“The RoseBouquet”

Western Tract Mission, (where I am a Board member and web-master, and layout editor), had a fundraising 65th Anniversary Concert and Dessert night. It all turned out much better than we’d hoped. Weather ran the greatest interference. We had a heavy snowfall on March 1, again on Saturday, March 4, and then early yesterday morning it was freezing drizzle over a wide-spread area. Radio news was warning people to stay off the roads if they didn’t have to go.

We had lined up a family of ten, the Fosters, to be our headlining music group. They live quite a distance north of us; would they be able to come? While one half of me expected a call or email saying we were canceling or postponing our event in Saskatoon, my other half - perhaps my truer self - had promised God I’d accepted which ever way it went. All I could do was prepare.

As a Board member I’d baked a number of fruit breads, and two kinds of peppernuts So I got my platters of desserts arranged and covered, and I kept checking email, while I found packing boxes for all my trays and stuff. By 4 pm there was no email, and no phone call to cancel; I was dressed and packed so we headed out for the 30-40 minute drive to the city.

To our amazement, the highway was dry. No problem driving. The daytime temperatures and the traffic had dried it off. In the city we found wet slushy streets. Others of the Board were already at the church, so I joined them to set up and arrange squares onto round platters. We laid everything in readiness for the Dessert after the Concert.

7 pm starting time came, and no Foster family. We all worried that something had happened to them, but enjoyed small talk with various people. We were surprised at the turn out. About 145 to 150 people! Patiently they sat and waited and whispered to one another. Suddenly they arrived, but it took the Dad another 45 minutes to set up their sound system. Finally, about 7:45 they were ready to begin. The Dad explained that two of their boys had to finish an important basketball game, so they had started out late. No road problems.

Arnold, our Director, had lined up a brief program of reports, mostly praise items at answered prayer, but most of the program was given over to the Foster Family singing package. They did excellently! They have six boys and two girls. The very youngest boy didn’t feel inclined to sing this time, but all the rest have excellent voices, and threw themselves wholeheartedly into their songs. It was well worth the wait!

In due course I had my two minutes at the mike to extol and invite everybody to our web site. A few others did as well. There was a song by Beryl from Alberta, and the Peters Sisters, scattered locally in the Valley area.

Afterwards I helped carry our trays and platters of goodies to the buffet table and to replenish as necessary. I sneaked a few pieces of the Black Forest cake squares, and a bit of this or that. Otherwise, I kept going. Well, I stopped to chat briefly with various people too, and tried to make them welcome.

Then it was time for clean up. You should have heard Helen D., the Board member we usually look to for organizing the food part. She was chortling with delight when she saw how much less clean up there was compared to when we put on a Soup & Pie fundraiser. What’s more, she kept discovering just a bit of cream left over, just a few of these squares, etc. It was all evidence that we’d had enough, but not too much! Just right! I can see us doing this kind of thing again.

When Dad and I left to go home, there was a light misty drizzle. Before we got half-way home it turned to snow! This morning I found about two inches of snow over a layer of ice on our driveway. Fortunately, we can stay inside the rest of this week.

By the way, Dad has his last seven teeth extracted on Monday. He’s toothless for now, but that doesn’t stop him from knitting his alpaca mittens.