an overdue thank you and an unexpected blessing

I have been referring to VBS in my last couple of posts and now that it is done, I realize that there is something I should have said that I haven't ... yet.

In my last post I mentioned that sometimes people save their hard work (on decorations) and share it with other churches.  We benefited from several of these churches this year, but there was one special person who helped my husband out tremendously by providing the stage decorations.  Not only did he allow us to use his hard work, he came out to the church twice to help Ronnie set it all up (or more accurately, for Ronnie to help him set it up!) and, now that we are done, he came back again and took it all down.

Some of you know him ... his wife is both a blogging and a real life friend of mine ... so Rie, please thank your "He's too good to me" for being so nice to us. 

We truly appreciate it! 

By the way, we'll try to come up with something else he can help us with, just so you can have Burger King! ;-)

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Now on to the unexpected blessing.  I am finding it hard to find words to express this one.  Last Thursday night, at the end of our VBS Family Night, our friend Brad informed Ronnie that he had a couple of presentations to make.  We knew about the first one.  Brad is our missions teacher and he gave a very cool prize to the children who brought the most supplies for the mission project ~ Operation Christmas Child. 

The second presentation was a complete shock to me and left my husband speechless ... which was apparently what they were going for.

All week during VBS, Brad quietly, with the help of our adult class, planned to honor Ronnie for the hard work he puts into VBS each year.  This is our 10th VBS at Crossview and though he hasn't been director for all of those years, he has always worked behind the scenes to keep everything running smoothly.  It brought tears to my eyes to hear Brad express the appreciation of the church for his service, but what came next was the real shocker.  Brad handed Ronnie a certificate and an envelope and asked him to open the envelope and read what it said.  That in and of itself was a little unusual and the look on Ronnie's face told me that he was completely shocked by what he saw when he opened the envelope.

When Ronnie finally composed himself enough to speak, he read a gift certificate giving him an all expense paid trip on the mission trip to Kodiak, Alaska next year.  Wow!  He has always wanted to go and now he will be going.  What a blessing!

So, I know what Ronnie will be doing next year on Memorial Day ... I guess the kids and I will be looking for something to do with ourselves!

Thank you Brad (and Amy) for your part in this and even though I don't think any of you read this, thank you, Crossview, for blessing my husband (and me) in such an unexpected way!