William Jordan
Mechanical Engineering
Baylor University
As a newlyweds, my wife and I moved in 1982 to Bryan, Texas so that I could begin graduate school at Texas A & M University. I did not look forward to that Thanksgiving, for we would celebrate it more than 1000 miles from both my family in Colorado and my wife’s family in Ohio.
That fall my wife became involved with an outreach program to the wives of international students. So, partly to keep us from being lonely, we invited several international students over to our house to share Thanksgiving dinner with us. It became an enjoyable time for us as we got to know people from different cultures. We kept up with this tradition when we moved to Louisiana Tech in Ruston in 1985.
No Shelling Or Gunfire
Some of the experiences have been melancholy — such as the year we invited a Lebanese student. After dinner we relaxed by sitting on our back porch. He told us, “It’s nice to be able to relax outside like this without hearing shelling and gunfire.” Back home, his country was going through a civil war.
Some experiences were humorous as students from Indonesia and Taiwan were surprised to hear what students from the other country really liked to eat.
While Thanksgiving is not officially a Christian holiday, like Christmas and Easter, it has its origins in a Christian attitude of thanksgiving for a good harvest. We printed up a one page history of Thanksgiving to give to the students. We have also reprinted the Thanksgiving Day proclamation from President Washington to show students some of this Christian background.
True Hospitality
In an informal way we have tried to make the point that the early settlers were thankful to God for his blessings in that year. They had the attitude expressed in Psalm 100 (NIV):
“Enter his gates with thanksgiving
And his courts with praise
Give thanks to him and praise his name
For the Lord is good and his love endures forever
His faithfulness continues through all generations.”
These experiences have been good for us and good for our kids as they have been introduced to people from different backgrounds. It was a chance to show international students some true hospitality. Many of them may go their entire college experience in the USA without ever being in an American’s home.
A number of times these dinners have led to an invitation to go to students’ apartments and eat food from their countries. This has also been an educational and enriching experience for us.
© 2005 William Jordan