All you need is love. And Water. And gratitude.

As we sit around our respective Thanksgiving tables this week, taking turns sharing our gratitudes, our blessings, and our thanks, the EOS team will no doubt have much to share.

Last week, we shared an Impact Experience in Honduras with a group of EOS supporters – a combined group of the curious, the committed, and the compassionate. And as we visit communities — witnessing the work of local circuit riders, shaking hands and sharing experiences with water board members, and receiving unexpected songs, greetings, and even hugs from joyful students — there is gratitude among our visiting group.

Gratitude, no doubt, for the things that we unwittingly and all too-often take for granted at home — faucets that deliver safe water on demand, plumbing that washes the grey away — but also gratitude for the opportunity to help others achieve the same.

This gratitude feels a lot like community.

We are welcomed by a brave boy who, under the shade of the open-air lunchroom, stands before the group and invites us into the sanctity of his schoolyard to show us the safe water system installed by EOS, and to understand its impact.

We are moved by the moms who take turns using the vegetables from the school garden and the access to safe water to cook a healthy lunch for the students, ensuring that even those who come to class hungry get at least one nutritious meal each day.

We are grateful for the water board members who welcome us into their homes, and who guide us up ladders, onto the tops of tanks, through fences, over jungle landscapes, and down slippery hillsides to share a little bit of their world. A little bit of their watershed. A little bit of what it means to achieve safe drinking water for families.

And we are grateful for opportunities to connect across cultures, embracing our differences and acknowledging that the things that we all have in common — the need for love, the need for water, and a tendency toward gratitude, to name but a few — connect us across all countries.

We are reminded of the saying, when you have more than you need, build a longer table, not a higher fence. Our blessings are many, our table is long, and we are happy to keep adding leafs. Thank you for bringing the chairs. For squeezing in tight. And in doing so, inviting others to the table to share in what we have.

Happy Thanksgiving to you.