How We Saved the Chocolate Exchange

My wife Tina is in Pensacola, Florida helping our daughter Rachel with her recovery, following the birth of her 5th child. This is great for them, but it made for a lonely Valentine's day here in Puerto Rico.

It was anything but lonely today.

I drove 3 college kids up to the church and we got an early start, setting things up. But the electricity was out! Not an auspicious beginning.

I called up the Sunday school classes that were in the church basement and we had them work quietly in the foyer area so they could use the light. We missed the coffee, but survived this depravation and soldiered on.

We made plans earlier for a chocolate exchange, but postponed it and took our chocolates with us to a family style restaurant, where we ate a great meal together.

The food was definitely all Puerto Rican. I had Mofongo and Shrimp. Mofongo is a dish made of mashed, plantain bananas and is baked with chunks of deep fried pork skin inside it. Our deacon Luis across from me was eating a soup that was a bit strange looking. I found out why. It was pigs feet stewed in a brown gravy. Despite how it sounds, it was great. Definitely Puerto Rican comfort food.

We brought all of the chocolate from the church to the restaurant with us. Everyone got out the chocolate they brought. Some had just one candy bar, others a whole box of Valentine candy, while others came with bags of "Fun Size" variety pack candy bars.

The ladies made slips of paper and wrote all the names of the people with chocolates. We each drew names and waited till every person had a slip. Then the first person who drew the name stood up and said something nice about the person they had drawn, without revealing the name. Then they would walk around the table, and we would have to wait to see who got the present.

We had a lot of laughter and attracted a bit of positive attention in the restaurant, which was unplanned, but a great testimony for our church.

We had about 27 in church Sunday morning, but more than 30 came to the restaurant with us. It was nice to have a chance to have a good time of fun, food and fellowship with our church family and maybe some of the latecomers will be joining us in the future as full fledged members.