SQUANTO and the First Thanksgiving

Last Thursday we gathered together at the Park Forest Library for our 5th Gratefulness Praise Meeting...This is a time that we come together with grateful hearts for the answers to prayer that have been received as our mini church/support group in the past year...We always start off our time with some kind of inspirational presentation, music, readings, or video....this year we watched a delightful video about an Indian from the Patuxet tribe named, Squanto...and how he was captured by Thomas Hunt, brought to Spain as a slave and was purchased by monks who attempted to "civilize" him. Eventually gaining his freedom, Squanto was able to work his way to England and signed on as an interpreter for a British expedition to Newfoundland. From there Squanto went back to Massachusetts, only to discover that, in his absence, every one in his village had been wiped out in a epidemic plague in 1617. As the last Patuxet, he moved in with a neighboring tribe that lived at Pokanoket--the home of Wampanoag chief, Massasoit. The Pilgrims arrived on the Mayflower--in November of 1620...they had left England for religious freedoms. Squanto helped the Pilgrims to manure their corn, catch fish and eels, and acted as their interpretor and guide. A year later, in 1621...the Pilgrims and Indians feasted on the harvest at the First Thanksgiving as a three day celebration of what God had done!!! In 1622 Squanto died of Indian Fever...God's hand had been on Squanto the entire time...even when things didn't look so great (like when he was taken to Spain and sold into slavery) God was still in control...(reminds me of the Joseph story...What you meant for evil God turned into good!! Genesis 50:20) If Squanto had stayed with his tribe he also would have died with the epidemic plague...Instead he was there to help the Pilgrims in their search for a place they could worship God as He was leading them to do and to an Indian who would smooth out the way!!!! What a great story...of God's love, faithfulness and sovereignty!!! and on that note!!!
Blessed Thanksgiving to one and all!!!!