Green Nation's Thanksgiving Workshop

As any family would we gathered on thanksgiving day to celebrate America and remember how our nation started centered on God and faith. We arrived in the afternoon on thanksgiving day already feeling gratitude and love towards each other since we haven’t seen one another for a while. Once we settled down at the wonderful home in Mobile, Alabama right by the coast we gathered to start our workshop. We started with taking the time to really reflect and think about all the things that we are grateful for and all the things that has been given to us out entire lives and even before we were born. Some went to the beach to reflect and call home to say their thank yous and others stayed at the house to help prepare our wonderful thanksgiving dinner. It was a peaceful time that everyone really took the time to see what they have been given in their lives.

Dinner came around and we gathered around with a prayer and cutting the turkey to start the dinner. Once we all got food on our plates we then went around saying our gratitude points. There are way too many gratitude points we can all say but something we all had in common one way or another was gratitude for our families, friends, and God and TP. Hearing everyones gratitude points really gave a peaceful and positive loving atmosphere that everyone can really enjoy and come together as one family. It was a very joyful time we had all together. After dinner as the thanksgiving tradition continues we had pumpkin pie

and ice cream as we watched a movie called Patriots. It was a great way to end and close the evening all together as one family.

The next day was a day of claiming victories, learning about true love and America, and also spending some time together at the beach. There is a quote that says “mountains are the means, the man is the end. The goal is not to reach the top of the mountains, but to improve the man.” (by Walter Bonatti) It’s very easy to not claim victories and get caught up with not being able to reach the goal or ‘the top of the mountain’ as some might say, but there are always things to claim and improvements within ourselves we just tend to overlook things. We heard a talk by Patrick oppa about claiming victories which helped everyone see that we may not have the fireworks we expect but god did make the small stars for us to enjoy. So there are always things to be grateful for and claim because even the fact that we are here and we continue fundraising is a victory in itself.

We then had an interactive talk with Tolik oppa about ‘True Love’ and what it really takes to achieve it and also to see how it has been at work throughout our lives. We started off with having a few people share about times in their life when they experience or realized how much love they have been given. It was a very powerful moment for everyone to be able to really think and also hear how true love has been in peoples lives. It’s something so powerful that at times you can put it into words but actions. True Love is an action. It takes commitment and investment in order to fully understand and feel genuinely in ones heart. It’s hard to love all the time but that’s why love is about commitment and investment. We can see that in our lives and through the stories we shared about how our parents loved us despite all the circumstances around us. Love is the most powerful and meaningful things anyone can experience. It’s an energy source we are trying to tap into because its connected to our group goal is to “Let us Love God and TP by offering everything’ which is centered on doing things out of love and gratitude. For the rest of the afternoon we played sports at the beach. We then had another talk by Tolik oppa about America and doing things for a bigger picture not just for ourselves. And along side that we watched a documentary about following the path of the pilgrims history. It was a wonderful workshop we had together to be able to really go more in depth with gratitude and the power of love of doing things for a greater whole other then ourselves.