November 28, 2005

Dear Friends and Family,

La Multi Ani! Happy thanksgiving!

Except for Easter, Thanksgiving has always been just about my favorite holiday. It is one day set aside to give thanks for our blessings. We celebrate by doing my two favorite things—visiting and eating.

During my first few years here in Romania I tried celebrating Thanksgiving the traditional American way by cooking “the feast” and inviting my friends over. However, “the feast” loses something in translation. Just getting a turkey is a major ordeal. Our traditional foods are not holy to the Romanians.

The next few years I tried taking my friends out to dinner. This was good, but still I never really felt the magic of the Thanksgiving spirit.

I had pretty much abandoned “the feast” idea this year here in Romania.

However, this week I celebrated a Thanksgiving feast twice with my friends.

On Monday, I went to a traditional Romanian fish dinner. Since this is the Advent fasting period for the Orthodox, they are allowed to eat only fish on certain Holy Days. The rest of the fasting period they eat as vegetarians. Monday was a “fish day.”

We celebrate the mother Mary’s confirmation day. It would have been her bat mitzvah. It is great to think about celebrating a young girl’s entrance into service of the church thousands of years later. It also was my friend’s birthday, so she invited me and her entire family to her apartment for a fish feast. We had bread and caviar, fishballs, fish soup, boiled fish, fried fish, pickled fish. Plus pumpkin pie and chocolate brownies for dessert. Three guesses what was my favorite part of this meal. It was a great night. It was full of warmth and laughter and friends. I was especially grateful I can now understand and speak Romanian.

Yesterday, I had another spontaneous Thanksgiving feast when I dropped by another friend’s house on an errand. She insisted (it wasn’t too difficult) on setting me a place at her table. They were just about to sit down for lunch. In front of me was a table laden with traditional Romanian foods appropriate for the fasting period of the Orthodox church. It included bread, mamaliga, (a version of grits), country fried potatoes with a garlic sauce, corba de fasole (bean soup), pickled everything—tomatoes, watermelon, cauliflower, green peppers. The aroma was mouth watering. The kitchen was steaming as my friend’s husband prepared the meal while we just sat and watched and drank coffee. “He even cooks!” my friend laughed. He was having a wonderful time, stirring, tasting, serving us. Their child was home from school because of a teacher’s strike. Her cat was milling around the table. It was a scene worthy of the cover of the Saturday Evening Post.

When I came to her door, I was cold because of a freezing rain, and I was hungry. This was going to be a quick errand so I could finish my work for the day before it was dark. This was a spontaneous thanksgiving for me. I was so thankful at that moment. Eating around that table I felt safe and content. They asked me to say a blessing—since I said it in Romanian it was short. We thanked God for being together and providing the food.

That feast for me was my Thanksgiving. I was thankful for my health, my friends on both sides of the ocean, for the food, for warmth—I could have gone on and on.

This has been a difficult year not only for me but for our world. Some of my friends and family are seriously ill. I pray daily for them. I appreciate my own good health. All over the world people have been displaced because of natural disasters. I am grateful for my warm apartment. I know a number of young men and women on the front lines in Iraq. I pray the peace of Christ to “bomb” our world. In the midst of our problems, Thanksgiving is a day to just enjoy the simple pleasures and to hold near and dear those whom we love. Thanksgiving is an embodiment of the Lord’s Prayer: “Give us this day our daily bread.” Who needs turkey?!

Come Lord Jesus

Mary

The 2005 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 182