Monday, November 23, 2015

Happy Thanksgiving!

Before committing to a mission year in Africa, I obviously spent time thinking about the things that I would be missing back home. Holidays definitely came to mind. I realized, though, that I wouldn’t be “missing” the holidays, they would just be celebrated differently.  I knew that Christmas and Easter would still be amazing celebrations here in Wau. One that I was worried about was Thanksgiving. Since it’s an American holiday, it would be treated like any other day here in South Sudan. I was very excited when Sr. Dolores announced about a month ago that we would be having our Community Thanksgiving Day in November. So, I did end up celebrating Thanksgiving, just a little bit early!

Our Thanksgiving day was this past Saturday, the 14th, but we had three weeks of preparation for it. Our overall theme was “Becoming Missionaries of Hope and Joy.” We had a focus for each week: Think Positive, Speak Positive and Act Positive. We had a prayer intention for each day that we prayed for as a community. For the first half, our intentions were for those who help our mission-benefactors, house staff, our friends and families back home (shout out to you people reading this blog!), etc- and for our mission sites-the two schools and the dispensary. For the second half our intentions were for our community members, so we each had a day when everyone was praying for us.


My day was last Friday. I had an absolutely amazing day at the clinic, for no particular reason at all. I felt really good about all of the patients that I saw and I got to play with some really adorable little children while they were waiting for their lab results. After I got back home, I realized that it was the day that everyone was praying for me. I definitely think that was why my day was so blessed. God is showing me a lot about the power of prayer here.
           
The prayerful preparation we were doing as a community with the sisters was very fruitful. It was really good to focus on staying positive especially when things go wrong. A week and a half ago, we had about 3 days without running water. Our pump for our well was broken and things really weren’t looking good. The sisters were worried that it was going to be a difficult and costly fix, possibly even involving starting a whole new well. With the help of some lovely engineers and a LOT of prayers, it was all fixed. Through all of this though, everyone was very calm and no one was complaining. It honestly was not a problem at all to go a few days without running water (we still had water it just had to be carried from another place) and it helped all of us be thankful for a shower when it came back!

We were also reflecting on gratitude as a volunteer community. The four of us have started having weekly prayer meetings each Tuesday evening, rotating who leads it each week. Taylor was leading it the first week of November and she deemed this month “gratitude month.” We each decorated a piece of paper to put up in our community room and every day we write down what we are thankful for. It is good to take time every single day to reflect on the gifts that God has given me. I realize that there are so many and I have to choose just a few to write down!




Although we still have a couple more weeks for our Gratitude Month, our Community Thanksgiving all accumulated to the big day on Saturday. It’s a super legit celebration though so we had to start on our Thanksgiving Eve on Friday. We had a special evening prayer focusing on giving thanks. We all got paper leaves and wrote down what we are thankful for and taped them to our Thanksgiving Tree. After prayer, we all had dinner together. The table was completely decorated and we even had little gifts. Saturday morning, we had another special time of prayer and then breakfast together. We each got chocolate bars and had cake for Sr. Ninet’s birthday so it was a pretty good start to the day. After finishing the final food preparations, we left for our picnic adventure. We had such a good time together. We played games, laughed, sang songs, explored, played Frisbee, ate food and enjoyed each other’s company. We concluded the day with evening prayer and dinner together.



There was no turkey or pumpkin pie and the date was a little off, but this Thanksgiving was such a blessing. It focused on what Thanksgiving is actually about, thanking God for the gifts that he places in our lives every day. The celebration was so joyful because I had spent time prayerfully considering these blessings in my life. Yes, it will probably still be weird going to work at the dispensary on the 26th when I know everyone back home is preparing for Thanksgiving, but I’ll be spending the day thanking God for all of you back home and for the love and support that you continue to show me.

Here are some of the things that I wrote down on my Gratitude List for this month:

  • ·      The joy in the children as they run to oratory
  • ·      Harry Potter movie nights
  • ·      Babies in the Dispensary
  • ·      Fresh fruit
  • ·      Late night talks with Taylor
  • ·      Running water
  • ·      Teaching kids how to play Ninja
  • ·      Mary Help nursing students
  • ·      Peanut butter
  • ·      Jesus in the Eucharist
  • ·      Hot tea
  • ·      Ukulele jam sessions
  • ·      300+ kids at oratory praying the Rosary



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