submitted by Beth Andersen, Joshua Expeditions Latin America Coordinator

I lived in Costa Rica for almost 15 years, and during the majority of that time, we didn’t have all the conveniences that exist today. If you wanted to purchase meat you had to go to the meat market – no frozen turkeys at the Auto-Mercado! If you needed to buy a light bulb or some nails, it was off to the hardware store. Now they have one-stop shopping at Wal-Mart! Today, whether you shop at the Auto-Mercado or Wal-Mart, you can find everything you need to put on a huge Thanksgiving spread, including pumpkin pie and whipped cream!

The definition of change is: “to cause to be different” or “to give a completely different form or appearance to; transform.” As I reflect on the past 12 years of traveling back to Costa Rica with Joshua Expeditions, there have been a lot of changes. Costa Rica, in turn, has been used by God to change the lives of hundreds of students who hugged children at the local orphanages, removed nails from recycled wood at the Abraham Project, or shared smiles with children in La Carpio. I am thankful for these changes, not because it makes my life more convenient, but because such change means our lives have been transformed as we have given to others!

Consider the past year. What do you have to be thankful for?