Taiwanese Thanksgiving

This week I was a little bit apprehensive about celebrating my first holiday away from home.  I wondered how anything would be the same - no family - strange food - and we don't even have real oven!  How on earth were we supposed to cook everything?  We started baking on Wednesday, and we used four separate toaster ovens that were on rotation.  The pies and stuffing and cranberry sauce were all finished around 1:00 am.  The next day, our two turkeys (we were thankful for Costco this year :) were taken to the school and baked in the commercial ovens.  Everything else was made at our three apartments.  By 6:00, all the cooking was done, and we headed over to dinner.  We had over our all of our close Taiwanese friends, and we got to share a little bit of how American celebrate a traditional Thanksgiving.  Out of all the things that I am thankful for this year, I think it is that God has given us a sort of family over here - with co-workers, roomates, and new friends, and I am so grateful that we were able to be together on a day when everyone is aware of how much goodness we have been given.