Happy Thanksgiving!

Yesterday (Saturday) we celebrated Thanksgiving in Romania. It's not an actual holiday here, just something us Americans do to make us feel a little more at home. I know we're early but half of our American staff was leaving for a month of furlough today (Sunday) so we decided to go ahead and celebrate (because having just Jen and I attempt to feed almost 60 people would have meant a whole lot more tears and at least one guaranteed mental breakdown for each of us).

I love celebrations in Romania because it brings together so many people (some who I haven't seen the rest of the year), laughter, stories, and great food. Our Thanksgiving was a nice little way to merge an American tradition with Romanian culture.

Part of the celebration included a time for sharing what we were thankful for over the past year. Some of the things that we gave thanks for were the recent engagement of two of the transition graduates, the new transition kids and the transition program, safety and protection, and friends who have helped us and been there for us.

We took a little time to celebrate Emi's brithday (he just turned 5)...

and when the celebration was over Jenny broke out the first of the Christmas decorations.

My first Thanksgiving in Romania was a lot of fun and helped put me in the holiday mood. This next month is going to be all kinds of crazy with prep for the holiday team, prep for Christmas, getting my ministry programming figured out, moving to a new house, and all the usual day to day stuff but I pray that it will result in some special moments and new memories.