For the 23rd year, community leaders and pastors gathered, along with residents, to offer words of thanks and praise for the kind of community they call home.

Held this year at Connection Church, the 23rd annual service of songs, prayer and thanksgiving was conducted with a theme of “forward together,” and speakers noted the harmony and cooperation that exist in Liberty County.

“Every now and then we ought to take time to reflect,” said Hinesville City Manager Kenneth Howard, “time to reflect on how good the Lord has been to us. He has truly blessed us. This is something that brings the community together.”

“Each year, this service reminds us of who we are, at our best,” Mayor Riles said, “a community bound by faith, lifted by hope and strengthened by the love we share for one another.”

Each year, the offerings at the service are directed toward a local charity, and this year’s organization was the Manna House.

Hinesville Mayor Karl Riles and Bishop Kendall Paige, president of the United Ministerial Alliance, also announced the creation of the Katrina Deason Award, named for the Manna House founder, that will go toward a deserving resident who commits their time and resources to helping others.

Mayor Riles said the theme of this year’s service called to mind the old African adage that if you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together.

“This simple wisdom teaches us that real progress, lasting progress, requires unity,” he said. “When we move forward, out steps may be steadier than swift, but they carry us to places we could never reach alone. There is more ground to cover, but the beauty is this — we are not walking alone.”

Donald Lovette, chairman of the Liberty County Board of Commissioners, said it “was fitting and proper that we set aside this time to give thanks.”

What he is thankful for is the spirit of unity found throughout the community.

“When I pondered on what to say, I was reminded of the times that we are in now,” Lovette said. “I was reminded more so of Liberty County and how we are not in the place where America is, where the divides that walk the halls of the Capitol and the White House are not the divides we find in our beloved Liberty County. And for that, we ought to give thanks.”

Lt. Col. Raja Kandanada, the Fort Stewart- Hunter Army Airfield garrison chaplain, offered the prayer for the military, and Hunter Army Airfield garrison commander Lt. Col. Derick Taylor said his message was a little heavier.

“Our world is unsettled,” he said. “Nations are jockeying for power and influence. Longstanding rivalries are bubbling back up. New threats emerge faster than we can track them. You can feel the tension rising. Crises are unfolding every night and uncertainty is the only constant.

“But I was reminded coming into this facility that strength is not purely a geopolitical concept.”

Lt. Col. Taylor said the 23,500 soldiers at Fort Stewart and Hunter look forward to doing “big things” with the civilian community and gratitude is not passive.

“It’s a choice,” he said. “Tonight’s theme is more than a theme for me — it describes how communities and the military navigate turbulent times.”

Taylor also praised the local community’s willingness to accept the thousands of military members and their families who move in.

“These things matter,” he said. “Forward together means acknowledging our mission, uniformed or spiritual or civic, they all intersect far more than they diverge.”

State Rep. Al Williams also said the current times are “turbulent.”

“But some times, it is not nearly as bad as the teller tells it,” he said. “We are still the greatest nation in the world. We are not a nation that can be looked down upon, not now, not in the past. We are not a nation that has shunned people at any point in its history, until recently. We are a nation of immigrants. God has blessed us beyond imagination. You cannot separate people and continue to be a great democracy.

“We are still the land of opportunity because God has blessed us abundantly.”

Williams also praised Howard, who is retiring next month from his post as city manager.

“We are indebted for your hard work and your vision,” he said. “It doesn’t mean you don’t have to come next year — it means you don’t get to sit there. But we’re going to miss you. You have been a warrior.”

Howard has been a part of 22 of the 23 mayor’s thanksgiving service, and offered his praise for what the future hold for the community.

“There are going to be some exciting things coming forward in this city,” he said.