I put Charles in my moby while we were making the final preparations before the doors opened. He was getting tired fast and fell asleep pretty much right as we were starting. I had him in the stroller next to my chair and was surprised he was able to sleep through all the noise. He slept for a good hour and sat with me for a while before getting anxious to get out of his stroller and then was passed around for the rest of the festival. He's such a good baby!
The night before we were at the church setting up and I made a sign of the different things we could paint on faces. It was simple stuff; a flower, spiderweb, lady bug, the batman symbol, a rainbow, a basketball.. etc. I knew that I would need to learn how to draw Hello Kitty, she's pretty popular with the little girls around here, and I aim to please. One of the girls in the youth group showed me how to draw her but I was nervous about doing it myself. I had to get over that fast because as far as the girls were concerned, she was what I painted the most! I'm pretty much a pro now.
At the other stations the children got tickets for put-put golfing, tossing a football through a hole, bean bag tosses etc.. There was cotton candy, crafts, a cake walk, popcorn, and cupcakes. I'm telling you- craziness! For some of the volunteers who had the privilege of experiencing this event for the first time they were left with jaws dropped. For any of you readers who have come to do BUMP NY- imagine the craziest day at BUMP, times ten, on steroids. I'm not exaggerating. BUT, it was a definite success!
The following photos were taken while we were setting up..
Half-way point.. getting ready to watch a skit..
After the skit we had to clear out the people who were there so we could let in the other two hundred or so people that were waiting on line outside.
This year's Fall Festival was an even bigger deal because it's the first we have done in two years. Before that, our church put on not only a festival in the fall but also one in the spring for Easter. Unfortunately, we weren't able to do them for a while because there just weren't enough volunteers to work it. With such a high volume of kids (and parents) coming through the doors we need A LOT of volunteers, not only the day of, but in the weeks beforehand to prepare. We were very blessed to have a lot of the kids from the youth group, people from our congregation, as well as a church from upstate that had come to BUMP, all there to work to make it happen. We left exhausted, hungry, a little overwhelmed, and talking about plans for the Easter Festival in six months.
This is a huge outreach for our church because it brings the people in from the neighborhood through our doors. A brief message/skit is given as well as information about our church and sunday school programs. A flyer is sent home with each child in their goody-bag and, because we required everyone to register when they arrived, in the next week a followup mailer will be sent to everyone who walked through our doors.We can definitely say that from these types of things kids start coming to Sunday School and through them we are more able to reach the rest of the family. It is so important that we are able to continue doing this so we are praying that this wont be a one time thing but that it will be the beginning of bringing the festival back as something our church puts on every year. Like many churches we need more people from our own congregation to step up and volunteer. It is the responsibility of EACH of us to get involved in our churches programs, to do so with a happy heart, because it is more than serving a snack, running a game, teaching a craft or painting a face. It's about bringing Christ's love to the community in which we live. The harvest is plenty, but the workers are few.
As our Associate Pastor often says "we pray that our church would shine God's light from our little corner of Brooklyn to the ends of the earth."
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