“9 to 12 People…”

In an attempt raise the awareness of financial commitment, the Church asked the Sunday School classes if they would organize small groups of people where Dr. Charles Gattis, our senior preacher, could come and talk about the importance of financially supporting the Church. If I recall correctly, the original request was for groups of nine to twelve people. Nothing fancy, maybe cake & coffee if the hosts felt up to it. Kim and I decided to sponsor such a gathering.

Several people in our class also signed up, and we ran into issues dividing the class roster into appropriate groups. Along with Jennifer, another lady in our class, Kim also wanted to include members of their circle into a gathering.

A month or so prior, the subject of class group activities, or recent lack thereof, had came up in class one Sunday morning. Since most everyone already knows our house from Kim's annual wine & cheese party, we offered to host the Preacher’s visit at our house as a whole-class activity with Kim & Jennifer acting as co-hosts.

To encourage attendance, from past functions, Kim & Jennifer knew it would be better to feed the masses, and provide babysitting. So a fixed menu of fried chicken, baked beans, potato casserole, garden salad, and bread was decided to be more encouraging than a potluck dinner although a couple of people were asked to “bake” cookies. Hotdogs were provided for the kids (and for anyone else not up to Colonel Tom’s chicken ).

With the event scheduled for Friday evening, I was able to take off Thursday, and steam clean the carpet in the den, and the major traffic areas in the bedrooms. In spite of how good the Boyz are at drinking their apple juice in the kitchen, I was surprised at how much of it had made it all over the house. But the RugDoctor appeared to consider it a minimal challenge as it did a wonderful job of getting the carpets clean.

Although cleaning the carpets took time to accomplish, the task was given a day to allow the carpets to dry before the Boyz got home. During the drying time, other details, such as grocery shopping, and mixing up enough breading to coat 24 pounds of chicken, were accomplished. It was a good day, and I was happy to see Kim and the Boyz arrive home in the afternoon.

After some casual chit-chat, Kim asked if I had gotten the mail. Hearing me say “no”, Daniel volunteered to check the mailbox by yelling “I’ll get it!”, and dashing out the door with Jared in hot pursuit. I had every reason to think Daniel would stop he and brother in the driveway short of the mailbox. But not wanting to take any chances, I raced out to the garage to tell everyone to “Walk, not run”. Coming down the steps, I twisted my ankle, and had to get Kim to help the Boyz with the mail. By the way, both boys had stopped short of the mailbox.

Sitting on the green chair watching my ankle swell that evening gave me time to organize in my mind what I needed to accomplish before 6:00 pm the next evening. Everything was possible, but it was going to go sssllllloooowwww with the condition my ankle was in.

It ended up not being that bad. The only thing I could not do was to help Kim collect tables & chairs from a few friends, and assemble them in different rooms throughout the front of the house. By virtue of having already mixed the breading, and getting Ronnie’s Meat Market to cut up the chickens, I was able to bread the chicken by leaning against the counter.

Since the house oven was needed to keep the chicken warm as each of the four batches came out of the fryer, Kim’s baked beans were cooked out in the Airstream’s oven. Luckily, Don Sanders stopped by with some more tables & chairs, and was gracious enough to help Kim get the beans out to the oven. Tell Aunt Shirley I have yet to find anything the Airstream’s oven does not cook well. Oh, and I believe Milner Carden would have been satisfied with the amount of food prepared for the meal.

Jennifer & Lee Cooper showed up at 5:00 armed with potato casseroles, bread, chips, and various support items to help Kim finalize details:

Tom’s Fryin’ Station just outside the back door:

Everyone started to arrive around 6:00. Kim had established the serving line in the kitchen, and it flowed quite well:

Of course Daniel had to get in a few random shots of everyone. Here, he gave Jared just a little too much advance notice that his picture was about to be taken:

Tables were set up in the garage for the meal, and moved later for Dr. Gattis’ talk. Since a TV had already been moved to the area in order to view a DVD the Preacher had brought, we went ahead & let the kids eat out there, and watch kid DVDs. In the foreground are our friends Lindsey & Amy who provided child care for the evening.

Kim did an outstanding job of table placement. Although “you could not swing a dead cat without hitting a table”, her careful arrangement allowed for an exceptional traffic flow.

Everyone, including the kids, was seated, with food, by 6:30. 20 minutes or so after that, the signal was given to move out to the garage for the main event. Here, Brother Gattis can be seen “warming up the crowd” as everyone moves from the “dining hall” to the “auditorium”. He is an exceptional speaker, and did an excellent job of fielding questions concerning our financial commitment to the church.

We had a wonderful turnout to hear the Senior Pastor speak. Planning for roughly 60 people, Kim counted around 30 adults, and 20 kids during the course of the evening. I believe everyone enjoyed the fellowship, and the preacher’s message. While we would certainly do this again, I would prefer to do it with two good ankles!

Tom