrates my 5th month "anniversary" of being here. I would never turn back the hands of time to stay in the states. Sometimes I wish I had my old classroom back and my old routine of teaching. It was such a predictable adventure. But then, I would be missing so much here. Like tonight, I played a game of "tickle tag" with three little boys who just wanted love. I was always it and they were always my captives. I also "tickle caught" some older (age 10-12) boys and discovered they are still afraid of the wiggling fingers. :-) And today, I helped Tina to understand a sermon by Nick Vujicic- a man who also has no arms and no legs.

Nope, I wouldn't trade this life for anything.