Happy Thanksgiving.

Over the past two days, I've taken you on a journey—from Bradford's manuscript to Paul's missionary travels, from Wycliffe and Tyndale to Gutenberg's press, from Luther's 95 Theses to the persecution that drove 100 souls onto a ship called Mayflower.

Today, on this day of gratitude, I want to tell you what happened when they landed—and what they purchased with their blood so that you and I could gather freely around our tables.

Landfall

In November 1620, after 66 brutal days at sea, the Mayflower anchored off the coast of what would become Plymouth, Massachusetts.

They had arrived at the worst possible time.

Winter was already setting in. They had no shelter. No stored food. No knowledge of the land. The 100 passengers—men, women, children, and elderly—faced a new world with nothing but faith and each other.

The First Winter

That first winter was devastating.

Cold. Starvation. Disease. Exposure. One by one, the Pilgrims began to die.

By spring, half of them were gone. Fifty souls—husbands, wives, children, parents—buried in unmarked graves.

They buried their dead in secret, leveling the ground so the Native Americans wouldn't know how vulnerable they had become. The survivors were so weakened that at times only six or seven people were healthy enough to care for the sick and dying.

William Bradford lost his wife, Dorothy, shortly after they arrived. She fell—or perhaps jumped—from the Mayflower while it was still anchored in the harbor. He buried his grief and led anyway.

That's what leaders do.

Not One Left

Here's what astonishes me most about this story.

In April 1621, the Mayflower prepared to return to England. The ship was seaworthy. The crew was ready. Any passenger who wanted to go back could board and sail home to safety.

Not one Pilgrim left.

Think about that. They had watched their spouses die. Their children. Their parents. They had endured a winter of unimaginable suffering. And when given the chance to escape—to return to civilization, to warmth, to food, to survival—they stayed.

Why?

Because what they came for was worth more than their lives.

They didn't cross an ocean and bury half their company to turn back at the first hardship. They came for the freedom to worship the God of the Bible—biblically and freely—and they would rather die in that freedom than live under a king who claimed authority over their souls.

Providence in the Wilderness

And then, Providence intervened.

In March 1621, a Wampanoag man named Samoset walked into the Plymouth settlement and greeted the stunned Pilgrims—in English. He had learned the language from English fishermen along the coast.

Samoset introduced them to Squanto, a Patuxet man whose story was nothing short of miraculous. Years earlier, Squanto had been kidnapped by English explorers and taken to Europe. He eventually made his way back to his homeland—only to discover that his entire tribe had been wiped out by disease.

Squanto was the last of his people. And he chose to help the Pilgrims survive.

He taught them how to plant corn, where to fish, how to navigate the land. Without Squanto, the Plymouth Colony would almost certainly have perished.

Through Squanto, the Pilgrims established a relationship with Massasoit, the great sachem of the Wampanoag Confederacy. In the spring of 1621, they signed a peace treaty—a mutual defense agreement that promised neither side would harm the other.

That treaty lasted 55 years. Fifty-five years of peace between two peoples who could have been enemies. It remains one of the longest-lasting peace agreements in colonial American history.

The First Thanksgiving

In the fall of 1621, after their first successful harvest, the Pilgrims gathered to give thanks.

This wasn't a secular harvest festival. This wasn't a generic celebration of "gratitude."

This was Biblical worship.

The Pilgrims were thanking the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—the God of Scripture—for delivering them through the voyage, sustaining them through the winter, and providing the harvest. Just as God delivered Israel from Egypt, He had delivered them from persecution to a land where they could worship Him freely.

The Wampanoag joined them. Massasoit and about 90 of his people came to the celebration, bringing five deer as their contribution. For three days, the two peoples feasted together—a covenant celebration between those who had chosen peace over war.

And William Bradford? He wrote it all down.

What They Purchased

Fifty Pilgrims died that first winter so that fifty could survive to worship freely.

What did they purchase with their sacrifice?

The freedom to worship the God of the Bible—biblically and freely. Without a king dictating doctrine. Without a state controlling their churches. Without government agents spying on their gatherings.

The freedom to raise their children according to Scripture. To pass on their faith, their values, their heritage to the next generation without the state telling them what to teach.

The freedom to work and build and earn. Bradford documented that when the colony first tried communal farming—everyone sharing equally regardless of effort—it nearly destroyed them. When they shifted to private property and free enterprise, the colony thrived. Economic freedom and religious freedom are two sides of the same coin.

The freedom to govern themselves according to conscience. The Mayflower Compact—signed before they even left the ship—was the first experiment in self-government in the New World. They didn't wait for a king to tell them how to organize. They covenanted together under God.

What We've Forgotten

The Pilgrims fled England because the state would not stay out of their churches.

Today, we've reversed the meaning of their sacrifice.

"Separation of church and state" has been twisted from its original meaning—keep the government out of sacred worship—into something the Pilgrims would never recognize: keep faith out of public life.

The same government that the Pilgrims fled now reaches into the sacred spaces they died to protect. The covenant of marriage. The raising of children. The freedom to run a business according to Biblical principles. The right to speak truth without state-approved censorship.

They didn't cross an ocean and bury half their people so a different government could control how they worshiped, raised their families, conducted their marriages, or earned their living.

Freedom is comprehensive—or it's not freedom at all.

To the Tremendous Tribe

Today, as I gather with my family around a table laden with food, in a home I can own, running a business I can operate according to my values, worshiping the God of the Bible freely—I am profoundly grateful.

And I am grateful for you.

For 60 years, Tremendous Leadership has been blessed with a tribe of people who share the values the Pilgrims died for. You believe that truth matters. That faith belongs at the center of life—not hidden in a corner. That freedom requires courage. That leaders lead from conviction, not convenience.

You are part of a 1,500-year legacy—from Paul to Wycliffe to Tyndale to Luther to Bradford to my father, Charlie "Tremendous" Jones, to you.

You're not just my readers, my clients, my fellow travelers.

You're my fellow Pilgrims.

The Table They Set

This Thanksgiving, as you bow your head to pray, remember:

You can pray because they bled.

You can gather because they scattered.

You can feast because they starved.

You can worship freely because they refused to worship falsely.

The table you sit at today was set by Pilgrims who never saw it—but believed it was coming.

Enjoy what our Pilgrim brothers and sisters endured.

Happy Thanksgiving.