Happy Thanksgiving! We certainly have much to be grateful for. Our greatest blessing is that we belong to God who is ever faithful. God is a God of abundance; abundant grace, mercy, love, patience, and justice, to name just some of the ways we experience God from Thanksgiving Day to Thanksgiving Day.

As I thought of this year’s Thanksgiving Day I began to remember those wonderful verses of scripture that remind us of God’s faithfulness. II Corinthians 9:8 is a favorite of mine: And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work.

I was doing my shopping for my family’s Thanksgiving feast when I remembered this particular verse. I am blessed! I haven’t always had everything I wanted, but I have always had enough. Today I have much more than I deserve or need. I took my turkey and fixings home, unpacked them, put them in the refrigerator and the cupboards, and got down to the grocery store receipt in the bag and then it came to me. What if my family and I kept track of our Thanksgiving Day meal purchases and then donated that same amount to others?

I immediately thought of our Imagine No Malaria Initiative. I remembered men and women and children in Sub-Saharan Africa whom I have known and who have died of malaria. While my family and I will be consuming plenty of food this Thanksgiving, so many of our brothers and sisters in Africa will themselves be consumed by the voracious appetite of malaria.

I want to invite you to join me in this effort. We are having guests at our Thanksgiving table so I am going to invite my family and guests to join me in this effort too. God has blessed us in abundance so that having enough we would share abundantly with others. May God receive our efforts as joyful expressions of the thankfulness of our hearts!

Bishop Minerva G. Carcaño
Los Angeles Episcopal Area Resident Bishop
The United Methodist Church

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