Happy Thanksgiving

Thursday morning - freezing rain falling from the not so often grey New Mexican sky.
It's Thanksgiving, and I have so much to be thankful for. We've been here, at the "Mission" for 16 months and still I am amazed that the LORD has given us this place and this opportunity to serve Him. And then there is my job. It is such a blessing to have a job you love. It's not an easy job. Middle school students are challenges where ever they live. As they grow up, as they live through this crisis or that, as they fall in and out of love, learning about adjectives and adverbs is not a top priority. We just finished our unit on poetry though,and when free to express their ideas without having to worry about sentence structure or punctuation, what they come up with is incredible. My school is 97% Native American, 90% Navajo - but I think in many aspects they are just regular teenagers. At least it seemed that way at the Thanksgiving dance I chaperoned last week. It was called the "Thanks for Giving Dance" because it was tied in with a canned food drive. My "homeroom" won the pizza party for bringing in 157 food items that would be donated to the Shiprock home for battered women and other needy families on the Navajo Rez. And, as much as I love my job - I am thankful that we get a five day break for Thanksgiving. Today is a day to lay back. We had our feast on Wednesday - 52 people, mostly Indians - in our beautiful cozy fellowship hall. I always wanted a big family. Tomorrow I'll take down the autumn decorations and put up Christmas. This is my favorite time of year. And it is all to honor the King of Kings! Let's not forget that. He is the Source, the Reason, the Author of our lives. Those simple steps of obedience lead us through dark times and hard times, through frustrating times and exhausting times and always there is the Peace that Passes understanding and the Joy that carries through times when it is hard to be happy...Joy and Peace - what I am most thankful for and what I pray for those who I know and love and miss and care about. Not a happy thanksgiving - but a Joyful one.