The gift that keeps on giving

My parents celebrated their 20th year as the minister of the Garden City church of Christ last Saturday. They were given a Hawaiian themed party, with bright colored decorations, yummy barbecue sandwiches and all the trimmings, a quartet sang for the entertainment and they received a memory book of photographs from the last 20 years with an acrylic statue commemorating the milestone. Then, another present was found and my parents began to open it. Inside was an itinerary, a tourist book of Hawaii and a treasure chest FULL of cash. They are going to Hawaii on a week long, all expense paid vacation! They were stunned speechless. They had tears, I had tears, the party goers had tears. The gift is amazing! What a wonderful thing to do for someone. My parents had no clue. They knew about the party, but never in a million years expected a dream vacation. While I think the gift is wonderful, I am more moved by the joy it gave the givers. My sister and I were enlisted to help find out various things for the different hosts and hostesses. While filling them in on the information, they would tell me of the meetings they had and how excited they were about the theme, the fun they had in planning the trip, the excitement they had when their original donation was impressively surpassed, how they really appreciated my dad's preaching, how they'd never had a preacher's wife as amazing as my mom, how they were so glad they had been there 20 years and how they hoped they knew how much they were loved, admired, and appreciated. This went on for a year. Their excitement and sheer joy grew to a fever pitch as the big day drew near. They worked tirelessly to make sure every detail was perfectly in place, all with smiles on their faces and a kid-at-Christmas anticipation of my parents opening the "big gift". I am so moved by their delight, their total unselfishness, their willingness to give of their time, money, and talents. Not many people, let alone congregations, would spend an entire year happily plotting, planning, and perfecting a gift for someone else (would you do that for your preacher?). What an example of love! Thank you, Garden City church of Christ, for the gift you gave not only my parents~but me!