He has already implemented a change that is good, which is that the children's ministry has been given center stage, to the point that they join us for worship and we dismiss them with prayer. Actively putting the emphasis in this way will start to bridge the gap towards having a true family ministry, and help us to reach out the community more effectively. We are also doing better at the community thing, in that he's coming with "only clothes and books" and the church is doing a collection from the congregation to help to furnish his house or apartment. This will help to develop a quicker sense of intimacy and fellowship with the pastor.
This year, I had four Thanksgiving dinners. The first was with the small group, at which I fried my first turkey.
(Sadly, this is the only picture for this post. I have not yet gathered the other Thanksgiving pictures.)
This was done in a southern style, which means injecting the bird with a buttery spice mixture. There's still some head-scratching going on with this one, because it ended up that the breast meat was more flavorful and more moist than the leg meat. For a dark meat person, this is highly abnormal (but deliciously abnormal). My best guess is that the marinade in the leg meat could have run down into the open area under the skin down where the thigh meets the body. I did not jot down any notes from that dinner, so I can't remember much of the other foods. I remember a spicy cranberry something and a corn pudding (which I don't think I had ever had before).
The second Thanksgiving dinner was the GCF potluck. I got to catch up with a lot of people. These sorts of things have a high nostalgia value for me because it's not only my connection to the individuals, but also with the fellowship. Even people I met for the first time feel like friends. I think that's what happens when community is done well. There was a classic baked turkey (dry brined) that turned out wonderful (though I cut myself carving it -- fortunately it was right at the end). Other highlights included a cranberry salad (that involved running apples through a meat grinder) and some sort of cheese-filled phyllo-wrapped something.
The third Thanksgiving dinner actually followed the second. I drove up from San Diego to LA and arrived just in time for the Asian turducken. I made turducken with my cousin last year, and this year she made it by herself. Apparently, turducken is not a one-person job. When you get to the point where you need to use skewers to hold the final layer closed, you need a third and fourth hand. That's just how it is.
The fourth Thanksgiving dinner happened on Friday, and it was a feast of meats. We had a fried turkey, a prime rib, and a roasted suckling pig. We also had a roasted garlic mashed potato dish that turned out wonderfully well, and we played around with a spicy bacon and mixed nuts concoction that my cousin had at some bar somewhere.
While everything was good and tasty, it was also a very rushed Thanksgiving weekend. I left for San Diego at 6 AM on Wednesday morning, then went up to LA at 7 PM on Thursday, and left for Vegas at 1 PM on Saturday. I was so tired that I fell asleep on Saturday evening at around 9:30 (and consequently woke up at around 4:30 AM).
And besides all of the eating, it was good to catch up with friends and have some family time. There was a couple that I knew back when I was still a student who announced that they are pregnant with twins. Another couple is in the last stages of preparing to move up to the Bay Area. Others are making significant steps towards graduating. My brother just moved and is starting to look into getting his teaching credentials. It was just a good time overall.
Maybe in another week or so I'll have collected the pictures and post them. This requires two steps, neither of which is guaranteed.
Oh, and class stuff is coming to a close soon. We have two weeks of class left, with the Putnam coming up next week. Pretty soon, I'm going to hit my crazy time. But I'm not there yet...
