Valentine’s Day Banquet and an Ordination

“What do you all think about doing a Valentine’s meal for the guys?” my friend Melissa messaged me and several others last month. “It would be fun to plan but it would take several brains to pull it off.”

“This sounds exciting! Let’s do it!” messaged Susanna.

A Valentine’s party? At first I was reluctant— we are a singles group after all. This could be awkward.

But then I remembered it’s Leap Year!

More seriously— as another girl pointed out— “Last year, the guys had a Valentine’s Day party for us, and they went all out. So it’s our turn now.” Okay, makes sense.

About five of us formed a committee and plans for the party were on. The date we picked was February 22.

Saturday, the day of the big banquet, I began pounding chicken breasts for chicken cordon bleu at 8:30 a.m. Once the chicken was done, I started rolling out dough for cherry pie envelopes.

The cherry pie envelopes were cut out of pie crust dough and folded up with drained cherry pie filling inside. I think that store-brought pie crusts taste like cardboard, so I made homemade pie crusts, using a food processor to make things go faster.

I used canned cherry pie filling, but ran into a problem when I realized that the one brand of pie filling was much darker than the other.

“Just put the darker filling inside,” suggested my mom. She had not only cheerfully surrendered her kitchen to me for the day, she was also cooling and wrapping the pastries and providing helpful advice.

At the same time, Mom kept answering text messages and phone calls. On Friday evening her sister had let us know that my uncle was going to be ordained a deacon on Sunday evening. This was a big surprise to most of the family, and we were deciding if we’d be able to attend the service.

At four o’clock, I packed the pastries and a roaster oven full of chicken cordon bleu in my car and drove to the school gym where we were having the Valentine’s banquet.

The gym looked like it was being set up for a miniature wedding when I arrived. Two girls were decorating a table at the entrance that included a tray of corsages and boutonnieres.

Four tables were set up, and cooks were racing around in the kitchen (one told me she’d been up working until 1:30 a.m. the night before.)

For the next two hours we worked together to complete the last-minute details. Eventually all twenty-seven friends arrived, and we all got corsages or boutonnieres.

Then it was time to feast!

Our menu included: Punch, bacon-wrapped sausages, bacon-wrapped water chestnuts, Rose Garden Vegetables cut into fancy shapes , tomato bisque, garlic bread, beef brisket, chicken cordon bleu, fettuccine pasta, roasted carrots, green bean bundles wrapped in bacon, mango or strawberry kiwi lassie as a palate cleanser, followed by a dessert of cherry pie envelopes or millionaires’ shortbread, with coffee and handmade heart-shaped candy. We even had edible flowers on our tables.

We all had assigned seats. Melissa, who planned the table settings, had provided us with icebreaker questions, but our table found plenty of other things to talk about during our six-course, two-hour dinner.

Someone asked me about my blog, and I mentioned I try to avoid controversial topics.

“Like politics?” the questioner asked, and then we started talking politics. Fortunately, everyone at the table had similar opinions, or if anyone didn’t, they kept it to themselves.

We also talked about the sad discovery of Sasha Krause’s body, which was found that day in a remote area of Arizona.

After dinner, everyone helped clean up. The guys swept the floor, cleaned the bathrooms, and put away the tables while the girls scrubbed dishes and put away leftovers.

Then it was time for games. First, we play “In-Sync”, a sort of word game, guys against girls. Then we divided up into teams, and play relay tic-tac-toe and try to build a bigger shoe tower than the other team. (My team’s tower was the tallest until it fell down.)

We ended the evening by setting off Chinese lanterns. These are paper lanterns that go up into the sky, fueled by a chunk of burning wax. As long as the paper doesn’t catch fire, the lanterns can go up high and look beautiful in the night sky.

The Ordination

Sunday evening I went with my parents and my eighty-six-year-old grandmother to attend my uncle’s ordination service.

My uncle Rufus was once a dairy farmer. He eventually sold his cows and the farmland but he and my aunt Vera and their two adult sons still live in the farmhouse. All four are truck drivers now.

The service was held at a Charity church about two hours’ drive away from us.

I don’t think I’ve ever attended an actual ordination service, so it was interesting to watch the proceedings. Uncle Rufus had been chosen to serve as deacon and another man had been selected to serve as an minister.

First there was an opening message, then Uncle Rufus and the other man were asked to commit to their new roles. The other ministers laid hands on them and prayed for them. Then a visiting preacher from Wisconsin had a longer message about serving the church.

As the service wore on, I thought about how I don’t appreciate church leaders as much I should. The hours in sermon preparation, the meetings, the finances, the fact that church leaders are often either idolized or caricatured— all those are a lot to carry.

One story the minister shared was about the importance of correct doctrine. “There was a church in Georgia that claimed to have a Bible that was leaking oil. They sold small vials of the oil, claiming it was ‘holy oil’. Eventually, it was discovered they were buying the mineral oil at Tractor Supply.” It’s an extreme example, of course, but real people get deceived by frauds like that.

After the service, we talked to relatives and friends. Uncle Rufus and Aunt Vera thanked us for coming, and I enjoyed catching up with some of my cousins. Soon it was time to go back home. It was very a different evening than Saturday night!