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I'm usually not that great with surprises, but sometimes I really enjoy them. Thursday was one of those cases. The "Birthday that took a while to end" stretched into day three on Thursday night (there was a pre-birthday cookies and cup cakes extravaganza at my seminary class on Tuesday night).

Before the weekly gathering of the campus ministry that I work with a student approached me and handed me a bucket that said, "Happy B-day, B-Wat" on it. She then proceeded to drop a single golf ball signed by her into the bucket. I was not really sure what to make of the whole thing as I was genuinely surprised. A few moments later a couple other students that I knew came up and tossed more signed golf balls into the bucket. Now I was starting to catch on. Over the course of the evening 40-50 students came up and wished me a happy birthday and added their golf balls to the collection. It was a very kind gesture and really made me feel appreciated. I was almost embarrassed at all of the attention.

As if that weren't enough, after the meeting was over, I was told to wait around until 9:45. I knew there was a scavenger hunt going on after the meeting and figured that it had something to do with that. When I walked out into the entryway of the Student Union, a large group of people began singing Happy Birthday to me and announced that they had brought refreshments. One of the students, a semi-professional cake decorator, had made me a cake and decorated it like a golf course (see picture). It was pretty amazing. She even used brown sugar for the sand trap - very creative. The cake was awesome as were the birthday wishes.

And to top it all off, when I got home I had a birthday card from my friend Mark. In it he said that he had purchased me a one-year subscription to SciFi magazine. Does he know me or what? Thanks, Mark! You are awesome!

Day four (Friday) brought more celebration when my team of co-workers cooked lunch for the whole team and served yet another cake (no golf theme this time). It was almost an entire week of celebrating. It makes me wonder if God is trying to tell me something about the value of celebration. Even if not, it was a great week.