Thankfulness

Celebrating our first Thanksgiving in Sudan was a beautiful success. We brought some ingredients from Uganda and made some substitutions for things available in Mundri to make many traditional American dishes. Tuesday night we started by having a team meeting and writing the plan on the white board in the dinning room.



Then the preparations started. I peeled and mashed a lot of potatoes. Larissa made stuffing, pumpkin casserole, and prepared the chickens. Bethany, Kim, and Karen made pies. We were all busy, but not stressed. It was an enjoyable and restful two days of cooking, talking, and decorating.




The kids did a wonderful job of setting the table and making thankfulness turkeys out of construction paper for everyone on the team. We wrote things we were thankful for on each finger of our traced hands that made the turkey's feathers.

By dinner time on Thanksgiving day, we were all dressed up. I even put on some makeup for the first time since I arrived in Sudan . Liana watched closely as I put on eyeshadow and mascara. Acacia even put up her hair, deviating from her normal look. With everyone all "spiffed up" as Karen says, we took some new team pictures.





For dessert, we welcomed 13 Americans on the short term team working in Mundri this week. We sat in the yard talking and enjoying pumpkin, apple, and pecan pies.

At the end of the day, I was very thankful for our first Thanksgiving in Mundri. I was a day to join together as a team and thank God all the beautiful ways he has been working in each of our lives and his provision for all of us.

On Friday all the Christmas decorations went up, Christmas music played all day, and we watched our first Christmas team movie of the year.