O Lord that lends me life, Lend me a heart replete with thankfulness! - William Shakespeare

This is the closest we got to turkey this year. Our incarnation of these little birds was decidedly tropical, with dried mango wings and beaks. Candy corn, which is usually used for these birds, is cute, but not so tasty, anyway.

Thanksgiving was actually pretty challenging for me emotionally this year. I hesitate to even say that, because I don't want to come across as complaining about my circumstances (which are not lacking at all), but I also know that it's easy, from a distance, to paint our lives as one big ray of sunshine, when the reality is that there are plenty of regular struggles here, as in everyone's lives. So, in short, I missed home and all that it entails on Thanksgiving, and what could be more natural than that?

But at the same time, I appreciated the opportunity to choose to give thanks for what we've been given and the extraordinary privilege of being where we are, and to celebrate in our own special way right here in Bangkok. Thanksgiving is not a holiday in Thailand, but the words Thais use for the day mean 'Day to Thank God'. So it's special to share our holiday and tradition with our friends here. We had a banquet at the church of American and Thai food, and we even had a group here from the Philippines who joined in the culinary contribution. Here are a few pictures from our evening...


We had quite a few traditional Thanksgiving dishes, but this portion was far more interesting pictorially, really. I mean, don't you think the Pilgrims and Indians picked their fish clean on the first Thanksgiving? Most traditional Thanksgiving foods are laden with butter and/or milk, so I feasted on rice, noodles and Chinese dumplings (the green and yellow balls above- quite yummy).

Okay, did anyone else have a sink full of frogs at their holiday celebration? We didn't eat these guys last night, but they were brought especially for one of our teammates by his dad, who was visiting. Parents are the same everywhere, really; it's just like Tim's mom sending him Twizzlers. Asa sat on a trash can and watched the frogs being cut up. His reaction? "Poor f-wogs."

And here's our Julian, who will not tolerate being held by anyone but Tim or me at this point in his little life, with our dear friend Tang, for whom he makes an exception. She has quite a way with little ones, and has been a tremendous blessing to our family.

Happy Thanksgiving, friends!