Turkey with one side of the family. Pie with the other. It’s about connecting to and celebrating with people we love, even if it means more than one stop.
I felt like I did the splits this year, the ultimate Thanksgiving – stretched to feel home and thankfulness across the world.
I woke up homesick for my family, making No Bake Cookies with Carli, laughing about the same stuff we always laugh about, diving through the Black Friday ads to make a game plan just for the sake of tradition and being with the people I’ve spent every Thanksgiving with – and that I haven’t seen in almost a year.
And the kitchen here on base smelled like…. Well, I’m pretty sure it smelled like what heaven smells like. It smelled like Thanksgiving.
The same smells. A new place. A new family.
Between mashing potatoes and packing my suitcase, I went to my last feeding in Dwaleni for over two months.
I arrived to a carthweeling party! I love cartwheels!
Then my girls and I snuck away into the house we host the feeding out of. They wanted to show me the dramas they’d been practicing.
They performed. We hugged. We exchanged handfuls of letters. We talked Jesus. I was amazed.
Their passion to share Jesus – and to share their message well - astounded me. The personal letters they had poured tons of time and creativity into floored me. The hugs finished me off. I could feel thankfulness pulsing all the way through me. It really was Thanksgiving, even if Busi, Nolwazi, Florence and Noxolo had never heard of the holiday. They were part of it in me.
With the same potency I felt the thankful part, I felt how much I was going to miss them welling up like suppressed sobs in me.
Am I really leaving?
How do I hold all of these feelings at once?
Then… of course, we had to stop in Mbonisweni to pick up Lifa. It’s a family holiday!
One of the 13 year-old twins, Samkelo, proposed to me with a fabulous adjustable ring upon arrival. Lifa and GoGo’s eyes lit up. The love and the thankfulness began flowing through me again, like a tidal wave. And washing up a few whimpers of, “I’m gonna miss this…”
A new kind of Thanksgiving. A summertime Thanksgiving with red dirt, roasted chicken, tiny black hands and a shiny new ring.
Is this really my all-the-time life?
Are those little hands my all-the-time?
Is this my Thanksgiving?
Back at base, the traditional Thanksgiving celebration was perfect. Candlelit dinner. (Who really needs electricity on holidays?) Cartwheels after dinner. (I love cartwheels!) And don’t forget the dancing to whip the cream. And Lifa.
I sat at the table with the people who’ve become my everyday family. I stole glances at the kid table to make eyes at the little boy who’s absolutely won my heart.
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Can I really fit all of this family and love and thankfulness in? I couldn’t tell if it was Carla’s cornbread dressing or overwhelming thankfulness making me feel so full. (Let’s be real… that dressing was AMAZING… it was all of the above.)
After dinner, Mom called and talked to Lifa for the first time. He said, “I love you GoGo Rosa.”
And then my whole Texas family called. I talked to everyone, heard them pray and 2 year-old Ella said, “I love you. How’s Lifa?”
It’s been almost a year. I think I might explode in anticipation over the next two weeks.
How can I want to be with my family so badly and feel like they are home to me, AND feel like this is home… the same amount at the same time?
Two nights later, Lifa is still here with me, playing with blocks and bobbing his head to Shawn McDonald right now. He’s family. He’s home. Um, and I think I’m getting him addicted to chap stick.
Two months apart…
Can I be at home and homesick at the same time?
Absolutely.
That’s the design. The right kind of Thanksgiving. The Thanksgiving Splits.
Paul got it. “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” (Phil 1:21)
We were made for the very best Home – where it’s Thanksgiving everyday. And where the whole family is together and everyone is getting along. Every tribe and every tongue – celebrating, dancing, cartwheeling, feasting and delighting in perfect communion.
And, until then, we’re supposed to be Homesick.
And, until then, we’re supposed to make those people, places and moments that are home to us look a little more like Home… the Kingdom of God.
“Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matt 6:10)
“Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. We live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body at home with the Lord. So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it.” (2 Cor 5:6-9)
Let’s get cliché. And mean it.
I truly experienced a cornucopia of thanksgiving, homesickness, love and so many things in between this Thanksgiving. Geography was just one of the details. A deep-down prayer for Home, continuously being responded to was the core. And that dressing… that had something to do with it too!
I have no idea how I’m going to handle myself for the upcoming 2 months I’ll be in the States. I can’t wait to see and hug everyone I’ve missed for a year and to share stories and experiences. I can’t wait to spread God’s heart for His Kingdom and for Africa to everyone I can get to listen.
Meanwhile, Lifa’s singing in SiSwati with his blocks on the floor of my cottage right now. And it’s perfect.
Bear with me people, I might be a mess. But for all the right reasons. So much love. So much hope. So much longing. And so much home. I truly don’t deserve it. But I want us all to have it. More and more.
Thank you for joining me on the incredible adventure this year has been. Thank you for loving me so well and being home to me.
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