“Bread and water can so easily be toast and tea.”
Last evening our church hosted a beautiful Ladies’ Tea to celebrate the end of a year of monthly fellowship nights where we encouraged one another in the joy of Christ. Over the year, we discussed the book “When I Don’t Desire God; How to Fight for Joy” by John Piper as well as discussed other things from Scripture, one another’s lives, and God’s beautiful gifts around us. While I was usually doing table decorations for each monthly meeting, as well as setup & teardown, this time I delegated those roles and took on some different jobs (the above picture is a portion of the room and some of the girls who were setting up and decorating, for whom I am so thankful). I was in charge of doing something the leaders called “Joy Overflowing” ~ which is where one woman shares something she loves, enjoys, excels at, is passionate about, etc. and I was asked to share “The Joy of Tea.” While I was nervous about it beforehand, I really enjoyed it in the end.
Everyone signed up to bring different types of food that you might find at High Tea: savories (meats, stuffed mushrooms, tea sandwiches, vegetable platters, canapes…), scones (we had ginger scones with nutmeg cream and cranberry scones with homemade jam), and sweets (chocolates, tartlets, cupcakes, shortbread cookies…).
I brought the cranberry scones, made with this recipe (I got about 45 scones out of one recipe, as I made them tea-size, i.e. small). They turned out really well and were a hit.
And, perhaps the most exciting part, has to do with a company I am newly in love with called Blackflower & Company. This is a small business owned & operated by friends of mine in CA (I grew up together with the wife). When I asked her if they would be interested in donating a giveaway for the event, in hopes of helping their marketing endeavors, they offered to sponsor the entire evening for us! They sent the most delicious teas (we chose three flavors: Signature Chai, Earl Grey, and Relaxation Tisane) for the evening, which were so fun to brew, pour, smell, sip, swallow, and enjoy. Mmmm. In addition to some pretty amazing loose leaf teas (and my mother & I know tea fairly well, so when we say it gets our true and devoted stamp of approval, you’ve got to believe that it is that delicious!), they also have an assortment of tea accessories, like the most adorable little teapots! I got to see one of the little teapots in person, as they sent a personal-sized blueberry-colored teapot for one of the giveaways. Oh, I wanted to win that giveaway. 😉
Not only is the website classy, their products both beautiful & scrumptious, but their packaging is perfect (resealable bags for the tea, to keep the loose leaf tea airtight if you don’t use it all at once), their service prompt, and they are incredibly helpful in the Customer Service realm. In addition, they do something called Giving Back codes, and they made one for us! So if you order something from Blackflower & Company (as you know you want to!), if you enter CCSpokane (yes, you) in the coupon code box when checking out, $1 for every $10 you spend goes as a donation to our church. What a generous gesture and blessing!
At any rate, our ladies’ tea event was a huge success last night. Everyone enjoyed the fellowship, the food, the elegance, the teas themselves (I’m pretty sure earl grey was actually the top-choice last night, although I really just heard good-gushing all around!), the giveaways, the talk on The Joy of Tea, and the encouragement to continue seeking joy in the Lord… and I am so thankful that I was able to help coordinate the event and shower blessings upon these women.
(And if I get better pictures from the photographer who was there last night, I will add them. I am ashamed to admit that I was so busy boiling water and doing my presentation and cleaning up that my poor camera was horribly neglected. Sigh.)