Happy Thanksgiving to all of you back in America! Obviously, it's not a holiday here, but we had kind of an in between day. Caleb didn't have school, and Jared only did a few lessons (for those who haven't heard, Jared is now homeschooling via the internet). But Rick worked a very full day (and as you can see from the picture, didn't make it home for dinner which we wanted to eat while it was hot). It was kind of an in between meal, too. We had rice and Liberian pumpkin soup (it's like butternut squash), apple crisp and green bean casserole. (I saved megabucks -like seven- on french-fried onion rings by figuring out how to make them myself- it was easy, actually.)
It occurred to me that "in between" must be a bit how our kids feel about American Thanksgiving. Did you know that Caleb has only been in the US for 2 Thanksgiving holidays (1999 and 2004)? He actually does not remember either of those Thanksgivings at all (I asked him). He does, however, know the history of the holiday- go figure. Max has been able to develop some sense of tradition while he's been at D.A. They have a big intramural football tournament on Wednesday before the holiday and then he gets to have Thanksgiving dinner with the other SIM missionaries in Dakar.
Such is the in between life of a missionary kid.
By the way, please pray for Max and his schoolmates this weekend. They will be on an outreach to a rural area in Senegal, sharing the love of God and doing service projects. The school has developed a long term relationship with a group of villages through outreach visits over several years and it is having an impact.
1 comment:
Your kids can learn a lot more about Thanksgiving by eating an "in between" meal in a "foreign" country than they ever could in the US. After all, the original european colonists of the US were in a foreign land and ate a Native American diet at their fall harvest festival (the turkey and pumpkin pie came much later) and had to learn from other cultures in order to survive. Although your kids may not grow up with the same cultural love for Thanksgiving as white americans do (time to overeat and watch football on TV), they probably understand the real history of the event a lot better.
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