Adventures With Sarah

After reading Mark’s writings, I felt I had nothing to write this month that would seem to fit together with such powerful content. But then I realized we just celebrated American Thanksgiving and I was overwhelmed and humbled by how God has blessed me and my family beyond what we have ever deserved or ever will. Mark and I both growing up in loving, Christian homes with a mother and father who love us and healthy brothers and sisters……both of us coming from countries where we were free from fear and evil that kills, deeply wounds, and paralyzes a people for decades to follow….and now, being able to be together and give our son everything he needs with no doubt that God will provide and shelter us. Yikes. I feel the kind of gratitude that gives me nothing to say. How can I say ‘thank you’ for all of that? And how could one ounce of me not be grateful? I realized I have a very suitable story to tell…. A story of our Thanksgiving celebration, shared with the most sincere, ‘bubbling over’ and at the same time speechless gratitude, that I’ve ever known simply because I have heard and seen the pain of others who don’t have what I have. I won’t try to say I have felt their pain at any level, by knowing them and seeing the evidence of the scars in their lives. I have tried to understand why I am me, having what I have and they are they, having what they have…. But I can’t. I will never like it… I will never be able to think about it and have all the ends neatly tied up in my mind. But I can tell you this. I will never stop being grateful! Never! Now, let me share briefly, our delightful Thanksgiving (celebrated on American Thanksgiving because many of our friends here are American).
About 7 couples plus all of our children (about 30 people) summoned our creativity (and the women our best Thanksgiving recipes that can be passed off as authentic here in Uganda) and donned costumes in order to reenact the sailing of the Mayflower and the first Thanksgiving, Squanto and all! The very ‘funnest’ aspect of it all was that half of us were American and the other half British. We are all good friends from the same care group at our church, so the good natured ‘ad-libbing’ that went back and forth throughout the play was more fun than the play itself. Mark and Seth and I were Indians. I had a great time painting black shoe polish on all of us and attempting small headdresses for me and Mark. And, our little Indian boy likes nothing more than being naked… so he was having a jolly old time in his diaper with bandanas tied around his waist and shoe polish all over! He actually giggled out loud when we were having a family picture taken. It seemed like he was getting in the spirit of the dress-up thing and catching on to everyone’s excitement. You know, something I realized,….fun things like that party/play seem silly until you have kids. Then it’s a riot. And I was in there with the best of them, costuming, running across the driveway quickly because it was ‘the ocean’, and listening intently while the narrator (Mark) declared that ‘the Pilgrims spent the first Winter on the Mayflower and many of them got sick and some of them died’. (Having young boys in the group who launch themselves onto the ground in ‘death’ makes the dying part seem funny even though it’s not). And after the play…..the food!!! Wow! It really felt like Thanksgiving! And it was fun watching Seth in his little Indian garb, chomping on a cob of corn for thirty minutes with his squishy little gums, not a tooth in his head. As the evening wore on, I missed my family as I thought of them all together celebrating as we always have. But I was so, so thankful to be with my husband and son, living the good life God has given us and surrounded by dear friends. I hope all of you can relate to my joy and I pray that none of us will forget for one second, where our blessings come from and like the song says ‘Every blessing You pour out, I’ll turn back to praise’ let us exalt Him for His goodness to us! Have a Merry Christmas! Sarah