whole hog weekend.

This may sound funny but it’s been one of my husband’s dreams to roast a pig.

He’s been talking about it for at least a year — tried to plan it a couple times, but it never quiet came together. You need a whole bunch of people to eat a whole hog. You also need either a large hole in the ground or a pig cooker. And a good long Saturday to cook the thing and then shred it.

So it’s kind of a big event.

But now we have a church. We have a whole bunch of people.

We planned our first communion service for this Sunday and what better reason to have a celebration feast (i.e. roast a pig)? So we had our event.

We even have an awesome butcher, Robbie Jeffcoat at the Steak Mart, who placed the order for our pig last week. All the plans were in place.

Then, on Friday Amie woke up with mysterious little red spots on her. Maybe they weren’t so mysterious . . . maybe they were . . chicken pox!

So we spent David’s morning off at the doctor’s office. Turns out she got chicken pox from her vaccine last week, which is like a one in a thousand chance. But there we were. I had no sooner texted Shari the news when she called me and said, “Owen has red spots all over him.” So yep, Amie took her cousin down with her.

I was so bummed. I’d been so excited about our weekend plans, our first church dinner, etc., etc. And instead I was basically quarantined in the house with our girl. Thankfully her case (and Owen’s too) is very mild. She’s her normal, bubbly self — just a little itchy, and contagious. So I know it could be much worse (as someone who got chicken pox as an adult, believe me, I know).

But here’s where it’s very, very wonderful to live near my family. My mom stopped by the house yesterday morning to play with the kids and give David and me a break. David let me escape for a couple hours yesterday afternoon to be part of the pig roasting (though I’ll confess I did more socializing than roasting). Then today Kenny drove straight home after leading worship at church and watched Owen, Oliver and Amie so that Shari and I could go to the dinner.

And honestly, even though we hated missing the worship service today, it was the best feeling in the world to walk into Tapp’s at noon to a buffet line still loaded with pulled pork, sides and dessert, and a roomful of people eating and chatting and laughing. Our friends Brian and Jeanette organized the whole dinner. A friend from Lexington loaned us his pig cooker — even “drove to the city” to drop it off. Lots of folks showed up at the Paullings yesterday afternoon to hang out and shred the pork. And today everyone arrived at church with sides, drinks, and dessert.

For me this sense of teamwork is about the most freeing thing I’ve experienced in ministry. It says that we’re a community.

It’s not David and I running this show — dashing around like chickens with our heads cut off to do every single thing each week. People are present, they’re serving, they’re friendly, we’re all working together as parts of a whole so that if one person can’t be there others move in to fill the gaps. It makes me so very happy to introduce a new person to a group of people and be able to walk away and know that person will feel welcome, will feel noticed. To me that’s what the body of Christ is.

After a whole year of aches and pains and plain hard work, this right here is the pure joy. It makes everything worth it. This community makes everything worth it. And what’s more they’re people I actually like hanging out with. After a tiring weekend of details I’m excited to go right back out for our monthly Ladies’ Night tomorrow night.

David living his dream on Friday: taking the hog to John and Anna’s house (yep, it spent the night on ice in a kiddie pool)

Judah’s secret BBQ sauce

Saturday shredding crew

The chicken pox twins quarantined. As you can tell they don’t look any worse for the wear.

Sunday morning coffee hour

Mad rush to the buffet line after church

Service with a smile

Yum

We all came away big fans of whole-hog barbecue! And of church dinners, which we’d love to do quarterly.