What do you know about Thanksgiving?

This is from the CLA. Someone e-mailed this to me, and I thought it was interesting. Happy Thanksgiving!

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Squanto is a well known figure in the story of the First Thanksgiving. But did you know this about him? While Squanto helped the Pilgrims learn to survive in the Wilderness, the Pilgrims gave Squanto the best gift of all—the gift of salvation.

Squanto had been captured as a young man and taken to England as a slave. During that time he mastered the English language. He was freed to return to his native territory on Cape Cod just in time for the arrival of the Pilgrims in 1620. Probably the most important thing Squanto taught the Pilgrims was how to plant the Indians’ winter staple crop—corn.
The Pilgrims shared with Squanto the most valuable treasure they had brought with them from England—the Gospel. Squanto died within a year or two after meeting the Pilgrims.

Other Indians Squanto introduced to the Pilgrims were also impressed with their God. During the summer of 1621, when it appeared the year’s corn harvest would not survive a severe drought, the Pilgrims called for a day of fasting and prayer. By the end of the day, it was raining. The rain saved the corn, which miraculously sprang back to life. One of the Indians who observed this miracle remarked that the Pilgrim God must be a very great God because when the Indians pow-wowed for rain, it always rained so hard that the corn stalks were broken down. But the Pilgrim’s God sent a very gentle rain that did not damage the corn harvest. It was that same miraculous corn harvest that provided the grain for the Pilgrims’ first Thanksgiving meal with their Indian friends and helpers.

Today, many of our public school children are taught that Thanksgiving was a time when the Pilgrims thanked their Indian neighbors for helping them; but the evidence of history shows that on that first Thanksgiving Day the thanks of both Pilgrims and Indians went to God for His great goodness toward them all. Now that you know the rest of this true story, make sure that your children learn it too as we join with generations of Americans before us in giving thanks to God for blessing our country on this Thanksgiving Day.