How one missionary and their children celebrate Thanksgiving…Starting November 1 of every year our family cuts out paper hands (our personal hands) one for each day leading up to Thanksgiving.  Every night we write something that we are thankful for on our paper hands.  Then we curl the fingers to look like leaves and tape them to our paper tree trunk. We call this our Thankful Tree.  We usually leave it up through the Christmas holiday and continue to talk about God’s love for us.

On Thanksgiving day, we play the “Thankful Corn” game. Beside everyone’s plate are three pieces of unpopped popcorn.  As we are eating our meal, we go around the table three times dropping corn into a special jar and praising God for something He has done over the past year.  We save the jar and the corn.  When times are hard during the year, we pull it out and use it as a visual reminder that Gos is faithful and working for good in our lives.

THE FOOD ~ I have a very little oven so even a small turkey won’t fit in it.  A local restaurant owner orders turkeys from another country and cooks them in his big oven.  I cook the rest of the meal.  The thing that the students like the best is the sweet potato casserole.

THE STORY ~ After everyone has finished eating, we all sit down.  one of the Christian students shares about the Thanksgiving story — you know, the story about the Pilgrams.  They love the ending where the Indians and the white settlers share a feast together and thank God for providing such good food and special friends.

THE SHARING ~ We all sing a song together in English and again in their language.  After the song, we ask students to tell about things for which they are thankful.  The people who haven’t yet trusted in Jesus are very touched when Christians share, and they often get very emotional.  Sometimes a few students will pray to receive Jesus.  it is our prayer that all of them will one day become Christians and be part of our forever family in God.