Olivia's Dedication

Olivia's dedication was on Sunday April 6th. It was a really special day and one we'd been working long and hard towards. The summer house and BBQ's were ready. The only thing that threatened to put a dampener on it was the weather - we woke up to snow. In fact Olivia had had a bit of a rough night and I'd noticed it at 5am and it looked quite heavy then. We needn't have worried though. By the end of the service the sun was out and the snow had completely vanished. The next snowfall was then just an hour after the last guests left. Martin who did our BBQ-ing for us said that this was the 1st time he'd had to remove snow before lighting a BBQ!

The service itself was a wonderful opportunity to invite lots of friends and family, to worship God and to publicly proclaim over Olivia some things that had been prophesied over her. It was not the sort of service that many of our friends and family were used to. Some were extremely positive about it and the rest were just polite (which I thought was quite funny!). Overall though God's presence was tangible and it's our prayer that Olivia will grow up knowing Him and fulfilling the words that were given. It's important to remember though that prophesy isn't fortune telling and that nothing Richard and I can do can make it all happen, other that to pray and faithfully follow Him as best we can.


The BBQ afterwards was great. Olivia fell asleep in the pushchair on the way back from church (she does this most weeks) so she missed a good bit of it. However, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and there was still plenty of folk and food too when she eventually surfaced. Our chef Martin is ex of The Hundred House at Norton and used to be Richard's boss when he worked there for a short time. I don't think many people get to have a 2 rosette chef doing their family BBQ's for them! Thanks Martin for all your help and also for Tania and baby Ruby for coming too.