Kinderfest

Remember I said there has been so much going on that I have been too busy and tired to blog about it?  Well, now that things are slowing down a little bit I will try to bring you up to speed.

In Leavenworth, the 4th of July is celebrated with Kinderfest.  Kinderfest is a free children's carnival.  There is a giant slip-n-slide, cotton candy, snow cones, popcorn, balloons, bouncy houses, carnival games, face painting, clowns, and more.  The Chamber of Commerce puts it on with our church and another local church organizing all the activities and providing a majority of the volunteers.

 We had about 28 volunteers from our church to man our booths.  This is the second year our church has participated in Kinderfest.  We have had shirts made for all of volunteers to let everyone know who we are.  If you are wondering about the letters on the front, they stand for By Grace Through Faith In Christ Alone.  It comes from Ephesians 2:8,9 which tells us that salvation is offered to us by God's grace because we all sin (do wrong) and deserve everlasting punishment (death) but if we believe in Christ and place our trust in Him we will be saved.  We don't need to do anything - like works or behave a certain way or dress a certain way.  Belief in Christ alone is all we need.

 So many people from church came out to work. We had booths like the ring toss and the bean bag throw.

 Others worked at face painting but the big booth was the craft booth. Our craft this year was another crazy hat for the kids to make and wear.  It involved duct tape, straws, pipe cleaners, and star garland.  It was a lot of work but well worth it.

 These gals worked for four hours and helped kids make over 250 hats.  I got to fill in every now and then while they took a short break but other than that they worked hard.

 One of our gals brought several of her students to help us out.  They were the best workers. 

Todd and I went downtown at 8:30 in the morning to set up canopies and didn't leave til 4 pm.  It was a long day but fun.  I had the best job of all.  I got to float around and make sure everyone had prizes, water, and snacks.  I rotated workers around or found relief for those who needed to leave.  Of course, I have been involved in the planning of this event out since March.  Now we have to figure out how to make it even better for next year.