In case you don’t know, the 29th February is the day in which, traditionally, women are allowed to propose to men.
Now, obviously I am not married and have never been in an engagement, so these days pass unnoticed by me once every four years, right? Wrong. At least the last two haven’t. Yesterday is the one of interest presently, but last time round I was proposed to …in a round-about way. I’d just spent three months with Youth for Christ (YFC) in the town of Aylesbury and was then travelling around the UK in a touring YFC team. Sat at a table in a pub with my then team I received a phone call from one of the guys I knew in Aylesbury. I answered it and proceeded into a conversation in which he informed me that he was with a couple of the girls I had become friends with in Aylesbury and how since it was February 29th he was offering one of the girls hands to me in marriage on their behalf. It was a funny conversation in which I stayed on the line to hear whilst they rang one of the other guys from there and offered him the other girl’s hand in marriage. However, unsurprisingly, none of us did go on to get engaged.
This year has been slightly different. Having all been made aware of the significance of February 29th (minus some discussion as to whether this tradition only really applies in Ireland or elsewhere too) but knowing that we have all (married couples aside) agreed to forego romantic relationships during our race, we expected the day to pass unremarkably. However, coming in from our work during the afternoon, the guys discovered an invitation calling us to be available after dinner.
Unsure what to expect we hung around in the living room following our food until the girls asked us to gather in the middle as they formed a circle around us. At this point, having prayed over the day, they explained that they wanted to “propose” to us, to draw us further into our identities as men of God.
So as we stood in an outward facing circle two of the girls came to each of us with a rolled up piece of paper, held closed with a homemade ring. One of them removed the ring, placed it on our hand and then they prayed over each of us. They left us with our scrolls which we unrolled to find that they had all written something for each of us: words of encouragement; words of identity; words of truth.
Then, kind of in response to what we had done for them on Valentine’s Day, they had a song to sing for us (Crin and Sara, our squad leaders are here now and so were a part of all of this and Crin played as they sang).
It’s been really nice to have a month in which the guys can honour the girls in such a clear way, but then to also have an occasion for the girls to honour us in return. It’s a February 29th I won’t soon forget 🙂
