Zach tall in crowd
This is my brother. Look at the smile on his face, he was made to do this work.

Thanksgiving in the Philippines. Yes, Thanksgiving is traditionally thought of as an American holiday – however, any person in any culture can enjoy thanks giving. or giving thanks. or Thanksgiving.

My sister-in-law posted this on facebook today – they’re on Thanksgiving day in the Philippines:

We are all still plugging along! With 2 planes & 1 helicopter pretty much flying all the time, we’ve flown 160+ hours & hauled almost 44,000 lbs of cargo around! Our relief efforts are still focused on small islands surrounding Palawan & helping them get food & shelter until they can get back on their feet. 

Today is Thanksgiving here in the Philippines. Zach and Dave, the hand at the end of a long arm of support, will be the ones who get to see many thankful smiling faces as they deliver food to the people of these typhoon torn islands. 
…
Our hearts prayer is that one day these same people will be thanking the One who is truly deserving of their praise and know Him as their personal Savior.

kids running to Zach at heli
Look at the children run to them! I love the action Dave captured in this photo.

Thanksgiving is an action, it is giving thanks. Stopping to be thankful and give God praise for the harvest of blessings and food provisions for the coming winter.

In the Philippines this year there is great thanks giving in many remote and hard hit areas.

heli above beach
For whatever reason, this photo brings tears to my eyes: I imagine the sound of the helicopter in my ears; the wonder at ‘who is landing on our beach?’; the question of why is someone landing on ‘our beach?’. Then the realization. Hope. Help. Food. Someone does care.

I have wondered this year – in America, do we even remember why we have Thanksgiving? It doesn’t seem so. In stores we went from Halloween to Christmas. Thanksgiving was just grouped with fall and Halloween. I saw Thanksgiving stuff on clearance and Christmas out before Halloween! Really – lets all see the Black Friday ads 2 weeks before – or forget waiting for 5am on Friday the day AFTER giving thanks…let’s shop on Thanksgiving day?! or do Black Friday shopping before Thanksgiving? I just don’t get it.

Let’s remember Thanksgiving ISN’T about gluttony with food & Black Friday.

Amazing God note: In the last week someone named Dave, with MAF, has been flying with my brother (the same ‘Dave’ Jane referred to in the above note) – I’ve greatly appreciated the photos and being able to see Zach in action. I posted on Saturday morning about my brothers, the extreme differences they’re flying in right now, and shared pictures of both. Then on Saturday afternoon when I was finally reading emails from the day – I was reading through Grace Full Mama’s email and there was a picture I’d posted and looked at many times throughout the week…{enter several mind boggling moments as I tried to process her having the same photo I’d seen from my sister-in-law on facebook}. Get this, the “MAF guy” flying with my brother – is her husband! How crazy is that? Go read Dave’s account of Thanksgiving in the Philippines. You will get to see amazing smiles, I promise you won’t be sorry. Especially, if you have given or are able to give financially – go, see first hand pictures from those seeing the results.

All pictures taken and owned by Dave Forney. {I did get permission from Joy, once I knew whose pictures I’d “stolen”, and she assured me it was okay for me to keep them up and share these Philippine photos here.}

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