Now this was not just any old Mercedes, this was a spotless "Classic collector's car", imported from Japan, having belonged to some or other rather important person there, seemingly chauffer-driven and complete with embroidered seat and head-rest covers (with the Mercedes emblem) and even a front-fender flag-mount, a Mercedes Benz 300D. That was January, 2005, the roads still icy and salty, spring not yet in sight, so we had some time to plan. Immediately our sons and I went to work ... Jen was not to know for another 2 months! You see, every year, for the last decade or so now, we prepare a very special (often elaborate) surprise for Jen - kind of our way of all saying "Thanks!", knowing full-well that she was forced to give up a lot for our family and our love. This car was to be an integral part in the latest such "Thank-you" from us all. So we bought a flag for the front fender and rather serendipitously got the license plate "007-JJV" (007 = "secret Agent" who helped Jen win, and JJV = "Jesus and Jen's victory") Hey, it sounds and feels nice. It's better than 651-ACW or some other random plate! Then I had this custom dash-cover specially made in the USA.

I searched for and  bought a fancy Champagne/wine cooler and two long-stemmed glasses, took the last of our bottles of Champagne still left over from Jen's birthday trip to Paris 2 years ago, taped some really neat golden-oldies, including our song we danced to on our first date, "I can see clearly now" ... and Edgar lent us his "Fintry-queen" captains-cap:

I found the perfect restaurant, founded by Countess Bubna Litite of Austria in 1926, situated right on the lake-shore. Now, if you think that all of this stuff is fun ... you are perfectly correct! Planning these surprises is really a lot of fun!

March 24th, the night before Easter: Jen got dressed for a fancy dinner date, and she was led (by our valet for the evening - our 18 year-old son Jonathan) blindfolded out the front door, and then at the right moment, it was removed:

There was Daniel, our son (21), dressed up as a "Chauffer" standing next to a spotless Mercedes 300D, ready to whisk her away for a very nostalgic and special date! Now this was not her dad or some rich guy's chauffer and valet, it was Jens own precious sons! That's really tough to top, impossible actually! Well, here is her reactions to all of this ...

So, as the sun was setting over the valley, Daniel took his place as Chauffer and Jonathan helped Jen into her seat ...

and I took my place beside her in that back-seat, both of us sitting exactly where we sat on that day we first met in 1971. I opened our "Paris" Champagne, poured Jen and myself a glass, Jonathan turned on the music and Daniel drove:

1/2 hr later, the flag flying, both heady with Champagne, nostalgic love-songs playing, we arrived at the restaurant:

And there, watching the lights of the city shimmering over the lake, we took our places. After 34 years of loving each other, almost 26 years of marriage, and having been gifted with two fine sons, Jen and I are still very much in love, and we always include our sons, as you can see, as an integral part of our love story, and we pray they find true-love too.

And, I'd have to say, this finest Aussie lamb was just perfect!  Lamb never ever tasted so good!

And after dinner we all went for a stroll on the moonlit boardwalk. Here is a photo taken by our youngest son who "caught us on camera" doing what lovers the world over enjoying doing ... as is natural and quite fitting.

Four hours later ... but not quite done yet, Daniel went to fetch the car, Jon opened the doors and we got in, all very thankful to our dear God for having gifted our family with such a very precious gift those many years ago ... the special gift of true love. Where would our family be today without it? Now this was Easter-eve and we had one more important "mission" planned ... our human way of saying "Thank You!" You see, we had just all enjoyed a memorable and loving dinner-date perhaps as far as some 200 yards from Jennifer's mother's home - you know, the 1 person who has been our love's and family's single worst enemy, and still, some 34 years later, persists in that regard! So, Daniel gently turned the purring old Mercedes into Jen's mother's neighborhood and there - the night late and most people tucked away inside their homes, Jonathan and I delivered 28 (7 special gifts from each one of us) carefully prepared "Happy Easter" gift packages, each with the complete movie of the Gospel of St. Luke - Campus Crusade's "Jesus Video project", along with a printed copy of the Easter  sermon by the famous evangelist Dr. Robert Schuller Sr. (Of Crystal Cathedral ministries - the only man alive Jen's mom respects) titled: "What's so special about Jesus Christ", to the front door of every home. Of course Jonathan (who she has not seen since he was very young and thus would not recognize) delivered these to the dangerous half of this neighborhood, and I went to the less dangerous one! Well it was quite appropriate, it was Easter after all ... and who knows? Just perhaps Jen's mother watches that movie, reads the pamphlet and realizes that the most wonderful love story ever lived (and  told) still persists some 2,000 years later, and that it is love that is important and love which wins the day (as well it should) and that it is love that God wants us all to learn how to abide by, and unselfish caring love that we are to practice daily, everywhere, and with everyone. Now, this was not the first time we had done this, but it seemed appropriate that if we were dining so close to her home, and on Easter-eve, that we do so again. The first time was in broad daylight and was actually a lot more scary!

Then, each with a glass of Champagne and the music softly playing, we were whisked away in our old German Classic, back home again, where later, as Jen and I were climbing into bed, I sang her the first part of this old song (as best I could):

Fairy tales can come true,
It can happen to you
If you're young at heart
For it's hard, you will find,
To be narrow of mind
If you're young at heart

You can go to extremes
With impossible schemes
You can laugh when your dreams
Fall apart at the seams
And life gets more exciting
With each passing day
And love is either
In your heart or on its way

*********************************

[Recreated from period photos of Jennifer (16) this painting exchanges a blue bikini bottom for a mermaid's tail]

[ Fairy tales can come true ... It could happen to you! ]

[Jen (46) walking down the stairs of her favorite "Castle", host of many a fine banquet for our family - Banff, Canada]

  A near-perfect Cross-channel blend ...

If you detected a slight "Bavarian" look and feel to all of this, it's probably because (going back some 300yrs to when my family arrived in South Africa, from Europe) I am 50% German, 30% French, 10% Dutch, 10% Scandinavian and 0.0% British. Jen, on the other hand, as best we can figure, is 90% British (mostly English and Scottish) and only 10% French ... and considering where and in what era we were born, this fact alone should have made us bitter foes - not friends, sweethearts or a couple. You see, we were both born in the 1950's and raised in Colonial Africa (South Africa) which had a long  and fairly recent history of these two European groups feuding bitterly, dating back  70 years, to almost all of Queen Victoria's reign. The Anglo-Boer war had ended just some 54 years prior to our births, and our two families had been on opposite sides of that conflict - a war which saw the British commander, Lord Kitchener, in an effort to force victory on British terms, burn down the farms of the Boers (farmers) and place their women and children in concentration camps (YEP - the British invented them, not Hitler!) where they were starved to death or died of disease. In those camps, 1 in 2 of the Boer children died, including many in my family tree, and all in all, 25% of the Boer population - so 3 times more women and children died than male soldiers on both sides of that conflict. So it was that deep-seated animosity (over this British-genocide) which still lingered within Boer families, whilst stubborn unashamed pride (for their "Glorious" victory) persisted amongst the "Superior-minded" Brits. Naturally this continued to divide these European colonial cultures within South Africa for decades, and it still does.  However, fortunately, as a young girl, Jen grew up in a town whose most famous citizen, the Reverend Andrew Murray, was a well known 1800's author of 240 wonderful Christian works still widely printed and read today, and he had a huge influence on the spirituality of the Boers, but not, as irony would have it, on the British settlers. Wellington, near Cape Town, was also a town with precious few English citizens. So, being greatly outnumbered by the people of Dutch, French and German decent (Afrikaners) Jen attended school along with them at the "Huguenot high school"  ... named after the French Huguenots who fled Catholic persecution in France and dispersed all around the globe - many of whom to the Cape of good hope. There she played and grew up with them, and even dated them. For Jen, even mathematics and science were taught in the language of my forefathers (not hers) - Afrikaans. Thus the young Jennifer learned not only my language, but also all about my culture - one of her subjects being German, ironically a language I cannot speak. Though he was Scottish, Andrew Murray's acceptance came from within the Afrikaner community (the British settlers basically ignored him) and so it is that his statue stands prominently at the head of the main-street of Wellington, in front of the Dutch-Reform church, and his presence is hardly felt around the Methodist, Anglican or (worse) Presbyterian churches. Andrew Murray kept Wellington as his home-base from 1871 till his death in 1917. Anyone who knows anything about Rev. Andrew Murray will realize that the upshot of all of this was that the Boers were (largely) Born-again Christians with a wonderful Evangelical zeal - whilst the British churches just could not overcome their pride (as the conquerors) enough to "listen-up" to any spiritual witnessing from their erstwhile victims, and thus they were, at best, merely Sunday social clubs - so sadly (having attended both the Anglican and Presbyterian churches while living in Wellington) Jennifer left South Africa thinking she was a Christian simply because she went to those "English" churches every other Sunday, and so did all of her family. That also meant that while the British settlers still went around with their "superior" noses in the air, at least some of the Afrikaners had learned that, even though they were the victims, they had to forgive their old foes. Now, in case you may not have noticed, Jennifer was a very pretty young girl, and though she would have preferred it to be different, this resulted in her having to endure a lot of jealousy and rejection from amongst the few (far too proud) English girls in her town - her own people. But the Afrikaners not only accepted Jennifer as their friend, they treated her with dignity and respect. Well, just as fortunately, at the same time back in the 1960's - some 1,000km away, not even aware of her existence, a young Afrikaner boy of 8, was sent away by his parents to be educated in a fine English (Anglican church) private boarding school, "St. Andrews" ... "thrown-in the deep-end of the pool" -to become an "English gentleman." So it was that I was instructed in the language, customs and culture of Jennifer's forebears, not mine.  There I went to church every day - and TWICE on Sundays! So, I left Africa thinking that not only was I definitely a Christian, but I had exceeded my life-time church-going quota and there was really no need to ever return. Then, when I was 16, 8 years after being sent to become an "Englishman", at Christmastime in 1971, I was walking back from the beach one day, to rejoin my parents and family at the campsite where we enjoyed our annual summer vacation, when a white Mercedes on it's way back from that beach, drove by, stopped, backed up and a sophisticated "40-something" English woman sitting in the passenger seat next to a silent distinguished middle-aged man driving that Mercedes, offered me a ride back to camp. In the searing heat of the African Summer sun, I gratefully accepted, this leading to the passenger-side back door being opened for me, from within. I climbed in, finding, in that back seat - the fairest of 16 year old mermaids (still in her skimpy little blue bikini from her morning on the beach) with her long wavy chestnut brown hair cascading down around her shoulders bare ... That momentary meeting initiating a tumultuous, fast moving chain of events that rather resembled a huge complex display of dominoes cascading ... It's had it's moments ... it's challenges, but it's certainly not been boring! God has certainly used Jennifer and I (amongst countless similar examples) to once again show that true-love can bridge many of the greatest divides ... and so Jennifer became the first person of purely British decent in my family tree, which goes back to 1752 in Africa. Jen and I have been in love for 34 years, and going on 26 years married (Easter, 2009: that's  38 years in love and 30 years married now) and still very much in love. So I am tempted to finally say "The rest is History", however who really knows but our awesome Matchmaker ... and by that I do not mean her mother! You see, to Jen and I - with the benefit of hindsight, we do clearly see the Hand of God having so deftly and purposely orchestrating that, our first meeting, and the many joyous meetings that followed so many forced farewells, and then thankfully guiding so much of our lives afterwards! We have no doubt that God, the ultimate Romantic, is the gracious sponsor of our love story! God truly is the universe's Champion of True Love. People who had "the other guy" choose their mate for them, with the benefit of hindsight, all knowingly concede this point. Well, we have lived in North America now for almost 26 yrs, and to be sure, a lot has happened since the Christmas of '71, but time and events have shown that Jennifer and I are an almost perfect cross-channel "European blend". We both speak English fluently, and we both still speak a colonial dialect of Dutch (Afrikaans) fluently. It's great for Romantic dates in public places - since few people in North America can understand it. So we get to talk freely to each other over our tea cups or wine glasses, with only the twinkling of our eyes possibly betraying the content of our discussions, and sometimes the odd word being similar to an English word, but one day someone is going to make a comment - also in Afrikaans!

You know, it's really a lot of fun planning for and participating in these surprises for Jen! I can't wait until next year (that would be the Christmas of 2005, actually) for the next one to be unveiled. (UPDATE: The next "surprise" was a surprise even for me, for all of us really, as it involved major changes, but oh what a surprise that was! You will have to read-on to see what that is) Thus it was for Jen and I. For now though, from our initial meeting in a White Mercedes 220 at Christmastime 1971 (Notice the now older Jennifer pictured in a classic White Mercedes below?) to our fairy-tale date in a Black Mercedes 300D ... with our grown sons acting as Chauffeur and Valet, on the Easter-eve of 2005:

(The "White English rose" and her champion, an old Germanic "Boer" ... Childhood sweethearts, out of Africa's colonial past)

Goodbye for now ... and from Jen and Ian, Dan and Jon ... "Happy Easter!"

PS. So, who says Christians can't be Romantic, that we do not understand what unselfish love is all about?
 I mean, really, just look at our role model, Jesus ... that kind of perfectly unselfish love is, well ... awesome!