This past August I had the most unique and amazing hosting experience I’ve ever had. But first a little background story! Hi, I’m Chelsea! Three years ago, God blessed my husband and I along with our four children with a small farm. Not long after, we dove into raising pigs. I know pigs don’t sound like the dream animal but for all their mud and destruction they are actually just big dogs. We enjoy them so much!
Unfortunately, after 2 years with our sow we decided she was getting too aggressive. With small children running about we didn’t want to take our chances. We decided to make the best of it and host a pig roast.
Leading up to the event we had our doubts. There were so many unknowns. For starters, she was much larger than your normal roasting pig! When it came time to send her to the butcher, she simply refused to load onto the trailer and there is no convincing a 500 pound hog to do something it doesn’t want to do. This was also our first time doing a hog roast so we were learning as we went. A huge concern was if we weren’t actually successful and didn’t end up with edible pork. We knew that if we were going to do this it was going to be a challenge and we started recruiting our friends to help. What we thought was going to be a few extra hands to stoke the fire and keep watch overnight ended up being so much more. And what we thought was an event that we could use to bless others ended up blessing us in astounding ways.
The hog roast was to be held on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend. Friday morning a handful of men showed up to help dispatch and prepare the hog. These men camped out in our backyard with their kids and taking shifts stoking the fire throughout the night. Throughout the process different talents shined through these men. One had the right tools to bring, another was good at building fires, another was skilled at smoking meat, some split wood, and some were the muscle to carry and flip the extremely large hog. Their wives also showed up at the perfect times with ice cream or cold Gatorade. One specific friend took the middle of the night shift because he didn’t have children with him. It just so happened that during that 2 hour window, it down-poured. It was God’s perfect timing because he didn’t have to worry about kids in his tent getting scared by the storm and he was able to focus on keeping the fire alive. It was a long night but they handled every obstacle so well!
The party was set to begin at 4. Have you ever been stressed about hosting a party? Imagine my stress knowing there was about to be 200 people showing up at my home. By this point I felt confident that we were going to have edible pork but there were still so many details of setting up and welcoming our guests. This is where the biggest surprise came. When our guests started arriving, our friends who had been helping with the roasting started hosting! They greeted our guests, helped them carry their things to the barn, helped set up, turned on music, brought a bounce house, made homemade BBQ sauce, prepared the food, and valeted our guests’ cars! Even our children found a way to welcome our guests and made over fifty bracelets to hand out! Many of the roles that were stepped into, I hadn’t realized were needed and even if I had, I probably wouldn’t have delegated.
Isn’t that so often how we approach hosting? On our own. God showed me the beauty of community that weekend. He showed me that hosting doesn’t have to be done alone. Maybe if we included others in our hosting we would invite more! Think about all the elements that make a sublime soirée. Are you gifted at cooking? Are you musically talented? Do you creatively think about things like lighting, decorations, and mementos? There are so many elements to hosting an intentional event. It’s a lot of pressure to expect one person to fulfill them all. God is our perfect host that can sovereignly do it all but isn’t it prideful to expect that we can too?
As you walk into this New Year, think of how you can include others in your hosting. What gifts do others have to offer that may help you focus on your guests instead of running around trying to fill all the roles by yourself? God didn’t create us to be isolated so our hosting shouldn’t be either!
— Chelsea Nelson © December 2024
