Truly Giving Thanks for Some Awesome Teens

Monday night was one of my very favorite nights of the year.

It’s the night that our youth small group that meets in our home each Monday has our annual “Adopt a family for Thanksgiving” night.

The kids bring food to make a complete Thanksgiving meal for weeks ahead of time.  Some donate money.

And then the day of the event, I go shopping and buy the food we still need.

Mr. Wonderful, I and the other youth leaders get a turkey and what we think the family might want.

And, speaking of turkeys.

This year Pastor Dan, our youth pastor (not a turkey!) donated some money from the church and we got the family scads of food.

Incidentally, people that work at grocery stores are very disturbed at you taking pictures in their store.  I don’t know why?

Also, incidentally, make sure you remember to take bags or boxes to Aldi, or you’ll have to transfer each individual item to the back of your car, which greatly lengthens your shopping trip.

And then,  we had to unload it all on the table and sort it into paper bags.

We ended up with a lot of bags…So many in fact that we appointed Sam the guard dog to watch over them.

And then the kids showed up.

Poor Briana…those boys covered her face up in every picture.

And they all grabbed a bag and loaded them into multiple cars.

Did I mention we had a lot of bags?

And we headed off to our adopted family’s house.  We caravaned over and all pulled up at once.

I’m sure the neighbors were freaked out.

The family’s kiddos ran out to greet us with excitement and we unloaded our groceries onto their kitchen table, and introduced ourselves.

And there were big smiles all around.  On the family’s faces yes, but maybe even bigger on ours.

This was the absolute sweetest family.

We prayed blessings over them and the four boys held hands and bowed their heads in a circle.

And then one of the boys asked if he could pray and said the most darling prayer. It was touching.

So sweet!  We learned that the dad had lost his job due to an injury, but we also smiled to learn that he had recently becomed employed again!  God is good!

And then we left them to their groceries and their privacy with some kind farewells on the way out.

And we all headed to eat at Qdoba..

You know, where teenagers can afford to eat ridiculously large burritos for almost nothing?

It was a great night, helping someone out who is going through a time of need.  We ourselves have been there and we hope we blessed them beyond belief with the little we could do.  The family was lovely and you’d never know they were struggling because they had the best attitude and outlook on life.  They were inspirational.

And this is what Thanksgiving is all about.  Find someone in need.  Bless them.

And then go home and count your own blessings.  Thank God for what you have instead of what you don’t have.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone and be blessed!