Thanksgiving

What is Thanksgiving all about? Is it about the turkey, the stuffing, or maybe the pies? Is it about the pilgrims or the Indians, or family or friends? Is Thanksgiving about football or eating until you have to loosen your pants and then you notice that your granddad has fallen sleep on his favorite chair?
Or is there more to it?
After reading several books to the kids in my class about Thanksgiving and what it means to be thankful I got all kinds of answers.
"I am thankful for my toys"
"I am thankful for my mom and dad"
"I am thankful for my clothes"
"I am thankful for my dog"
"I am thankful for my sisters"
"I am thankful for for my barbie dolls"

There were several more, I thought about their list of things they are thankful for. Then I thought of Sydney. Sydney is in an orphanage. This Thanksgiving will be just like any other day, Christmas will too for that matter.
Sydney does not have any toys, or parents right now (we are doing our best to hurry sweetie!!), she does not have her own clothes, she gets whatever is handy at the moment, sometimes they are too big, sometimes they are too small, but they are never HERS. She has a dog here, at home in Washington, but right now, she more than likely does not even know what a dog is. Sydney has NO family until we get her, and she has NO toys. She has nothing to call her own. What does she have to be thankful for? Her nannies are underpaid, and overworked. I am sure they do their best every day, and for that, I am thankful to them. Sometimes, it is just hard.
You see, I work in childcare, I get up every day and spend 9 hours at work taking care of kids 3-5. These are kids that HAVE families, they HAVE everything that they need. And yet, there are days when I feel so bad about having to go home, knowing they need me and other days I can't leave fast enough.
Some days it is all I can do to pull myself up and dust myself off and go back. Why? It is because when you are a teacher and you have just you and an assistant, and you have to take care of 20 kids, you NEVER get to spend enough time with just ONE.
They ALL need you, they ALL want you, and these are kids that get that every night when they go home from school. These are kids who have parents who kiss them and hold them and feed them and give them a bath at night and tuck them into bed. These are amazing kids and amazing parents and the kids STILL need you, they need your time, your attention, your love. It is VERY draining trying to spread yourself between 20 kids.
I think of those nannies, WANTING so badly to do more, to help the kids more, and just not being able to.
I think of Sydney. I think of how sweet she is, how lovely she is, and how much I wish I could be there rocking her to sleep.
So what is Sydney thankful for this Thanksgiving?? More than likely, it is only a bottle of food. Because she has nothing else. As we are sitting at the table for Thanksgiving, let us really think of ALL we have and be thankful for everything.
This Thanksgiving, please include Sydney in your prayers. And, between now and Thanksgiving, if you are able, please help get Sydney home by donating, so NEXT Thanksgiving, she will have her family to hold her and love her, to have her sisters and brother, to have her own dog, to have her own clothes, to have her own toys.
If you are thankful for all you have, if you have a lot to be thankful for, help Sydney. Help Sydney come home!!

On October 3, 1863, Abraham Lincoln proclaimed, by Act of Congress, an annual National Day of Thanksgiving "on the last Thursday of November, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens." In this Thanksgiving proclamation, our 16th President says that it is…

"…announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations are blessed whose God is the Lord… But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, by the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own… It has seemed to me fit and proper that God should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people…"

So it is that on Thanksgiving Day each year, Americans give thanks to Almighty God for all His blessings and mercies toward us throughout the year.