The Church

Every once in awhile, a request comes along that puts you to the test. I've had quite a few of those over the past year - but none as emotionally involved as this one.

This past Christmas my Great Aunt (now 92) approached me about creating a cake for The Renfrew Presbyterian Church's 85th Anniversary. She wanted to have something special there for this occasion - something that she could give the church to help celebrate.

At first I was a little worried. How many people did this need to feed? Sorry??? Did you say 175??? A 3D church?? To scale??? .....Mini panic!!! Ok - not mini.....MAJOR!! Apparently my family has alot of faith in me :)

This was a very important event for my aunt. She's been a member of this church since before it was erected in 1925. I believe they performed services out of a barn prior to it being built. My Grandmother, my Aunt Dot, my Aunt Ollie, my Aunt Jane and my mother were all members of the choir. My Grandfather was an elder. Our family has attended countless weddings, funerals and occasions there. There's alot of history involved for us so it was only appropriate that I did something.

As time drew closer to the big date - I came to terms with challenge of this 3D church. I sent my parents on a pilgrimage an hour away to take countless photos of various angles of the church. If I was going to do this - I was going to do it right! Every detail needed to be included. After all, a whole congregation was going to be looking at, and eating this cake. It had to be as perfect as I could get it.

Armed with a can of Red Bull, I set to work on the Friday...assembling piece by piece. I think I slept 4 hours on Friday night only to pick up where I left off on Saturday and work straight through for another 14 hours. A few more hours of touch up on Sunday and......WHEW!!!

Needless to say there were some very happy Presbyterians that Sunday. One of those was my Aunt Ollie, who is at this time the oldest living member of the church.

This has been my greatest acheivement to date. According to the Reverand -the cake brought a tremendous amount of joy to his congregation. Apparently it turned out to be a very important symbol of hope and strength. I never dreamed that I'd be able to provide those kinds of feelings from my work. This will stay with me for a long time :)