The sweltering heat gave way to the cool evening air as the sun quietly made it’s way down the horizon. Wiping the sweat from his brow, the cowboy-looking figure carefully dismounted his camera from its tripod and gently reloaded his backpack. “Home on the Range” had been a success, and now it was time to pack up the range and head home.
I don’t normally speak in third person, but now that I have your attention, I’ll switch back to first person 🙂
As part of my internship this year in Bennington, I have the wonderful privilege of organizing and heading up our church’s summer ministry program. We decided to do a series of “Family Fun Nights” in a neighborhood park, and our goal is to connect with and serve the families in our community.
Rather than just reaching kids, we want to target everyone in the family, so we have designed our Family Fun Nights to include activities that incorporate everyone.
Last Thursday night was our inaugural Family Fun Night, and our “Home on the Range” had a wild west theme. Our activities included a coin dig (gold mining), bobbing for apples, hillbilly horseshoes, a bean bag boot toss, a shooting gallery, and cattle-branding version of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey.
Prizes were awarded for each activity. Gold miners got to keep the coins they found, bobbers got to keep their apples, and those who branded the cow closest to its original brand won a cowboy hat. Every other activity awarded tickets that could then be used to vote for one out of four different family movies at our welcome table. The movie with the most votes will be shown at our fourth and final Family Fun Night.
Oh, and how could I forget to mention our Old Tyme photo booth? We set up a green screen in one of our pop-up tents and had a table full of cowboy regalia for people to choose from. Our plan is to print 8×10 photos of each family that came through our photo booth and distribute them free of charge when they return to any of our upcoming Family Fun Nights.
Halfway through the night we also had a gold mining relay, a livestock roundup relay, and a misfit cowboy relay which several children and a couple adults participated in. The night ended with a cowboy boot pinata filled with 141 pieces of candy (yes, I counted them as I filled it…and yes, I ate one and that’s why there weren’t 142 pieces).
The Chick-fil-A from Legacy Village in Omaha was a huge blessing to our event by graciously providing their tasty chicken sandwiches to our attendees for supper. Children were also given little plush cows, courtesy of Chick-fil-A. Yum! We are so thankful for Chick-fil-A’s values and their generosity to the community.
We had no idea what kind of a turnout to expect, and we praise the Lord for between 50-60 people that showed up! The Lord also answered prayer by turning down the temperature a little for us, so we were able to enjoy a great evening without anyone dehydrating or overheating.
Please continue to pray for us as we host the next three Family Fun Nights! We want to serve the community by demonstrating God’s love to them, and we really want to build lasting relationships with these families in our community. Ultimately, we desire to see Heaven’s population grow as a result of these efforts!
I hope y’all will come right on back again to read about the game show night that we’re hosting tomorrow!
But in the past couple years I started to enjoy weddings more. Part of it is the fact that several of my friends have gotten married, and it’s exciting to see them begin a new stage of their lives. Part of it is the opportunity I’ve had to photograph the weddings for several friends. Yes, it’s extremely stressful, but it’s also fun to preserve those precious memories for other people.
I’ve noticed a trend at the weddings I’ve photographed. The guys get ready by themselves and take about 10-20 minutes to do so. The girls all help each other get ready, and they take at least an hour to do so. If you know anything about weddings, you know this is the norm, at least for American weddings. I don’t know what everyone else does.