Thanksgiving

Deb's dream was to provide a Thanksgiving dinner to international students from the college in our town who didn't have anywhere to go on Thanksgiving. Yesterday I was able to watch that dream become a reality. How exciting! Because service and dreams have no limit with God, we expanded the group to included anyone in the area who didn't have a place to go on Thanksgiving. I'm not sure of the final count but I heard it was around 120. * The dream needed lots of people to make it happen. People volunteered to cook and de-bone turkeys for us at home and bring them in on Wednesday. Then Wednesday afternoon and evening, people met at the church to work on turkeys and potatoes and decorating. Riley, Taylor and I met a few others back at the church around 8am Thursday morning. Brit walked over and Steve drove later so we didn't have the little boys there so early. We started cooking and then as other volunteers arrived, we gave them jobs. It was amazing to see how many people were willing to help on Thanksgiving. * It was really cool to watch the food appear. There were so many willing servants who helped make the day possible. Even people who were leaving to spend the day with their families still stopped by with gifts of food. * We served the dinner at noon. The menu included turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes, stuffing, corn, cranberry salad, some vegetarian enchiladas, and bread. We followed that with apple and pumpkin desert. It was fun to watch some of the international students. Most of them wanted to try everything since it was the 'traditional American Thanksgiving' food. * Because when God provides, He really provides, so we had lots of leftovers. First we had anyone who came take what they wanted in to-go containers. Then we packaged up whatever was left and Dick, Steve and Riley took them to the Domestic Abuse Shelter and the Police Department. * I don't think there was any better way to teach my kids (and myself) about Thanksgiving than to have our family serving others.