Thanksgiving

Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.

Psalm 100:4

      I got sick a week before Thanksgiving and just now feeling like I am starting to get over it.  When I got so sick in Bolivia, just before I left, I wonder if it damaged my lungs some how or if it is just the funk that goes around this time of year with Georgia's bipolar weather.  Either way, that is why I have not written in so long.

     Thanksgiving was so nice.  It is the first time I have ever worked in the USA on the holiday and was not overly happy about it, but it was actually nice.  I got up early to start cooking.  I did my first feast since returning and it was a great feast.  Only Hudson was not impressed.  He only ate a role and turkey.  I don't take it personally because when I was his age, I barely ate anything.  My grandfather even started making a ham and a turkey because I would not eat turkey.  I was so happy to be with my family.  Hudson even made the dressing.

     I did some clean up and made time to be alone for an hour before going to work.  The atmosphere at work was so cheerful that I found myself so happy to be there.  I have never seen so many dogs at Barnsley at one time in my life.  It felt like a little community.

     The ironic thing is that I was missing my Thanksgiving traditions that I had begun with the Bolivians and all my friends there.  I find it odd that I am homesick for a country that I struggled so much in: health, language, city life, since of belonging.  I reached out for some prayer and I got some wise counsel from a fellow missionary that seems to be helping.  Settling back into the USA has not been as easy as I had hoped.  I am praying for direction and to find purpose to be here.

      We have also had the Women's Christmas Banquet at my church.  It was nice to be involved in that however little it may have been.