Thanksgiving!

I hope you had a happy Thanksgiving! 

Thanksgiving is not a Haitian holiday, although I must say giving thanks seems so inherent in this culture.  There are many church songs that are all about thanking God and most of the time at least one such song is sung at liturgy, often even at daily mass.  We, the sisters working here at the orphanage, received thanksgiving food from Agape flights, which is a nonprofit airline that provides mail service to us and other missionaries for a very reasonable fee.   Every Thursday one of the sisters goes to the nearby airport and checks to see if any packages arrived for us.  This year they had volunteers and donors provide Thanksgiving food for Americans missioned in Haiti.  They gave us turkey and a box that included a canned cranberry sauce, a box of stove stop stuffing, canned yams and marshmallows, Jiffy pie crust mix, a can of pumpkin, a can of condensed milk, and even can of whipped cream.  I would not have expected to celebrate thanksgiving here, but was very happy that we were able to celebrate!  A sister who lives in another convent cooked the turkey and stuffing for us.  I prepared the rest and added some fresh carrots that were in the convent refrigerator to the menu.  Normally, and especially for a holiday like thanksgiving, in the United States, I prefer to make most dishes from scratch rather than use canned and boxed (processed) foods.  Here in Haiti, I was actually grateful for the boxes because at least for me, there are extra steps involved in food preparation that make using the easy stuff feel like cooking from scratch.  Extra steps include trying to get as many of the ants out of the pie crust mix as possible, looking up the word for rolling pin in the Haitian Creole/English Dictionary (“woulo” in case you are wondering,) walking across the lakou (yard) to search the main orphanage kitchen for a woulo, asking a worker to teach me how to light the gas oven; and those are just a few examples.  There is definitely something humbling about needing assistance with very ordinary things, like a different style can opener than I had ever used and also realizing that I lack some basic skills that most women in this culture have probably perfected.

 

Since Thursday was not a holiday here, we followed the regular schedule but decided to wait to eat until all of the sisters were home, which since two had class that night, we ate at about 7:30 pm.  I had prepared a thanksgiving prayer.  I offered to prepare the prayer, so that for once it would be entirely in Haitian Creole; because I find it difficult to really pray in French since I don’t really know French.  It was a good day and I realize I have so very much to be thankful for.  The gratitude that I encounter frequently in the Haitian culture, as well as the realization of how through no merit of my own, I have been fortunate to have been gifted with family, friends, opportunities, experiences and luxuries that many others though no less deserving because the  injustice inherent in our global society cannot access.  

Please keep one of our children who is currently suffering from measles in your prayers.  Thank you!  

May this Advent season be filled with many blessings and peace for each of you as we wait in hopeful expectation.