an american thanksgiving during a ugandan summer

The great thing about living amongst a multi-cultural community is that one can generally find fellow expats with whom to celebrate major holidays. The bummer about life as an expat is that often these holidays fall in the middle of a regular workweek...creating quite the craziness as one attempts to continue with normal life while also cramming in celebrations that would normally take two days in America.

The typical 'where do we put all this food??' dilemma 

   My housemate and I contributed three dishes to the celebration: stuffing, roasted carrots, and pumpkin-brownie cupcakes. My students and I ended school early, in honor of the day, and I came home at 2pm to cooking madness in preparation for our 6pm dinner. 

The meal was wonderful, complete with turkeys slaughtered that morning, cranberry sauce (say what?? I was SO stoked), and an amazing American yam casserole (that's Ugandan for sweet potato casserole with sugar and almonds on top!). 

Hannah preparing the roasted carrots

It's a few days late, but here are some things I'm thankful for:

• A month-long visit back to the States, starting in just one week!
• Fun, well-behaved, good students
• My housemate, Hannah
• New friends
• Old friends 
• Warm weather (true story--I love that I wore the equivalent of shorts & a tshirt on Thanksgiving!)
• Growing closer to God along the lines of Ps. 119:71
• Christmas shopping done 
• Internet
• Ugandan sunrises 

And of course, these cupcakes. Who wouldn't be thankful for these???

If you're overflowing with thanksgiving for God's good gifts this year, and you're interested in blessing others, I'd encourage you to consider donating to New Hope Uganda today (Tuesday, Nov. 27). Along with Black Friday and Cyber Monday, there's apparently a movement to start "Giving Tuesday"--a day when we can support our favorite ministries with just a taste of our blessings. If you want to donate to NHU, you can visit their website for a list of needs.