Cinderella

As Joel put it in an email to the extended family, "The lovely Hilda Yoder is now my fiancee! We're tentatively planning for a wedding on April 11, the Saturday before Easter." Hilda's father announced the engagement today in church.

To insure the proper level of pageantry and romance in arranging for and announcing the engagement, Joel had purchased a decorative crystal slipper with Hilda's present first name and future last name etched on it. After Hilda claimed the slipper, they drove together to the homes of their local immediate family members to show the slipper and make the announcement. (Hilda's brother in Sudan didn't get a personal visit.)

About 40 years ago Hilda's mother, Susanna, became one of my best friends. She lived in Indiana and I in Kansas, so it was mostly a long-distance friendship until she married David, who was my age and who had grown up in this community. Our families have been lifelong friends. David and Susanna lived in El Salvador and Indiana during part of Hilda's early childhood, but they have lived in Kansas for many years since then. This idea of Hilda and Joel making a marriage team was not obvious during all of their growing up years. Now it seems so obvious that we feel like we must have been extraordinarily dense not to think of it a long time ago.

Joel's aunts (by marriage), Rhoda and Judy, get credit for having the earliest, keenest sense of the obvious. Rhoda told me on the day we celebrated Joel and Angelo's (Hilda's brother) graduation from college in a collaborative event, that she has a new prayer--that Joel and Hilda would get together. Judy, who was Hilda's summer Sunday School teacher, had floated the idea to Rhoda earlier and so they plotted together before the conspiracy came to my ears. I told them I approved of the prayer but I didn't tell anyone about it except Hiromi. Hiromi was all in favor of making the suggestion to Joel immediately. I advised against it and recommended prayer instead. Hiromi complied.

No suggestions from us were needed, as it turned out. Joel came up with the idea "all on his own" only several weeks later, and was astounded to learn that he wasn't the first to think of it. Shortly after their first date, Joel headed off to Bangladesh and Hilda went back to Faith Builders, so they didn't see each other at all for more than six months, and only rarely then, till last summer.

I had noticed in the process of preparing for the graduation party that Hilda had become a really pleasant and capable young lady--some of which had escaped me mostly because she had been gone much of the time in recent years. First she had gone to Faith Mission Home for a term of service. Then she had taught school in Copeland, Kansas for one year. After that she worked at Faith Builders for a year and attended later as a student until she graduated earlier this year. This school year she has worked half time at the high school where I have been teaching, and half time at the grade school. Some time during the past number of years she had spent several months working in a mission in Belgium and had also worked as a secretary for a local business. I'm probably missing a few things, but that adds up to a lot of ways to learn and serve.

Next June Joel plans to take the Level 2 CFA exam. Getting married just ahead of that seemed unwise, given the intense preparation necessary, and waiting till afterward seemed far away and unwise too. So, spring break for Hilda and others who may want to attend, seemed like a good wedding date to plan for. She will probably need to ask for some time off from teaching, and Joel will need to take vacation time before and after the event.

This upcoming wedding is one more good reason for having taken a Sabbatical this year. I don't plan to extend it though until Grant gets married. Maybe the next Sabbatical will be timed right for that wedding.