Over forty people came to San Pablo Lutheran Church to worship and partake of the Thanksgiving lunch afterwards

For families at Our Father Lutheran Church in Centennial, Colorado, the alternate Thanksgiving has become a tradition of sorts. For twenty-seven years, the congregation has provided Thanksgiving meals for over a thousand people in the Border cities of El Paso and Juarez through Ysleta Lutheran Mission Human Care (YLM).

Smiles were abundant for both the mission team and the many children and adults receiving Thanksgiving meals

“Our family has been participating for several years now,” Derek, who came along with his wife and their three kids, shared on their last night, “And I have to be honest –I don’t miss the “normal” Thanksgiving with all the food, the laying around watching football only to get up again for more food, then the scramble to get early Christmas shopping done.”

Derek and his family, along with Joey and her son Kai, have been part of their church’s Alternate Thanksgiving mission trip for several years. This year, eleven first-time missionaries joined the mission team.

“Family and friends didn’t understand why we would give up a traditional Thanksgiving for a mission trip to Mexico,” one of the new comers, who came with her husband and their three children, shared afterwards, “Experiencing these last three days, seeing the smiling faces of the people we served, witnessing how a couple hundred meals can help refugees currently living in tents made of tarps and blankets alongside the river…this was an amazing Thanksgiving for all of us.”

At every site, children were encouraged by parents to get in line to receive their plate of food first

The team of eighteen arrived Wednesday, late afternoon, and quickly set about organizing the food and putting together the work teams, which would start cooking at six in the morning the next day. Turkey breasts donated by members of their congregation were set to thaw, and the rest of the food items for the side dishes and dessert were waiting for them.

Dan hands out lunch sacks packed with a sandwich, fruit, and chips to refugees living in tents alongside the Mexico/US border

On Thursday, the team joined San Pablo Lutheran Church’s Thanksgiving worship service, where they helped with the readings and were part of sharing what they were grateful for, along with members of the congregation. Afterwards, they filled up plate after plate with turkey, corn, beans, mashed potatoes, gravy, salsa, and bread rolls, serving close to forty people.

On Friday, the team packed up pots and pans full of food, hot and ready to serve, and headed to Iglesia Luterana San Lucas in Anapra, where families from La Santa Biblia, along with those from San Lucas, came to join in the fellowship. People given extra plates to take home, before the team packed what was leftover into to-go containers, taking them to the “tent city” where close to a hundred refugees are waiting to be able to process through into the United States.

Children living in the refugee “tent city” were given to-go containers loaded up with turkey, mashed potatoes, as well as little candy bags

Rosy and Yessika, deaconesses to the Anapra missions, picked up food for Cristo Rey Saturday morning, then the team headed to Kilometer 30, where they served over sixty people, once again giving out extra plates to take home before packing up left-overs, along with 98 lunch sacks with sandwiches, fruit, and chips, and headed back to the “tent city”.

“I am truly grateful I had the opportunity to give out food to the refugees,” Dan shared, his smile growing, “It was like the fish and the loaves. Just when I thought I was running out of lunch sacks, the women and kids inside the van kept tossing them my way.”

The joy the 2022 Alternate Thanksgiving mission team expressed experiencing throughout their days with YLM was an echo of many others as they discovered how God blesses those who bless, then blesses them some more. Majority of the mission team’s members voiced their resolution to return once again next year, along with others eager to experience the joy of serving others in tangible ways that change lives, including their own.