…Pres. Boakai urges Liberians on Thanksgiving Day
By: G Bennie Bravo Johnson I
On the occasion marking the 141st Thanksgiving day celebration, held at the Harvest Intercontinental Church, Liberian Leader, President Joseph Nyumah Boakai has charged Liberians to exhibit love for the country while appreciating God for the existence of a nation.
“Show Love for the country and remember that this country was founded on the principle of worship and fear for God.” President Boakai asserted that Liberians should be grateful to God for the provision of peace in the nation.
He intimated that Liberia in the subregion has been peaceful amid instability that engulfed the region. “As a nation, God has been good to us. Our neighbors in the subregion have been challenged with instability, but the peace of God has been with us.”
Meanwhile, he continued by urging Liberians to be nationalistic in the discharge of their duty to ensure that the resources are used to empower everyone. He asserted that with a grateful and nationalistic heart, Liberia as a nation can reap the benefits of God’s blessings upon the nation.
Boakai added that he remains prayerful to God for direction in steering the affairs of the country and asked that God provide the right people to positively shift the dimension of the country. “We pray that God answers our prayers by bringing the rightful people around us to help positively impact the nation, that we may all benefit from the national resources.”
In 1883, the Legislature of Liberia enacted a statute declaring this day as a national holiday. Thanksgiving is celebrated in the country in large part due to the nation’s founding as a colony of the American Colonization Society in 1821 by former slaves and free people of color from the United States.
Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated on various dates in October and November in the United States, Canada, Saint Lucia, Liberia, and unofficially in countries like Brazil, Germany, and the Philippines. It is also observed in the Dutch town of Leiden and the Australian territory of Norfolk Island. It began as a day of giving thanks for the blessings of the harvest and of the preceding year. Various similarly named harvest festival holidays occur throughout the world during autumn. Although Thanksgiving has historical roots in religious and cultural traditions, it has long been celebrated as a secular holiday as well.
Prayers of thanks and special thanksgiving ceremonies are common among most religions after harvests and at other times of the year. The Thanksgiving holiday’s history in North America is rooted in English traditions dating from the Protestant Reformation. It also has aspects of a harvest festival, even though the harvest in New England occurs well before the late-November date on which the modern Thanksgiving holiday is celebrated.
