Valentine's Day is a day to celebrate LOVE and the ones you love. Gepher and I definitely have something to celebrate this year with the journey of Love God has taken us on. We not only wanted to celebrate Valentine's Day but we wanted to celebrate it together.
So far this year, life for us is very crazy as we are busy planning a wedding, looking for a place to live, and selling my house. Each of these separately require lots of work and details but combined (and happening on the opposite sides of the world) makes for two very busy people.
As much as the two of us wanted to celebrate our year of Love together on Valentine's Day, the snow and weather in Nashville was not cooperating. Painting the outside of the house, landscaping, and fixing siding are things that are nearly impossible to get done with snow on the group. As much as I wanted to get to Cebu (to not only see Gepher but escape the cold) I could not do that until the house was in tip top condition and on the market. Gepher completely understood the challenges and in his loving understanding way stated "we can have our own Valentine's Day when you get to Cebu." How sweet is he??? That definitely removed some of my stress; however, in the back of my mind I still wanted to get to Cebu by Valentine's Day.
Thanks to some wonderful friends the pieces began to fall into place, and it looked like I just might be there by Valentine's Day afterall. Not wanting to disappoint Gepher if something fell through and the desire to pull off one big surprise, I decided I would secretly fly to Cebu.
Gepher and I do not go many days without chatting online or Skyping. The week before Valentine's Day was actually filled with an evangelism campaign supported by the Bible College in Cebu. Because of this, our weekly chats would be very few. Typically I would be a little disappointed; however, this time I was actually thankful for the lack of communication. This made keeping a secret and flying for 24 hours without him wondering where I was easy.
Now, time to pull of the surprise that would leave him totally shocked. Every Sunday I send Gepher a text through Skype as a prayer and words of encouragement before church. These texts are something he has come to cherish and even expect. This seemed to be the perfect avenue for my surprise as he would suspect nothing except the standing text. Sunday morning I woke up in Manila to send him a text. Instead of being filled with words of encouragement this text was filled with a SURPRISE. He never expected to read a text inviting him to dinner after my arrival in Cebu.
I didn't know someone could be speechless in a text, but that was exactly how his response text read. It was full of words like, "I can't believe it." "Is this for real?" "Are you sure you are in Manila?" Luckily one of the CBC students was preaching on Sunday as I'm sure if Gepher had to preach after reading my text he would have completely forgotten everything he'd prepared.
He raced to the city after church anxious to see me and fully grasp the Valentine's Surprise. Due to flight delays he actually beat me to the house where he greeted me with white roses. In the end we both were surprised! Sometimes the best part of gifts is the element of SURPRISE!! This was definitely one of the best surprises and a memory that will not be forgotten.
