Giving Thanks 2010

Thanksgiving

Another year, another try at re-creating mom's dressing...coming close at times but never quite right! Probably because my family turns up their noses at the thought of putting the giblets in! Other than the menu (including the freshly ground cranberry/orange/apple/walnut relish) not much about our celebrations mirror my childhood recollections of turkey dinner with Grandma.

To fill the void of extended family (and Molly) we once again invited a random collection of friends & strangers. One teacher, one American family, one Thai student, one teacher, and 10 soldiers from ArifJon base converged at our house on an ordinary work day for most. We really wanted to make this special for the soldiers who never get the change to leave their sandy prison; one young girl had never been off base since arriving 2 months ago. For this reason, we put together a scavenger hunt that would allow them to get a glimpse of at least our neighborhood. While I carved the turkey, we sent them out in teams, led by one of our teenagers. They had to:

find 3 mosques

locate the "spy palm tree"

get a photo with a boy named Mohammad or Ali

photograph 3 stray cats in one picture

buy something at the local grocery shop they had never tried

find a flier in Arabic

bring back a napkin from Papa John's

find an African embassy

get a photo of a hummer

find a house with blue windows

and more I can't remember!

The initially quiet soldiers were soon chatting away & laughing about their scavenger experiences, sharing photos, and singing along with all the Karaoke contestants. We had dinner in two long rows in our dining room served family style. The questions on things and people we are thankful for were distributed to each plate and everyone participated in sharing. Robert included the usual serviceman's prayer when he blessed the food and couldn't get through it without choking up. The Colonel read Psalm 111 in The Message and we all sang "Great is Thy Faithfulness."

Listening to their stories of family & deployments, I noticed that they did not seem to consider that they were making a sacrifice to serve. It was an accepted way of life. Unlike my Filipino friends, they knew this was temporary and kept their eye on the future. They work 12 hour shifts with very little time off yet had little in the way of complaints.

I had neatly stacked all the rugs into the corner of my "warehouse" where they hung out & played ping pong. A few of the noticed and started asking questions. They wanted to see the rugs and hear about the maids. Before leaving they had purchased about 575 US dollars worth of rugs! Their excitement over Trash to Treasure was very touching. They could be so pre-occupied with their challenges, they would not have time to consider another's...but that was not the case.

From 3pm till after 10 when they were collected in a black convoy of armored vehicles, we sang and dined and laughed and had the best time with this great bunch of guys & gals from all over the USA. I'm so thankful for our military & the great caliber of people from enlisted to high ranking who serve our country. I'm so thankful Robert filled out all the documents & jumped through all the security hoops to allow them permission to be escorted to our house for this celebration.