To The Ends Of the Earth: January 2010

Ok, we were going to write this big detailed flowery account of the engagement but got kind of bogged down with it all. So, here is the fast Felicia version of the night. First, everything about the night was completely inspired by Jesus. All of the details big and small came to him one night about the same time that I was thinking about my perfect engagement scenario. Funny enough, what came to both our minds was the exact same thing and we never said a peep to each other. It all went down at a place called Kahn mine in the beautiful Namibian desert.

This is an old abandoned mining town with the original buildings still standing minus roofs, windows and everything else. Just chipped, peeling concrete shells of walls. Apparently Teunis and his mom, younger brother Gert and Gert's girlfriend Nancy started planning all this months ago. Two weeks ago Gert and Ma were out at the mine a couple times repainting the huge main room with picture windows and 15 feet high walls. They measured for curtains as well and Teunis's mother who is a seamstress started making tons of beautiful, filmy white and blue fairy land curtains.
So the day started like this, Gert and Nancy had left very early to go "camping" with some friends so Teunis took me out for a lovely breakfast at a sweet little cafe. We spent the morning browsing around in shops and popped into his mom's fabric store for a quick chat. We walked home and he soon received a phone call from some random friend asking us if we wanted to go camping that night. Of course we are always game for anything and jumped at the chance. We threw some camping stuff together and took off for the desert. He said we were early to meet the friends so we stopped in the middle of nowhere to hang out, walk around and take pictures.

Finally he said we should drive further down the river bed to see if they were already at a place to camp. Keep in mind that I am completely clueless this whole time. I didn't even have a moment of suspicion that anything other than camping with people I don't know was about to go down. So here we are driving along when finally we come around a corner in this beautiful gorge and I see before me Kahn mine which although I have never been there, I KNOW. For some reason I have been fascinated by Teunis's and our friend Daniel's pictures of Kahn mine ever since I saw them. I instantly had this romantic, fanciful attachment to the place and have been bugging Teunis to take me there ever since we arrived in Namibia. I still didn't get it, I said to him, "Honey! We're at the mine, you didn't tell me we were coming to the mine, what the heck?!" As we pulled up in front of the main building, I noticed that every window in the castle tower on the hill had delicate white curtains fluttering in the breeze, still didn't get it. Then I saw Nancy, who was supposed to be camping, all dressed up and holding a camcorder. Then I got it. I got really excited and we had a special little moment in the car before I jumped out and was directed to follow Nancy up to the castle tower which just happened to have a beautiful little dressing table complete with makeup and a mirror.

I also found the dress I had brought just for this occasion hanging on the wall for me to change into. It took me awhile to calm my fluttering hands down enough to actually be able to do anything sensible. But I eventually got ready and was then able to just enjoy the SPECTACULAR desert sunset with Nancy and we giggled and laughed about all the funny little cover ups and details that happened right under my nose.

Finally we prayed together and then I heard a nice beat start below. The Black Eyed Peas were belting out "I've got a feeling... oohhhh.... that tonight's going to be a good good niiiight."
I leaned out one of my castle windows to see my dashing prince heading up the hill with a torch to fetch his love. He came to me at the pinnacle of the unexpected sunset and led me down the hill to the main building.

As we made our way down the corridor to the main room where we would have dinner, I saw large pictures of us framed on the walls, each one lit up with a torch and further lit by a chandelier dangling overhead.

As you will see from the pictures, everything was gorgeous, so romantic and ethereal, blue accents everywhere which just happened to match what we were both wearing.

Gert and Nancy basically spent the evening documenting the night and serving us. None of it would have been possible if not for all the work they and his mom put in to make everything perfect.

We started our meal off with delicious lobster salad made by Gert. The lobster had been pulled out of the ocean the day before by Teunis and Gert, it was amazing .Then we had sushi, another favorite and something I had been saying I wanted for days.

After some nice time together, he had me head towards one of these paper wall sconces I had noticed earlier. There were a bunch of them around the room and they were not lit yet. He handed me a lighter and directed me to step up onto a stool to light the candle inside the first wall sconce.

Once I lit it, words framed by a beautiful design (my tattoo which also happened to be incorporated into the rest of the decor in the room) appeared silhouetted against the candle light.

He had me read each sconce out loud as I lit them up one by one. I quickly became very emotional as I read the beautiful scriptures which were the specific words spoken to him when He was praying about if God would allow him to pursue me for life. With each scripture, Teunis would then turn to me and give me a little gift that represented what I had just read out and how it applied to us.

As I finished reading the last scripture, I turned to him to hear what he would have to say as I had done each time previously. But he was not standing before me, he was on one knee, smiling up at me, candle light glimmering in his eyes, reaching for my hand.

I'm glad that the proposal was filmed because even though I tried to soak in every detail, I was so lost in peace that I didn't register everything said, just the I love you's, I want to spend the rest of my life with you and the will you marry me bit. Those stuck out.

He slipped the ring onto my finger, we embraced for awhile and then he put his arm around my shoulders and tilted his head back to look at the sky. I figured we were just going to have a nice moment looking at the vibrant stars while praising God. But no, all of a sudden fireworks began going off right over our heads. Fireworks -one of my most favorite things on earth, very hard to get in Namibia, expensive and oh so beautiful. And they weren't just crappy little sparkler fireworks, they were the real deal.

After a little while, the fireworks ceased and I was led into yet another candle lit room with a white satin covered mattress to lounge on while I was served cupcakes with pink icing (another most favorite thing on earth) and sparklers.

We enjoyed our cupcakes for a bit and then Teunis got the guitar out and started playing another favorite song of ours which afterward came on the car radio for us to dance to.

The song was Forever by Chris Brown which actually has a great beat for sokkie dancing (a very Afrikaans kind of dance that is soooooo much fun). So we laughed our heads off spinning and swirling all over the place until the song was over.

Finally he led me over to one of the torches so I could check my beautiful ring out. Wow! What a ring, tons of little diamonds, a big fat one in the middle, blue sapphires on the sides (to match my eyes) and on the inside, a tiny little ruby to represent the blood of Jesus over us.

Ahhhhh, writing all this and thinking back over each tiny detail still overwhelms me a bit. He thought of every tiny wonderful little detail to create the most beautiful, special night of my life. Once we had enjoyed everything together, we all changed out of our nice clothes, made a fire, pulled out lamb steaks, sausage, corn and other yummy stuff to have a big old braai (bbq) and enjoy the beauty of the evening together.

So there you have it, the most wonderful engagement imaginable for me and camping at the mine thrown in for fun.