we’re gonna make it!

So, it has been a little bit of a bummer missing out on normal family Thanksgiving activities, but we have had a good time w/new friends here. There is a team of missionaries (5 couples-all w/young kids, and one single guy) here from Texas, studying Spanish like us, and they are also going to Lima, Peru to do church planting. How cool is that?! We have been so grateful to be able to get to know this group, and to know that our relationships will continue when we leave Costa Rica. Anyway, we got together with them for Thanksgiving, and it was a lot of fun. We had a huge feast! Turkeys are really expensive here, but we got one and split the cost among all of us, so that we could have the traditional meal. It was kinda funny b/c no one in the group knew how to cook a turkey, but when a couple of the wives went to the store to buy it, they saw an American lady in the store, who was about our parents’ age. They figured she had to know, and so they asked her about it and, she laughed a bit, and then gave them some basics about how to cook it. The actual preparation and cooking of the turkey was done by one of the guys from the Texas crew (he’s like 28. just a punk kid who still drinks Pepsi at like 8 in the morning…why is a guy like that in charge of the bird????–nothing but respect to ya Justin, but, you know, I’m just saying). With a few more instructions from his dad and grandma, though, he bravely tackled the turkey (figuratively speaking, of course) and it turned out great. We also had two kinds of dressing/stuffing, mashed potatoes & gravy, creamed corn, green bean casserole, a salad bar, biscuits, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie and pecan pie, among other things. We even had pumpkin-scented candles and little foam pumpkins on the table that Lindsey and I had just received in a package from my brother and his wife. It felt very “fall-ish” and festive.

While we were eating, one of the guys paused, in some slight disbelief, and said, “We did it. We pulled it off.” We were kind of amazed. Without our parents or grandparents around, we had, in fact, pulled of the perfect Thanksgiving meal, without forgetting anything. As we talked about our accomplishment, I began to see the group (including myself) a bit differently. It felt like, instead of a bunch of 20 & 30-something full-time-missionaries-with-children, we were a bunch of kids ourselves. Here we were, on our own, thousands of miles from home, struggling to fit in in a different culture, not really having a clue what we we’re doing, experiencing our first major holiday away from family and familiar traditions. Like I said, we didn’t even know the first thing about making a turkey. On this holiday, we weren’t really used to having responsibilities like baking a pie, or going to the store for more potatoes, or even making sure there were enough chairs for everyone. These were always the jobs mom or an aunt or somebody. Why would we have to do those things…we’re the kids. So this was almost like a test for all of us, a challenge….could we survive and thrive at Thanksgiving without Grandma there to make sweet potatoes? And, surprisingly, the answer was, yes. But, as big as that accomplishment was, this situation felt even bigger than that. It was more than just a question of this specific day or weekend. Surviving Thanksgiving represented, in some sense, surviving this transition from our old life to our new one of living cross-culturally. The guy who cooked the turkey was sitting across from me, and, toward the end of our discussion about all of this he looked at me and said, “dude, I think we’re gonna make it.” And I thought to myself, “I think he’s right. Maybe we are gonna make it.” Maybe the Thanksgiving meal was just that, a meal. But maybe it was more. Maybe God was graciously giving us a really joyful experience with a lot of great people, so that we could remember it and draw confidence from it. Maybe He was giving us something that, in the future, we could point to and say “But remember that first Thanksgiving away from home…”. I think I need those kinds of experiences. They let me know that God hasn’t forgotten about us. They help me remember that God is just as much with us “here” in San Jose, Costa Rica, as He is “there” when we celebrate with our families in the United States. His Spanish is just as good as His English. God reminded us of His presence with us, and of so many of His gifts that we can be thankful for–new friends here, the people we love back home, all of our ministry partners who are sacrificing so that we can be here, gravy, and so many others. There is no way to replace our traditions or family or regular experiences, and I’m not sure we’re supposed to. But we did have a very good day and had grateful hearts and extremely full stomachs. We hope you also had a good holiday and we hope God revealed to you some of the amazing ways He showers His grace on you.

Another great thing about the weekend was that the Nebraska football game was on t.v.–the first game we’ve seen all year. It was sooooo awesome to watch it, like I do every year on the day after Thanksgiving, and it was awesome that we won with a record-setting field goal! We were going crazy–it was sweet, to say the least.

We will get some photos from our Thanksgiving from our friends and post them soon. Also, we went to Guatemala a couple weeks ago b/c we had to leave the country b/c we have tourist visas. We meant to post some pics sooner, but there are like 400 photos that I am going through to select the best ones. Hopefully they’ll be on the site in a couple days.