to say Gracias

Happy Thanksgiving!  This year my housemate Anna and I are celebrating on Saturday instead of Thursday, since today is not a holiday here in Peru and we need all day to cook the fixins.  We’ve invited about 17 of our Paz y Esperanza associates over to eat with us, if they all show up we’ll be sitting on the floor or on the rooftop, but Peruvian culture is the more the merrier 🙂  We’ve decided to have rotiserrie chicken (pollo a la brasa) instead of turkey, since we don’t have an oven and Peruvian chicken is pretty amazing anyway, but we’ll have all the rest of the traditional goodies.  As I’ve been inviting my Peruvian friends to our thanksgiving feast they keep asking me what Thansgiving is for.  I could tell them about pilgrims and native americans, but that doesn’t explain what Thanksgiving really is for me (it’s always been my favorite holiday to spend with my family).  So I tell them that it’s a special day that we set apart to give thanks to God for his provision and abundance, and to EAT with our family and friends.  I don’t know if our dinner will communicate to our Peruvian friends the true essence of Thanksgiving, but I hope we can bring at a least a little spark of it here to Lima.

So, I can’t let this day go by without giving thanks, recognizing some of the amazing graces that God has given me over the past year:

Thank you Lord the birth of my godson Isaac and my new niece Liliana

Thank you Father for my relationship with Cameron

Thank you Holy Spirit the fulfillment of a 2-year vision to move to Peru and seek the Kingdom of God among the poor of this city

Thank you Jesus the time I had in Auburn with my dad this year–truly precious moments.

Thank you for your presence with my God, for every promise fulfilled, for being so faithful to me.  Thank you for giving me a home in Lima, a ministry to serve at, and assurance that even though I still don’t have everything figured out, I never will, and I just get to keep walking forward, poco a poco.

Thank you that you are bigger than the things that keep us from you God.

Gracias.