Friday morning my parents, best friend (Jenny) and godson (Christian) arrived at the airport and a good family friend, my "uncle" Kent and his partner arrived via car by early afternoon. We spent part of the afternoon touring the church and our soon to be new home, and walking around Westport. On Saturday we went up to New Haven to let Bob show off Yale and we went to the Peabody Museum. Both evening Ellen (who's house almost all of us were staying at) made a wonderful dinner for everyone.
But Sunday was the BIG DAY! The day everyone came up for. That morning we all got to church by 8:30ish for choir practice and Bible study. We then had worship, and coffee hour (thanks Judy). We then returned to Ellen and Gerald's for a bit of lunch and rest and then the real fun began.
I drove out to the ordination church (St. Paul's in Torrington) with Bob, Jenny and Christian. And probably had one of the most memorable experiences of the day in the car. We had Jenny's MP3 player hooked up to the stereo and about a mile from St. Paul's Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody came on. We then proceeded to sit in the car, parked in the parking lot, singing along with all the head and hand gestures. What an inappropriate, but fun way, to begin the afternoon.
I then headed inside, met the people in charge, did the pre-worship huddle and got ready for worship.
As all the pastors and others were gathered together in the narthex ready to process in during the opening hymn, I got something stuck in my throat. I then proceed to cough and was unable to sing throughout the opening hymn, the hymn of praise, the readings (including the chanted psalm) and part of the sermon. Luckily, thankfully, whatever was bugging me disappeared by the hymn of the day when myself, Nancy and Lauren (the other two women being ordained) came forward for the Ordination rite.
The actual ordination rite was a blur of prayer, kneeling, calm and nervousness all at once. But at the end during the acclamation I looked over at Nancy and we both had huge smiles on our faces.
Communion was a blessing. I served people the bread and my dad served wine. I was amazed with how many people came. Members of Bethlehem and Bethesda (the church Bob and I attended last year), friends from my internship congregation, bible study friends, seminary folks and family. The majority of people I was able to serve communion to by name.
Afterward the worship service, the narthex was filled with pictures, hugs, smiles and well wishes. I didn't even make it to the reception until most of the non-dessert food was eaten.
It was such a blessing and wonderful day.
One more comment about my stole. I by far had the fanciest stole out of the three of us being ordained. My dad designed and embroidered the stole and my mom assembled it. It says "Rejoice!" in Swahili, Japanese, Maori, Tagalua (Philippines), Swedish, Hebrew, Arabic, German, Ojibwe, Spanish, Greek and Chinese on the left side, Rejoice in English on the right and has Luther's Rose on the yoke. It is absolutely gorgeous and I'm so blessed and loved to have parents to make me a stole.
With my sponsor, Ned
Acclamation
Bob and I afterwards (I'm holding a gift of olive oil from the Holy Land)
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