First Carole Batten and her hard working team moved tables and chairs until there was space for one and all. Of course Carole wanted everything to look pretty so out came colorful table cloths and paper flower centerpieces.
Then Ellen Mandell and her cafeteria wizards cooked barbecue chicken and pork and hamburgers and hot dogs with fixings and sides too numerous to count. They fed us all and fed us well.
While the meal was going on, the Main Worship Center was being made over into
a place filled with four inflatables from Noah's Place and 21 carnival games.
Bouncy inflatables were not enough so we lined two walls with some of the wackiest
games we could think up. The one below is called the "Toilet Toss". Can I say
toilet paper was tossed all over the place!
Now games, prizes and bouncy things are grand and lots of fun but when you add
CLOWNS that is absolutely over the top! See "Circus Daze" below.
The evening was more fun than any of us imagined and more work than some had considered but without a doubt as the giant room filled up with incredibly well-mannered
children of every shape and size, all ready for fun and bubbling over with laughter
and excitement, we were blessed and honored to share the evening together.
Guess what I learned....among other things, you know when you want to take
pictures of kids and they turn their faces and ruin the picture? Well for privacy
sake, I tried to take pictures of kids without showing their faces! You know what?
Most of my pictures cannot be shown because some little darlin' was looking
toward the camera but take a quick look of some pictures that I can share with you.
There was some spectacular face painting and some pretty cool balloon animals.
And there were some silly games with giant flamingos,
fishing poles with prizes to catch, duck ponds,
and every kind of ball or bean bag to toss that you can imagine.
All in all it was one really fun event that the Lord allowed us to
share with each other and with some incredible kids and
their families. I wish you could have heard the laughter, seen the smiles, and
enjoyed seeing hundreds of kids overflowing with fun.
May the Lord bless each of you who made this special evening possible.
