Valentine’s Day was never something really that special to me to begin with….but this year I experienced the absolute best Valentine’s Day…in Honduras!
Cut aside the romantic aspect of the holiday, we had an amazing opportunity to bless those around us. I’m really fortunate to have had the opportunity to spend this day with the most amazing brothers and sisters I have in Christ.
Valentine’s Day is typically a day where the men take care of the females, but the ladies on my squad wanted to bless the gentleman on A Squad because they are so special! It turns out both sexes had something sweet planned for each other, and it resulted in a complete day of total awesomeness.
To begin the day, the girls woke up early to decorate our main eating area/kitchen, and to cook up a special breakfast for the boys of French toast, scrambled eggs, and sausage. We plated their meals and served them fancy waiter style all at once. In addition we had put together decorated cardboard boxes for each of them and filled them with handwritten notes of encouragement from all 40 of us, along with one of their favorite treats and candy. The most precious part of it all was watching them sit at the table at the end of their breakfast reading all of the notes we had written them!
The girls left on the bus for ministry that day and the boys stayed behind to work at our ministry host’s home. As we were leaving the guys all came out to give us hugs and candy before we left for the day.
Seeing as it was Valentine’s Day…I was pretty bummed that I didn’t have a way to connect with my boyfriend back home, but one of the girls on my squad (who also happens to be a Phi Mu!) came up to me after getting home that day and said she wanted to bless me this Valentine’s Day by letting me use her satellite phone to call Nelson! My day was completely made at that!….but that’s just the beginning…
The boys stayed back to prepare a special meal for us ladies (come to find out they started cooking at 1 pm). We were told to dress nice and to be ready at 8pm lined up outside the kitchen door. Getting pretty with all of the girls was so fun! I felt like I was getting ready to have a night with my girlfriends and be a real person!
We lined up at 8 pm, and the boys took us in one by one, arm in arm, and as we would get in they would present us by saying “Presenting: Princess Hillary!” and then lead us to our assigned seat. The room was beautiful! It was dark with candles lit all over the tables and countertops with other Valentine’s Day type decorations. They started out our meal with a video that was Michael Hosea themed (for all of my Redeeming Love fans out there) of each of them with a note saying they love us. Our meals were plated in front of us and featured steak tips, rice, broccoli, and other vegetables. In addition to the meal they had fresh squeezed lemonade (of lemons they hiked up a hill and picked themselves!) and sparkling grape juice. For dessert, they made a cookie brownie thing with vanilla ice cream and it was hand down the best thing I’ve had since leaving for The World Race. For 10 guys, they nailed it out of the park.
But the night wasn’t over there….
The girls had a scavenger hunt planned for the guys! We had broken off in teams and planned something special for the guys as they went from team to team up and down the hill behind our ministry host’s home. Each team did something different like impersonations, dance, piñata, or boot camp style drills. My team finished up the scavenger hunt on a more serious note by washing the guys feet, anointing them with oil, and speaking life into them as we did it.
Being away from home and with a new family I am still getting to know, I wasn’t sure what to expect this year for Valentine’s Day. The holiday never stood out to me before, but it surpassed my expectations by far. What made it so special was how everyone genuinely cared for each other and how eager we were to make it something special for all.
