Monday, April 15, 2013

Alabama Wedding


Fawn's Alabama/ Greek Wedding
It was seven years ago today that we were having an Alabama wedding.  If I had known what was involved leading up to the event I might have encouraged Larry to take that church he was offered in Montana twelve years earlier.  I guess I'd better explain.   

We moved to Prattville when Fawn was in the seventh grade and it didn't take her long at all to acclimate herself to the new culture.  Twelve years later she became engaged to an Alabama boy from an Alabama family and we couldn't have been happier. We loved the boy and we loved the family.   But I was soon to discover that this would be no ordinary wedding and that there is a certain protocol among some of the more genteel in the South land,  especially where weddings are concerned.    

Fawn doesn't know simple.  An ordinary wedding in her father's church wasn't for her.   Besides, the sanctuary wouldn't have begun to hold everyone on that guest list anyways.  Not only does Fawn not know simple, she doesn't think small.  Between the two families, invitations were going out to well over 600 people. So she had decided on an outdoor wedding and the place she had chosen was in a Greek garden over in Wetumpka,  about a half an hour or so from Prattville.  And it turned out that the only Saturday available happened to fall on Easter weekend.  That would give us only about four months to plan this thing.   This was going to be intense.

The banquet hall

I had one major concern about an outdoor wedding.  Weather.  I asked the proprietor of the place if there was someplace we could have the ceremony if by some horrible chance it actually might, you know, rain.  He led us up the steps to the balcony that overlooked the banquet room and dance floor and he pointed to a far corner.  We'd be lucky if we could get a hundred people up there.  I looked down over the balcony to the setting below with its columns and Grecian artifacts.  I had to admit it was nice.   
  
 
The musicians for the ceremony

The next several weeks became a blur.  There was the shopping for the perfect wedding dress, securing the right photographer and videographer, selecting the appropriate music for a garden wedding and finding musicians who would fit perfectly into that serene setting.  And then there was the need for a DJ and ordering the wedding cake and picking out the flowers and hiring a caterer and finalizing the menu.  Oh, and I needed to get a dress for me and the right accessories and to fit in an appointment with a particular hair dresser who was going to use a special rinse to bring out the color in my otherwise dull hair.

Fawn's Bridesmaids
Zac's Groomsmen

I think I mentioned something about protocol, especially where showers are concerned.  I had no idea that a girl could have so many different kinds in the South.  Not only was there the normal kind  of bridal shower where you get things like mixing bowls and kitchen towels,  there was also a couple's shower, a lingerie shower (which thankfully she insisted I not attend) and a Bridesmaids' luncheon.  Nine events in all.  I was whooped.  And getting grumpy.

Larry escorting me down through the 400 chairs

Larry did amazingly well through all this. Well, except for the business with the chairs. The Garden didn't provide them and he couldn't understand why we couldn't just haul some metal ones from the church. There wouldn't have been enough anyways, and besides, you need white for the ambiance and to match all those white statues hanging around without arms or legs or clothes.  We ordered four hundred of them from a place in Montgomery and I 'm sure I saw his hand shake as he wrote out the check. Fawn asked why we didn't order more as we were expecting another hundred guests.  But he stood his ground, insisting that the last people to arrive could stand at the back and watch or sit on the nice grass.  I think it still bothers him, renting all those chairs for an hour of sitting time.

The setting for the rehearsal dinner

But somehow we survived those frenzied months and the time for celebrating was about to begin.  The night before had been magical as Fawn's future mother-in-law Deborah reserved and created a fairyland in the banquet room at the top of one of the towers in Montgomery.  And as if in anticipation of the morrow's happenings, there was the most exquisite sunset overlooking us all that night.

The sunset that smiled on Montgomery that night 

The next day dawned full of promise and it did not disappoint.  Larry and I consider it one of the best of our lives, absolutely perfect.  The setting, the friends and family, the cloudless sky, the music and dancing, and above all, the radiant bride, our Fawn,  and her handsome groom Zac who vowed to love and hold each other for the rest of their days.  We would change nothing and we would do it all again.   

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

A House for Nicolasa


 
Nicolasa and me together at the Mission House
 
 
We had only been back in La Ceiba for a few days when I heard the familiar rattle of the gate.  I peered down from the slatted window at the front of the house and immediately recognized the woman standing there.  It was Nicolasa.

We had often helped this woman when we were serving as full-time missionaries.  She wasn't from La Ceiba, she would travel in by bus from her home, wherever that might be.  It seemed uncanny that she should show up at the gate of the Mission House after all this time, these seven years later.  We were no longer living in Honduras but had taken a two-month sabbatical from our church in Alabama.  Hurricane Mitch had devastated much of the country several months earlier in October of 1998 and we had come to do what we could to help in the recovery.

We had seen many visitors at our gate during those years in Honduras.  Most I wouldn't have remembered, but this particular woman was the exception.  Though she was herself  illiterate, she had come several times to ask for help with school supplies for her children.  She would speak with pride of their accomplishments, how far they had progressed in their studies.  She was a refreshing contrast to another woman who often came to our gate needing food or money.  We knew that unlike Nicolasa's, her children were not in school;  they were in the streets begging and searching through garbage cans.  So it was never an imposition to fill a bag full of notebooks and writing utensils for this Nicolasa who,  with tears in her eyes,  would thank us profusely on behalf of her children.

And now she was back. She didn't act in the least bit surprised to see me as I approached the gate.  My Spanish wasn't the best after seven years, but I understood enough to grasp that she once again needed school supplies for her children.  How many children did she have I wanted to know.  There were four in her home, there had been six she explained.  But two had recently died.  It was in the spring, a boy and a girl.

It was probably another week and a half before she returned for the bag of supplies that we had purchased.  My Spanish was getting stronger and I asked her about the two children who had died.  They were lost in a fire she explained, a five-year-old niece and her 14-year old son.  A neighbor had been drinking heavily through the night and had set the blaze, her house just happened to be in the way.  It was Easter morning.

It would be two weeks before I'd see her again.  She was wanting to rebuild her home and asked if we might be able to help with the money to hire someone.  I told her I'd talk to Larry and asked if she could return in two or three days.  Here's what I wrote in my journal two days later:

Nicolasa came this morning   She was here two days ago asking if we could help her with the cost of getting the walls up on her house.  It turns out others have been kind to her.  Someone gave her money to buy the wood and another person bought her nails.  All she needed was money to hire the gentleman to put it together for her.  Larry asked how far it was to her home because we had discussed the possibility of doing the work for her.  It turns out that she travels an hour and fifteen minutes by bus then walks four hours into the mountains to get to her home.  I thought at first I must be misunderstanding her, but she repeated more than once that it takes four hours to walk from the bus stop to her home and that is walking rapidly.  Larry asked how she had gotten the walls to her home, and she said she used a cart to get it all up the mountain.  She told us that the man who had agreed to the work had already begun, in faith believing that she would be able to pay him.  After hearing her story, Larry told her that we would give her 300 lempiras for the labor (about $20) and another 100 to buy food for her family.  She asked if she could use 60 of those lempiras to buy some rope.

When we brought the money out to Nicolasa, she was standing with her eyes closed, hands raised, praising God.  I know that God had answered her prayers for her house to be completed and he had used us in part.  I felt humbled.  We gave her a bit more money for food and a bag of clothes for her family. 


Nicolasa thanking God for providing the means to rebuild her home

The last time I saw Nicolasa was three weeks later, just a few days before we were to fly back to the States.  The house was built, all it lacked was doors.  A friend would build them for her at no cost, but she needed the wood. Until the doors were in, she confessed, she was afraid to live in the house with her remaining children.  That day I sent her off with a bag of my clothes, some beans and rice and 200 limpiras to buy wood for the doors that would complete her little home in the mountains.  I ended my journal entry with these words:  Nicolasa does not read or write, but I can't help but admire her.  She's industrious, gets her kids to school and does what she can to survive.  
 
I still wonder about her sometimes.  Life in Honduras is not easy for those who are poor, so I suspect that if she is still alive, living on that mountain, the challenges have continued.  But more than anything, I hope that her children have brought her joy and not disappointment, recognizing the tremendous sacrifices she made for them. The treks up and down the trail, the long bus rides, the continual gathering of school supplies and hauling that cart full of wood for several hours up the mountain to rebuild their home, it was all for them.   All for them.