Happy Thanksgiving from our family to yours!

Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the LORD is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations. Psalms 100:4-5 NIV

We give thanks to God for all He has done for us in Jesus Christ. And we praise God for all of you and your partnership with us.

In Japan, they have a “thanks for labor” holiday, on November 23^rd.  We usually celebrated American style Thanksgiving near that day. For the last 15 years, we invited our fellowship group students and friends to our home for food and stories. The food highlight was our barbecued turkey!

Yummy!!

We combined Thanksgiving with Christmas because students were not allowed to do extra activities before finals. In addition to eating turkey and all the trimmings, we sang Christmas carols to tell the story of Jesus’ birth.

Singing Christmas carols, telling the Christ birth story

This year due to increasing COVID19 rates of infection, for the next 4 weeks, our WA state government restricts us to only our household for indoor gatherings. So, we plan to meet our relatives via Zoom for our first virtual Thanksgiving! We’ll be praying that you also will find new and innovative ways to give thanks in this very challenging season.

Cooking is much more relaxed this year. Lee Ann’s cousin shared some cranberry sauce and stuffing with us! Yummy! We’ll be cooking a barbecued chicken for the two of us to keep part of our family Thanksgiving tradition.

One tradition we loved to share is the children’s book, Squanto and the Miracle of Thanksgiving, by Eric Metaxas. Based on historical facts, the actual hero of Thanksgiving was neither white nor First Nation but God. We are thankful for God’s miracle in saving the Pilgrims using an English-speaking, Patuxet, named Squanto, in their time of crisis.

May the Lord continue to richly bless you and have a blessed Thanksgiving!

With Thanks and grateful hearts,

Gordon and Lee Ann Hwang

P.S. Save the Date: #GivingTuesday is December 1! IM is inviting you to be a part of the Great GIVE. Your contribution will help IM respond to God’s call to make disciples around the world as we celebrate His greatest gift, Jesus Christ!