A few months ago, my mom pointed out that there was going to be a Tea for the middle school girls. “You should see if they need any help with it.” she suggested. So I excitedly introduced myself to Miss Jody, the woman hosting the tea, and she graciously welcomed my help. Yay!
The tea was Sunday afternoon, and I had SO much fun!
We started off with a few final preparations. When given the choices of tea flavors, I asked Erica which she would prefer. She announced that she LOVED Red Zinger. Unfortunately there was only one bag of the Red Zinger, and we needed two for a pot. We wondered for a moment what the difference was between “Red” Zinger and “Raspberry” Zinger, and decided to be bold and put the bag of Red mixed with the bag of Raspberry, and dubbed it our “Zinger Zinger” or, “Double Zinger” tea.
When more girls began to arrive, Miss Jody gave them a baby name book and multicolored place cards, instructing them to look up their names in the book, and write down the definitions they found on their place cards. This was something I suggested inspired by a similar activity we did while I was at Focus. The girls seemed to love it, and it made me smile to watch them excitedly look up their names, then their middle names, then their families names, and then just any name that popped into their head!
Then it was to the table! Miss Jody had a beautiful lay out of everything a girl would imagine at a fine tea, from cucumber sandwiches, to fresh scones with lemon curd, to beautifully decorated sugar cookies, to sugar cubes! We enjoyed ourselves, acting like fine ladies and the pleasant company.
After we ate, Miss Jody asked me to share a little devo, during which I shared my story of discovering the meaning of my name and how I have learned to define myself (see the “Symposium” blog post) and I also talked about the importance of names as God shows us in the Bible, and God’s promise of knowing our name and never forgetting it.
After that we cleared the table and got out the beads and made bracelets with our names spelled out in letter beads. Some of the girls included words from their definition as a reminder. After which the beading and chatting continued, turning out several more bracelets and necklaces and earrings, until the parents began to show up to reclaim their beautiful daughters.
It was such a blessing for me to be able to join in on this special day. I have always loved tea parties and to be able to help out was just wonderful for me!
Plus, I am loving every opportunity to get to know the girls at this church. I have loved these girls even before I met them. While I was at Focus, God really laid these girls on my heart, I didn’t even know how many girls would be at the church, but I knew that I wanted to use every opportunity to get to know them and speak into their lives, whoever they were. So imagine my excitement, when every time I am given an opportunity to spend time with them, I find myself not so much the one blessing, but the one being blessed! These are some wonderful, beautiful girls, and they are quickly growing into lovely young women. in just the few instances that I’ve been given to spend with them so far, I have seen them display beauty and graciousness, they welcome me as if I were one of them, even though I am many years their senior! I am excited to see how God uses them as they grow in Him, and hopeful that I will be given many more such opportunities to know them better!
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