{"id":10371,"date":"2016-01-03T20:19:00","date_gmt":"2016-01-03T20:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=10371"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:35:29","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:35:29","slug":"a-day-to-celebrate-daniels-2015-christmas-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=10371","title":{"rendered":"A DAY TO CELEBRATE – DANIEL’S 2015 CHRISTMAS PARTY"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Many thanks to Phil and Connie Dicks and the rest of the November Grundy Center UMC team for financing this year’s Christmas party – it was our third year and, in many ways, the best yet! (Every year we learn a bit more about what in the world we are doing!)This time we had a bit of trouble nailing down a location for the party – an inexpensive place with bathrooms and running water and plenty of space to run and play. I’m not sure why we never thought of it before, but Melissa suggested Cowman School in the 11th hour of our search. Our gracious principal, Angie, said, “Sure!” and we were set to begin shopping.Ruysdael, Mikenn, Johnny, Caleb and I drove the pickup into Cap Haitien on Tuesday morning with Daniel to buy rice and beans and chicken and oil and spices for the meal. And charcoal. And balloons. And suckers.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Since the cooking was not going to be done at Daniel’s house, I decided to take the supplies and his large pot and Haitian “stove” on to our house.\u00a0Around 4:30 pm, I arrived home to uncover a slight communication problem: I had assumed Melissa would be cooking the chicken again at our house like last year. She had previously told me – at a (rare) moment when I wasn’t listening too well – that she was NOT cooking this year. She explained to me (again) that she doesn’t know how to season the chicken and fry it the Haitian way. She felt that her baked chicken last year had disappointed the kids.So … I’m scratching my head at 5:00 pm and wondering where I can find someone to cook a full meal for nearly a 100 people and have the food ready by 9:00 am the next day.Johnny and Ruysdael spoke up – “Our mothers will do it.”So we took the supplies up the mountainside and I watched fearfully as Ruysdael explained to his mother what he had volunteered her for.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

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She looked at the supplies and simply said, “I’m going to need a few more beans and more oil.” Her only hesitation was over determining measurements for 100 people. I told her, “Better to make too much than not enough.” And the deal was done!Back home, Melissa didn’t completely dodge cooking – she helped me bake a hundred cupcakes and decorate them with candy canes.<\/p>\n\n\n

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By 8:30 the next morning, I was up the hillside to collect the food. The guys were quite proud of what their families had accomplished (with their help!). And everything was cooked to PERFECTION.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u00a0This little guy took on Samuel in a game of slap hands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many thanks to Phil and Connie Dicks and the rest of the November Grundy Center UMC team for financing this year’s Christmas party – it was our third year and, in many ways, the best yet! (Every year we learn a bit more about what in the world we are doing!)This time we had a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10372,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10371"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10388,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10371\/revisions\/10388"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}