Birthdays, Canada, and Diamonds

During our week at Noblesville, we had quite a few exciting life events! On Sunday we celebrated Jason’s 24th birthday! After the Sunday evening service we all dropped by the Coffey’s trailer to wish him a happy birthday and eat some amazing food. Jason enjoyed blowing out his lone candle while Aaron battled to keep Asher from blowing it out. We had a great time laughing about Jason’s new found wisdom at his ripe old age. Happy birthday Jason!

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Later in the week, Bree went home to Canada for a couple of days to see her family in Winnipeg. During her visit she went to Edmonton for the day and helped her cousin plan a surprise proposal to one of her best friends from college. She built a quinzee with her brothers, a snow fort you play inside.  She enjoyed her time with her family at home before they all drove down to Grand Forks to see her off as she flew back to rejoin the team.  What a fast and furious trip!

But, the most exciting news for our team, Seth surprised his girlfriend Deanna down in Greenville at Bob Jones’ opera of Aida. Deanna was cast as the understudy for the main role of Aida herself. Unfortunately, she didn’t get to play the part the night of the big performance but she wasn’t disappointed too badly. Seth describes the night for us:

The view was breathtaking as I looked over the two story railing of a high class restaurant in downtown Greenville and saw the girl that I wanted to marry. The waiter had just brought an extravagant bouquet of flowers over to Deanna’s table and she was reading the card I had written for her. She had been brought to the restaurant earlier by some of her good friends visiting from Canada. She had no Idea I was there, but in only seconds she would find out as I made an appearance from an elevator right in front of her table. Everything I had been planning for so long was finally becoming a reality for me.

The night was a success! I guess, as with every great adventure, there are always a couple of unexpected surprises—like when I realized that the floral company delivered the bouquet of flowers to the girl who made the reservation for me at the restaurant instead of Deanna. Or when I was so nervous I forgot some of the words I planned to say. But in the end those things don’t matter. What matters is that I was able to spend the evening with an amazing girl, the food was great, we got a free piece of pie, and Deanna said she would marry me! 

Surprise! We are so excited for them as they plan out their wedding and their future together.