Thanksgiving(s) and proof that we do things other than party & hike

Happy Thanksgiving everyone (a few days late)! We trust that you all had a great holiday. Several of you wondered if we'd have Thanksgiving at all over here... Well, we actually had three. The first was with some family friends, who we had not yet met, but who have kids roughly our age (pictured, right). We had a great time! It was their first time celebrating this American holiday, and they really went out of their way to make it special for us.

Our second was a potluck dinner with my friends from school (friends and meal pictured below). We're enjoying getting to know them better, and this is the second potluck we've had with them now. Turns out most of them are inordinately good cooks. Not sure why that is, but we like it.

Finally, we had one last Thanksgiving dinner with a small group from church that meets in our neighborhood. We've been meaning to go to this small group for a while, but this was actually our first time. We loved getting to meet the people (from all over - Australia, U.S., England, Bulgaria, Malaysia) and will hopefully hang out with them a lot more this year.

Beside Thanksgiving dinners, these past couple weeks have actually been really full with work. I had midterms and papers; multiplied by 7 classes, that added up. Meanwhile, Dena made several trips with HOME's mobile clinic. From small suburbs around Beirut to a southern village a stone's throw from Israel, she and the rest of the team saw dozens of patients who have little regular access to health care. It definitely wore her out, but she really enjoyed the more hands-on part of HOME's ministry.

Lastly, one of the highlights of the past couple weeks was getting to (finally) visit a boy at a local orphanage who we've been sponsoring for a while, and to see his brother too (who my brother and sister-in-law sponsor). They were really cute, and even though Dena had met them once before, this was my first time. We got a little tour of their school and are really impressed with everything they're doing for these kids; it was a blessing to see.