Samuel's Story

I wrote this for the Thanksgiving Program.

A sweet young man with some acting experience
will be doing it as a monologue.

Hi! I am Samuel. My Grandparents were on the Mayflower and
have told me all about that first Thanksgiving Day. It was an amazing
day...one that would probably surprise you...and me.

Why should these people who had suffered so much loss offer thanks?
I mean, Grandma told me that of all of the people she knew that had
made the journey only a very small handful survived that first winter.
It was really tough. Grandma took in a child of friends who lost their
lives to sickness that first year.

But, you know, Grandma said that somehow they knew they were going to
make it. She knew that God was with them and that it was He that deserved the thanks and praise for keeping them this far. She said it was a calling and that
she was ever grateful to be out from under the hand of the Church of England.

Grandma said that when Grandpa went out, in preparation for that great meal, to
hunt the turkeys, with the other men, it was the first time she had seen his shoulders up and straight in a long time.

Grandpa had been so busy with the necessary things of life...the things he didn't talk about much.

But on that day as he headed out to search for meat, for a meal of praise, his head was high and there was a spring in his step.

I guess thinking on our blessings does that.

It makes us confident and happy.

One thing Grandpa did talk about was seeing those 90 Indian friends come to dinner. It really was God's blessing that a friendship had been forged and that Squanto, Massasoit and Samoset had offered assistance in planting, hunting and fishing as everything was so new to my Grandparents and their friends.

To see the Hand of God... Providence, they used to call it in the lives of these men leading and guiding them to just the right places and times.

Grandpa would shake his weathered, gray head and just chuckle at the way God works. He said Squanto had been taken to the Old World after being taken as a slave and knew something about our ways.

It amazed him that this man would then turn around and help them.

"Must be God!" That's what Grandpa would say. "Must be God!"