Our Irish Thanksgiving Outreach as suggested elsewhere

In another thread I mentioned our annual Thanksgiving Open House outreach and Oldtimer asked what we do.

We have been in Ireland since 1995, but only in Naas, the town we live now, since 1998. The one bit of Americanism we held on to has been Thanksgiving. Our first Thanksgiving in Naas we were still trying to break down some barriers with our neighbours and overcome some of the suspicions of being 'those American Baptists.'

We decided that we would open up our home to friends and neighbours Thanksgiving Open House and share desserts, tea, and coffee with them. It was primarily just to begin to put people at ease an open doors to chat with them. Though we have not, as far as we know, seen anyone saved directly because of the outreach it has traditionally opened opportunities to share the gospel and some of the folks who have come have indeed been saved and are in our church.

Our motive though is just to be open and sharing and show people that we love them and are thankful they are our friends and neighbours. In addition to the large family which gathers for dinner we would have 30-40 friends call in for tea.

Now that we have a small church they tend to come and it is more than just our family being a witness. I think we have about 40 or so here Thursday night in our rather small house. We don't have a sit down dessert, but folks come and go throughout the evening.

It is a highlight of our family and church year.

 

Thanksgiving works well for us here because it is so unusual. Everyone like to go back and 'brag' to their friends that they went to an American Thanksgiving and had pumpkin pie .

I think it is an adaptable idea though.