Happy Birthday Henry!

After almost a week of plotting and planning, we pulled it off. We threw Henry the biggest Jamaican surprise birthday party ever. If you don’t know, Henry Shaffer is the founder of Won by One to Jamaica. I’m sure if you check out the history of the ministry on the webpage you can find out all about it, but the short version is that a really long time ago Henry followed God’s call to a little town called Harmons, Jamaica. His servant’s heart was blessed with a ministry that has literally multiplied ten-fold. While starting by coming down only once a year with his family, there are now groups that come down almost every week of the year, continuing to build houses and relationships and showing God’s love to the people here.

So today was Henry’s 61st birthday. Another key piece of information is a little tradition that happens here in Jamaica. Whenever it’s your birthday, there’s a good chance that you will be floured by someone during the day. Being floured is as simple as it sounds, someone will sneak up behind you and dump a bunch of flour on your head. Plain, simple, messy, and definitely unwelcomed; so unwelcomed that many Jamaicans won’t even reveal the day of their birth.

Anyway, in all the years that Won by One to Jamaica has been in the Harmons community, Henry Shaffer has somehow managed to never be here on July 23. So, being the first time he was able to celebrate a Jamaican birthday, we figured we’d make it a huge bash. While Henry has had the chance to flour many, many Jamaicans, none of them have ever gotten the chance to get him back. Through a ton of preparation and scheming we came up with some great plans to make his birthday memorable. Seth and McKenzie, as Courtyard Coordinators, kind of took charge of the project and came out doing a marvelous job.

Last week flyers were secretly posted all around Harmons letting people know of the surprise party, and Justin managed to have a lot of people in the community wish Henry a happy birthday on film. Then we somehow got Henry out of the Harmony House for about two hours this afternoon. In that time we quickly got together and blew up almost two hundred balloons (and trying to get that accomplished with Jamaicans kids grabbing at balloons and attempting to help can be quite the feat). Seth climbed up into the rafters of the Courtyard and rigged up a box full of flour. A previous staff member, Rachel Schomaker, also assisted our birthday scheme and made an incredibly huge and amazing cake shaped like one of the hands that the teams sign when they come every week. After Henry returned, we had until evening to figure out how to get everything set up.

Once the time came, we managed to get Henry to go into the nightly team meeting while the rest of the staff quickly got things ready. A table was situated under the impending flour-doom, a tarp was set up in the rafters where we placed the balloons, and the courtyard was decorated. Very soon after that the entire room was packed with Jamaicans and Americans, there had to have been at least five hundred people there. Henry was somewhat suspicious, but had no idea of the surprises we had in store. The evening went wonderfully well. Henry was covered in flour, cake was eaten, the video was shown, and happy birthday wishes were granted.

It was almost overwhelming seeing so many Jamaicans come just to wish Henry a happy birthday. As I stood there in the doorway watching the chaos of kids running after balloons and cake, I was hit with the reality of the impact that Henry has made on this community. I can’t even being to imagine what he was feeling tonight. I bet that when he first started coming to Harmons, he never in a million years thought that he would build so many relationships and help so many friends. As I watched I couldn’t help but realize that this is the result of following after God’s heart. Such a simple thing like going where God sends you can give Him so much glory. Henry is just an ordinary man. The thought that perhaps God could use my life in such amazing ways is awe-inspiring. But that’s how God works, isn’t it? He uses plain, commonplace people to move mountains in His name. It’s encouraging to see such a great example in Henry Shaffer, and it’s an honor being a part of the work that he began in a little valley in the middle of Jamaica. I wish him the happiest of birthdays and many more years to come.

Nichole- signing off for now.