A Carnival for God. . .

After months of planning, shopping for materials, prizes and building supplies; and building booths for our first outreach Community Children's Carnival, we finally held the carnival. Bill and I built booths for games, painted plywood for carnival activities, and shopped for prizes and food. One of the youth, is an amazing artist and drew and painted many of the photo stations where children could put their heads through the hole and have their photo taken.

There were neigh sayers, predicting rain or unbearable heat, but the Lord was gracious and we were blessed with a beautiful day. For months, we prayed daily for the carnival and put it all in the Lord's hands.

Bill and I had walked around Hua Hin for weeks, putting up flyers and handing out information about the carnival.

So, with so much time and effort having been put into the preparation, it was thrilling for the carnival day to actually arrive. The youth and several adult volunteers gathered at our home an hour before the start of the carnival and we confirmed who was going to be doing the different jobs such as: face painting, running booths with games, making snow cones, giving out popcorn, and taking photos and printing them for the children.

We then gathered together for prayer, giving the whole event to the Lord, praying that we would honor and glorify Him in all that we did.

Then the children started to arrive and the fun started. . .

Everything was free to the children and their families, and most of them had a hard time believing it. We offered them free snow cones and popcorn, and they kept asking how much? It was a real blessing to see how much fun the children had playing the games and enjoying the treats.

One of the most popular games was throwing darts at balloons. Bill had built a great booth with a counter to hold the darts. We were amazed at some of the little children's accuracy in throwing the darts. Pop! Pop! Pop! Followed by much laughter and a request to do it again.

After a couple of hours we had all of the children and their families come and listen to the gospel story. We had a Thai friend tell the story and explain the love of Jesus. The entire group sat listening with great attention.

Then it was back to the fun. The carnival ran from 2:00 in the afternoon until 6:00 pm. At 5:00 the pizza that Bill had ordered for the youth and volunteers arrived. You know you have to feed youth! It was great because there was enough pizza and hot dogs for not only the youth and volunteers, but also for the families that were at the carnival at that time.

A little before 6:00 the families started to leave and we gathered together to praise the Lord and give thanks for the successful carnival. We then packed up the leftover prizes, food and supplies. We gathered up the trash and brought some tables in the house, but decided not to stress about trying to get everything cleaned up that night. It was already dark, and we would just address the rest the next day or two.

We are still praising the Lord for the carnival and the great outreach that was done through it. The youth still talk about the event with great enthusiasm.

Thank you Lord!


Then Jesus called for the children and said to the disciples, "Let the children come to me. Don't stop them! For the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these." Luke 18:16

By April