Giving Thanks

We’re sitting here sweating on Thanksgiving, and the temperature will probably go up considerably when our team crowds into our living/dining room this afternoon for our team meal.  I’m listening to NPR on my satellite radio as they talk about the unusually important football games today between the Falcons and the Lions and between the Broncos and the Cowboys.  Maureen is busy in the kitchen getting things ready for the big meal.  Jeremy is working on his school work, having missed three days of school this week due to chicken pox.  This morning I got together with the guys on the team to catch everyone up on what was happening in Togo while Marty and Murphy were in Rwanda, and we had a good time of Thanksgiving prayer together.

When I stop and imagine being with family in America, surrounded by love and acceptance, with people with whom I have so much history—I long for that.  And yet, I’m in no way miserable here.  Somehow, after 12 ½ years in West Africa, it feels normal that it should be 88°F in the shade on Thanksgiving.  (Someone put a thermometer in the sun yesterday and it hit 120°.)  I am with family—a family I would have never had if I had not come to live in Africa.  The friends that I’ll be with this afternoon are among the best friends, and people, in the world.  I’m the richest man in my neighborhood—certainly materially, and probably in most other ways as well.  (OK—Kids are a treasure and I don’t have as many as my polygamist neighbor; but then, I wasn’t threatening my 2^nd wife with a machete a couple of days ago, either.)    And since I have a day off, I’ve actually written two blogs in one day.

God is good, and I am thankful.