Advent Day 10: Thanks

Today will be just a short note of gratitude. I wanted to say thank you to everyone who supported me and prayed for me as I was preparing to come out here for a year. Thank you to everyone who continues to think of me while I am a stranger in a strange land and very far away from home. Thank you to everyone who has sent me mail. Thank you to all the kids who have sent me notes and who made me Thanksgiving cards, and to Jill Perry who sent them to me. Thank you to my friends who have kept in contact with me despite the distance and time change. Thank you to my family for all the strength you lend me and the encouragement you offer. Jocelyn, my mentor, says that I should embrace homesickness because it is a sign that I come from a good home and have something/someone to miss.

Many times in his writings, Paul opened his letters with a note of thankfulness. in 1 Philippians 1:3-11 he puts it this way: 

"I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God."

This is my prayer for all of you every time your faces or names cross my mind. So to all my friends, family, church members, fellow Genevians, Emporiumites and everyone else who has wished me well: Thank you so much for believing in me and trusting that God was sending me out for a reason.