Thankful

This was definitely a different Thanksgiving for us.  Since moving to Mexico, we usually celebrated Thanksgiving with a small group of friends in our home.  This year we celebrated with 150 other people with a buffet style spread, including 8 huge turkeys, and ate in a big white tent.

After the meal there was a time of worship and a short reflection.  But my favorite time of the evening was actually after the formal, planned program had ended.  A group of students from the Hope Program picked up the instruments and microphones and continued worshiping well into the night.  A lot of times it takes a lot of asking and reminding to get our teens to participate in community events, so it was so refreshing to watch them do this out of their own initiative.  

If I may take a moment to brag, the young man sitting on the box drum (I'm sure there's a real name for that instrument, but I don't know what it is!) is Leo, one of the boys who live in our house.  He is 17 years old and finishing up high school.  He is very intelligent and gifted in the arts.  He got 100% on his math final exam this week, and is an incredible artist.  But his real passion is drumming.  Whenever he plays, he becomes so animated and always has a huge grin on his face.  He plays the drums every Sunday at a church in Casa Hogar Douglas, a nearby orphanage that Back2Back supports, and several people have told me that seeing Leo play is their favorite part of Sunday morning.  I'm excited to see what Leo decides to study in college and how he will use his talents in the future!