A Thanksgiving Appetizer

By Tien Min Tan

The three-day-week slowly inches towards the end as the Tuesday comes to a close. Though the gates have shut and most have scurried home, the campus still teemed with students who refused to go home. What could have been keeping these students here past 5:30 PM on a Tuesday evening?

Well, these were the students that had wanted to come together to celebrate and worship God after school! After school on Tuesdays usually serve as the students’ time to worship God as the students of the Leadership Development class lead their own worship for fellow students with the supervision of Spiritual Life Director Kirk Ronzheimer—they call it Student-Led Worship.

This time, however, the students had planned a special thanksgiving worship gathering set to begin at 6:00 PM and last an hour in the Student Center. One by one, whiffs of Mr. Ronzheimer’s hot apple cider and Madaline Rude’s (12) plate of cookies blew across the faces of every student as they walked into the Student Center only to be greeted with a breeze that sadly only hinted at a white Christmas.

The room quickly filled with students as Dael Kim (12) and Uncle Keith Henderson began to serenade the singing students from the front of the room. As the worship came to an end, the students turned to their friends to chatter on to create the soft white noise that permeated the room. Some students then began indulging themselves in the sweet treats that lined the back of the room while some took pleasure in cutting out colorful maple leaves to write gratitude notes to either themselves or friends.

Riley Phillips (12), a regular attendee of Student-Led Worship, expresses that the thanksgiving worship gathering “…was a super great opportunity to relax and reflect on this past semester and all the ways God has blessed me. I was feeling extra thankful for my awesome friends, my sister, and the apple cider, so that’s what I wrote about on the thankfulness leaf that we did.”

As the hour came to an end, Dael Kim (12) closed the evening with a prayer of gratitude and peace for the attendees. Though the hour had felt short, the gathering had been a peaceful time of reflection and appreciation before the restful long thanksgiving holiday ahead of all who participated.