Psalm 100:4 King James Version (KJV)

⁴ Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him and bless his name.

I saw the above bible verse posted on a church marquis yesterday and although I had heard of, and read this quote before, I had never truly given much thought to the depth of its meaning until I turned on the television last evening and saw scenes of the migrant caravan overrunning Tijuana, Mexico. Granted, there were a few families shown and interviewed who told reporters they would wait to process their paperwork for legal entry to the United States; however, to the contrary, there were hundreds showing blatant disrespect for not only the Mexican authorities, but toward our own border, where they threaten to crash the gates into America, threatening to come into America illegally, and in doing so, displaying a vile disrespect for the United States.  I witnessed migrants standing at the threshold of the Gates of America, and instead of giving America Praise, instead of giving America Thanks, instead of Blessing the name of America for giving them an opportunity to enter legally, an uninvited, undocumented, unvetted sea of humanity threatened to enter America by any means necessary?

No, no, no! By the above disrespectful actions, these individuals have already shown that they have no desire to Give Back to America, no desire to Respect, to Love and Honor the country they are demanding to enter. They should not demand. It is not a RIGHT to come to America. It is a privilege.  It is a privilege granted to me and my parents as refugees seeking asylum in America during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, as I detailed in my memoir, BITTERSWEET FREEDOM (the title used as my column header on TORCHLIGHT).

WE WERE INVITED to come to America by President Eisenhower. Thousands of Hungarians were being slaughtered and tortured by the Communist/Socialist Red Warmongers (Soviet army) as they decimated Hungary in their bloodthirsty conquest to dominate our country.  And when our refugee ship steamed past the bronze beauty bearing her Torch of Freedom, we entered America’s Gates with true Thanks Giving and Her courts with Praise.

HAVE YOU EVER THOUGHT ABOUT WHAT SACRIFICES YOU WOULD MAKE TO LIVE IN FREEDOM? My parents and I began our treacherous and harrowing escape to America on November 16, 2018. We were but a handful of thousands who would attempt the perilous trek to Freedom during the dark, mournful days of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution.  My father was a Freedom Fighter, fighting with thousands of other young people between October 23, 1956, and November 4, 1956, to scourge the malicious Soviet Army’s deadly chokehold upon the Hungarian populace. My father took Evil Lives to save Valiant Lives.  A friend knocked on our door that fateful November night warning my father that a death sentence had been pronounced upon him by the Soviet Hierarchy, and, THEY were coming to arrest him at any moment.  Arrest meant death for my father and mother, and for me, my fate would have been to be taken to an Orphanage to be raised as a “good brainwashed communist.”   My parents had little choice – they had to leave Budapest, Hungary at that moment. No saying goodbye to family and friends, only time to gather me and a few personal items for survival, and out the door we went into the pitch-black of a cold, damp night toward an unknown void filled with every type of peril imaginable.

SOMETIMES THE PERIL OF STAYING CAN BE MORE PERILOUS THAN THE PERIL OF LEAVING.  But what kind of a life did we hope to have in 1956 Hungary under Soviet Domination? What good was life if you could not “live it” anyway? What good was life if you were told by THE STATE as what to do in every facet of your life – where to live, what you can purchase to eat, where you will work, how your children would be educated (brainwashed  by “the system” to conspire against their own parents for the “good of the country,”  never knowing if you could trust a friend or even a family member who may be secretly working with the socialist regime so they could earn a few perks to a better life for their own family.

My parents were only ages twenty and twenty-one and could not fathom the thought of living out the rest of their days in that pit of misery, deciding they would rather die together than to live forever repressed.

MOST AMERICANS TAKE THEIR FREEDOM, THE PROFOUND TREASURE OF LIBERTY, LIGHTLY, AND AT TIMES, FOR GRANTED. And that is to be expected. For how can most people possibly appreciate being the most fortunate beings on this Planet?  Living as Free beings is the only “life” the majority of natural-born Americans have known.  How many times a day does the average natural-born American person reflect to ponder how their lives would be different under the regimes of Socialism and/or Communism, a life that my parents and I escaped from.  Not many.

Naturalized Citizens – people who have come to America from socialist/communist systems, people like my family who suffered under the defiling degradation of tyranny and totalitarianism of those oppressive systems deeply APPRECIATE the life-giving air of Freedom flowing through our lungs every single day since we first set foot on American soil.  We think about the Freedom we have in America – every day.

For me, Thanksgiving Day is Every Day!  For it was by God’s Grace we survived our horrific trek towards America, surviving the piercing metal of Soviet bullets that would have surely spewed our life’s essence into the muddy soil of an imperturbable forest. We were fortunate, but some were not, for during our escape we witnessed fellow countrymen mowed down by the hellish red glow of reverberating machinegun fire. I Give Thanks for my life, for it was by God’s Grace that I have lived to tell you this story. 

So, America, teach your children the TRUE history of Socialism and Communism. Don’t rely on the schools to do this. They will not. Schools today are nothing more than socialist indoctrination centers pushing a liberal left agenda into the minds of your young. Just think – Why would millions of people around the world who live under those regimes risk their lives to come to America? Why would they rather die trying to make it to our shores than to stay in the mire of destitution and destruction? Because Socialism and Communism are death sentences for a nation!

As thousands of people flood our borders, demanding entrance without going through the legal process, please remember, there is a right way and a wrong way to come to America.  For all those who come America must be ready in their heart, mind, and soul to become ONE with our country, they must be ready to throw away any allegiance to their former country, must come to assimilate and become ONE with the American way of life.

If illegal entry of individuals to the United States is permitted, and those individuals come into our country with the attitude that America will SUPPORT THEM, giving them social assistance providing free food, housing, medical care, and assistance money for each child they birth, all on the backs of the American taxpayer, they will eventually “bleed our system dry,” creating poverty for all of us – there is only so much money you can take from people who have money, until no one has any more money.  And there you have it – you are trapped in the wonderful world of Socialism where no individual has any more than another, meaning no one has anything!

AND YOU WONDER WHAT DOES ALL THIS HAVE TO DO WITH THANKSGIVING?  Everything!  Our political climate is changing, and not for the better, but for the worse, with the Liberal/Democrat/Socialist agenda silently seeping into our schools and into our local and federal branches of government.

STAY ALERT!  Pay attention to what your children are learning in school?  Are they pushing an Islamic agenda while pushing aside any mention of the Christian faith?  Do not elect officials who seek to take away your Constitutional Liberties that we now enjoy, especially when they tell you, “it will be for the sake of your own self-protection that it needs to be done,” i.e. gun control.  Demand that those people who enter our country come in legally, come in properly vetted, come into America ready to work hard and bear the responsibility of supporting themselves without being a burden on the American taxpayer.

If we do not stop the progression of the Socialistic evil that is slowly infringing itself upon our nation, we will wake up one morning in wonder and awe when we become “suddenly enlightened,” that we gave it all away without a fight, because we were told, “we would be better off.”  

America does not have to wait for an outside invader to defeat our way of life, our way of life is ALREADY being defeated from the inside. Stay vigilant for signs that the freedom you cherish is slowly being chipped away.  

For one day my friends, you may be called upon to fight for YOUR AMERICA, to save HER, as my parents fought back against one thousand tanks of the Soviet Socialist/Communist forces as they plowed into the heart of Budapest, mowing down the young and old, leaving nothing but bloody tank tracks in their wake.

Thanksgiving, to this naturalized citizen, means that we must Never, Ever, give in to the Evil Scourge waiting silently in the wings to take away our Freedom. It means fighting to keep the sanctity of the Life you and your family cherish here in the United States.  It means never forgetting all those who have died to keep you free. It means always remembering those around the world who died fighting for what we take for granted here in America every day.  Every day.  All Americans should Be Thankful every day – for Freedom is a fleeting thing. Our Freedom could disappear in a heartbeat, overnight, should America become governed by those who seek a One World Socialist Agenda – an agenda secretly in the works as we bury ourselves in the demands of everyday living.  

Each day when I wake up and see the brave colors of Red, White and Blue waving on the flagpole in my front yard, I am reminded of my simple beginnings. I am reminded that I am the PROUD daughter 1956 Hungarian Freedom Fighters. I am reminded that even though we began as poor refugees who survived the trek to America, we were wealthy in what mattered the most, we were richer than one could imagine, for our hearts overflowed with the treasure of ENDLESS THANKS GIVING to the country that gave us a home when we had nowhere else on this earth to go.  We were very poor in monetary means, but richer beyond belief in the Love and Thanks WE gave America for being allowed to live in, and GIVE back to, the Greatest Country on earth.

I give each of you a question to ask family members as you gather about your family table this Day of Thanks: If called upon by your country to keep her from succumbing to the known Evil of Socialism and Communism, the known evil of the persecution of religious liberty, and of your Second Amendment rights – would you be willing to sacrifice everything you have to keep your freedom? Would it be worth the price you had to pay to be able to enjoy just one more day of THANKS GIVING?

I hope the telling of my family’s flight from Soviet persecution makes America more aware of how each day, bits of our Freedom here in the United States are being chiseled away. My story is not only a warning of how America could one day suffer under the iron chain of socialism and communism as we did in Hungary, but my story is one of Great Hope, a Hope that America will wake up and fight back against those determined to take away our reason for Thanks Giving.

The Flame of Freedom Must Be Rekindled through each New Generation, lest the message of its Truth and Hope be lost – Forever.