Thanksgiving Day

Recently, on a glorious Saturday, I was avoiding work. Not any particular work, just work in general.
Have you ever been there?

I should have been in my classroom preparing lessons for the upcoming week.
I should have been at home cleaning, or something domestic related.
I should have been furniture shopping.

But I wasn't. I was, instead, watching a soccer tournament. I might mention here that none of my biological children really like soccer, so its safe for you to assume I wasn't there as a mom.  But several of my Monday through Friday children were involved. I had planned to watch just one game and then head over to my second home (my classroom). But as I mentioned before, I just wasn't feeling it. So I just watched and watched. Oh, and of course, conversed.

So the day passed pleasantly on that warm November Saturday. Eventually, hunger pains jarred me out of my nonresponsibility bliss. Carl and I decided to jump on the scooter and head out to some local furniture stores. On the way, we agreed to look for something to eat.

Now that seems easy enough, unless, of course, you are unable to read the local merchants' signs. With Carl driving and me comfortably situated on the back, we passed place after place. We knew food was being served, but could not tell what without stopping and looking into every vendor's cart.

Luckily, I recognized a steamed dumpling shop by the bamboo steamers.We like dumplings and the lunch hour was long gone. So we stopped.

And, although everything was in Mandarin, both Carl and I have become very proficient at communicating with our hands, faces, and whatever other body part that gets the message out. So thus began the ordering adventure. But it wasn't too difficult because the owner spoke enough English that communicating was possible, even pleasant.

To make this increasingly long story, shorter, we had a great time eating and conversing with Steven, the owner. As we sat below his family's god shelf, I felt pulled to pray for the Holy Spirit to somehow reveal the truth to our new friend and his family.

 Needless, to say, we never made it to the furniture store.

But if you were to scroll back up to the beginning of my discourse, you would notice that I entitled this piece Thanksgiving Day. Which so far, I haven't said a single thing about Thanksgiving. But hold on. Its coming.

When we finally left Steven's dumpling shop, we told him we would return and bring our four children. The only problem was we were at least 2 kilometers from our apartment and with no car...  If only six people could fit on our scooter.

So Thanksgiving Day (see, I told you I would get here eventually), I was feeling somewhat disconnected. Our Thanksgiving had been the day before, and although we all had been there, we had been spread out among fifty other people. I wanted, no needed, a family gathering. So it was decided that a trip on the bikes to Steven's dumpling shop would be the perfect family Taiwan Thanksgiving. Wow, its taken a long time to get to the point of this blog. But here we are....

                                                                                 The Dingus Family's Thanksgiving Day meal!

          Yummy steamed dumplings!

Delicious Hot and Sour soup!

Nick and Ben shared a huge bowl of noodle soup-- no turkey, just pork and assorted seafood.












We enjoyed spending time with Steven again. He said Carl must be very strong to have four children. And,  he said our children were very handsome (the boys, of course) and beautiful (that would be Abbi). Steven is such a wise man!

We will visit Steven again. One, because he has really great steamed dumplings, and two, because we may be the only Christians he may ever know!