thanksgiving

(BRI) A day to give thanks. I really had a hard time being thankful. It really didn’t feel like thanksgiving. I wasn’t at the farm watching my mom getting all worked up over getting all the food ready; watching my dad become annoyed with her; wondering when my brother and his family were going to show up. Sit around and eat too much, watch the football game, maybe take a nap, than wake up and eat some more.
Here it just felt like any other day. We tried to make it Thanksgiving. For me it felt more like a day of mourning than a day of Thanksgiving; emotionally it was draining. I knew it would be different, I just did not expect it to be that hard. For me it would have been easier if we wouldn’t have tried to make it a holiday and just gone about business as usual. But I’m not sure if that would have been the best for everyone else.

(KJ) The first thanksgiving was harder for Bri than he thought it would be. The first Thanksgiving ever from farm and family there. I baked some chickens, potatoes with turkey gravy and baked beans. The people here don’t really know Thanksgiving, so I briefly told them.
We asked the kids what they were thankful for. Hailey was thankful for making new friends, Cybil was thankful we got the books out (we just bought some more bookshelves and had been finally going through the books). Brian also asked how the kids were doing. For the most part they all said that it wasn’t that different-work, play, read-just like before. They get to watch movies at night sometimes just like the States too. We’ll look to start school this week, so that will even be more like home. There are extra kids at the school this month as the kids go to school three months, then one month off, etc.
My folks called, so did Brian’s. We are really not in a good area for cell coverage, so sometimes calling is a royal pain. I will write a post about how to call some time soon. We have to walk down to the main area of the college to get better reception-it depends on our weather, your weather, etc.
We may have possible renters for our house. Please pray for that.
We have not sold our van either. Continue to pray for that as well.
Looking ahead-what will Christmas be like? Just another day? At least the Africans celebrate Christmas. There has been stuff in the stores since we got here. At the local church everyone chips in 1500 kwacha (about 35 cents) and they have a big meal together.
There is mud everywhere-it is hard to keep things clean. I don’t even want to try anymore. I get really tired of the mess (well, with 7 kids there is always a mess). I am losing some gumption though. Since we are basically done with all the sorting for now, the adreline rush is gone and it is hard to want to keep at things. I had a really hard time doing laundry yesterday. Basically I did a poor job and the ladies redid it all while I was on the phone with my folks.