For most people Christmas is the the most significant holiday of the year but we have always been particularily partial to Thanksgiving. It doesn’t have the pressure and hype of Christmas, is accompanied by the beautiful fall colours that we so love and the harvest which is such a powerful reminder of God’s love and provision, not to mention the fact that we were engaged on Thanksgiving. It has been five years since we had the opportunity to celebrate Thanksgiving which is just a regular day here and not even recognized in church, and we miss it.

This year we discovered that there is a Malaysian Canadian Organization that puts on a fabulous Thanksgiving Ball each year with turkey and all the trimmings. It is not a cheap event as most of the expats in that group are here with businesses, mostly oil, so live a somewhat different life style than educators, but we were longing to celebrate this uniquely Canadian weekend with fellow Canadians so we sprung for it.

It was very well organized with lovely decorations, an individual turkey and carver for each table, large screens playing video of helicopter flights over Canadian scenery and an excellent band that allowed for great dancing. Steve volunteered to do the carving for our table and had fun revisiting a role he enjoyed for so many years. We opted to spend the night at the host hotel so we would not have to deal with the issue of finding our way home late at night.

In all of this we remain amazed at how God has blessed us and our family, what a privilege it is to be living here at this point in our lives and healthy enough to be involved in the work that we both love.