THANKSGIVING MESSAGE FROM THE PASTOR

Thanksgiving Day comes this month.

On Thanksgiving Day most of us will gather with family. And we will give thanks and celebrate the blessings of God.

In 1620, a group of Puritans traveled from England to Plymouth, Mass. During their first winter, more than half of them died. But the following spring, a native named Squanto came to live with the colonists. The Spanish had sold him into slavery as a child, but he was purchased by monks and taught Christianity.

Squanto taught the colonists how to plant, fish, and hunt. And in 1621, the first harvest feast was celebrated with gratefullness and thanksgiving to God.

In my homeland we used to take the first and best of the harvest from the fields and make rice cookies and dedicate them to the Ancestral gods. We thanks our ancelstral spirits for the good harvest and the blessed year.

(After I became a Christian, I gave up ancestor worship. I began to give thanks go God! I began to understand God as the giver of all things.)

As we consider God's goodness during this holiday season, let us remember what God has done in our lives. As we celebrate this Thanksgiving and thank God for all His wondrous gifts, don't forget our Body of Christ and our mission through our Annual Conference.

And I want you to ponder on this question: "Why so some who have little have grateful hearts, while others who have much grumble that they don't have more?"

Pastor H. Baek