As far as I can tell, Malaysia doesn’t have a thanksgiving or harvest festival that is celebrated by everyone. However, many of the indigenous peoples do have harvest festivals, one of the more famous being Kaamatan, which is celebrated by the Kadazan and other groups in Sabah, East Malaysia.

Where we live in Penang, however, times of thanksgiving seem to be segregated by religion. We also don’t live near an agricultural group so they aren’t tied to the harvest either. As I looked into the various festivals celebrated here (and there are many!), I realized that a lot of them are actually times of giving thanks. And if that isn’t their primary stated purpose, the opportunity for gratitude is almost always there.

This year, the Muslim Eid al-Adha fell the day after Canadian Thanksgiving. We had friends to visit and wish happy holidays, so the girls and I talked a bit about what was being celebrated. Eid al-Adha is the time when Muslims sacrifice an animal to commemorate Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son before God intervened by providing a ram for sacrifice.

While there are a number of differences between the account of this story in the Quran and the Torah, the girls and I realized that God shines through as Provider either way! It was beautiful to see Middlenificent grasp that significance and respond that she really hoped she got a chance to share with her friends we were visiting how thankful she was that God is such a wonderful Provider and how He has provided for her and how He even provided a Sacrifice for our sins too. She was really excited about it!

I don’t know that she got a chance to share that day as things were pretty chaotic, but to see her heart bursting with gratitude to God and overflowing with a desire to share did this mama’s heart good! I came across this verse from Psalms later that night and these words just jumped out at me, “The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me.” That is just what Middlenificent did that day, and it is what God wants from each of us every day!

I made a printable to match the others in this series for you of that verse. I also made one in Arabic and one in Indonesian. We used to live in Indonesia, and we have many friends there who celebrate this holiday so I wanted to make these for them. I also thought everyone, including my kiddos, might enjoy seeing them in other languages. Enjoy, and please share! (To download, right-click on the image below and choose “Save link as…” It is a picture file (.png) so you can print it in any size you wish.)

Here’s the Indonesian one. If you try to read it aloud, pronounce all the “a”s as an “ah” sound, the “e”s as a schwa, the “i”s as an “ee” sound, and the “u”s as an “oo” sound, and you’ll be in pretty good shape.

And, finally, here’s the Arabic one. I haven’t the faintest idea how to read it other than from right to left. Sorry. I sure do love looking at it though, but I’m linguistically nerdy that way.

If you have any suggestions for how I can make these printables more useful to you, please let me know in the comments. Is there too much color? Are you tired of the same background? I’m planning to make a set of placemats with them for us which is why I wanted them to look the same, but if you have requests for a different look or for certain verses or Thanksgiving quotes, I’d love to hear from you! I can’t promise anything, but I can try!

Would you like to join us for Thanksgiving season? Visit the introductory post to see the updated index.

And coming soon is a Grenadian Thanksgiving, guest-written by my friend Sarah who is currently living in Grenada. I’m super excited about this one as I didn’t even know Grenada had their own Thanksgiving! I can hardly wait to read her post. You can get to know Sarah in advance on her blog, sarahfaithhansen.com.

You can join our Facebook communities, Mommynificent and Desperate Homeschoolers, to keep up with our Thanksgiving season happenings! You can also subscribe to receive free emails from Mommynificent and Desperate Homeschoolers in your inbox so you don’t miss a post.

Finally, please share about this series by pinning, sharing on Facebook and Twitter, and linking back to this post! You are welcome to grab the button and share the inspiration!

<div align="center"><a href="http://mommynificent.com/2013/10/12/thanksgiving-season/" title="A Season of Thanksgiving with Mommynificent and Desperate Homeschoolers"><img src="http://mommynificent.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Thanksgiving-button-e1381656600129.png" alt="A Season of Thanksgiving with Mommynificent and Desperate Homeschoolers" style="border:none;" /></a></div>