Thanks-giving

Good morning COJ!! In just a week or so, many of us will sit down to a huge meal prepared by loving hands in kitchens filled with wonderful aromas, and we will watch traditional (and not so traditional) football games, and little children will run through the house having a great party time. At least that is how most of us will fill that holiday. But close by, there is a family that is living out of the back seat of a car. Sleeping at night wherever they can park, and trying to find warmth in public buildings during the day. They will eat whenever someone is kind enough to feed them or if they can find their way to a Food Pantry. A little further away, a family sits around a small fire in a refugee camp in Darfur, celebrating nothing more than the fact that they are alive on this day, having missed the attack of a genocidal army on their village.

Friends, before we take Thanksgiving for granted, we really need to look outside our warm and comfy homes and see the rest of the world. Then, we can give thanks not for what God has given us, but we can give thanks that God has given us to care for those folks outside.

Think about it--but more than that, act on it!