Thanksgiving with the nations

Due to the recent addition of young people and new ministry connections in my life, Thanksgiving became an international event with lots of people. Despite trying to keep the neighbors to a manageable 12, we actually invited about 25 people. That evening about 20 arrived coming from Hungary, Austria, Ukraine, Russia, Uzbekistan, Cyprus, Moldovia and a number of places from the USA. About 8 people had never had a Thanksgiving meal before so it was a lot of fun.  Although the downstairs main ministry room is almost done, we decided not to carry everything down but to have people upstairs. Somehow it worked out quite well.  Nadia and I and Abbe started preparing the day before (as you do :-) and we had the traditional turkey (but in pieces not the whole bird) mashed potatoes, green beans, cranberry sauce, Sarah's Great grandma Sadie's scalloped corn, stuffing, rolls, Russian salad and apple and pumpkin pie. Just like home! (mostly)

Before eating we all shared what we are thankful for, later we talked of Thanksgiving and Hannukah, both celebrating God's miraculous provision for His people and lit the Hannukah candles.  Our Moldovian artist friend Sasha lead us in worship and we ended up praying and prophesying over everyone and then desert! It was a great time!