First Impressions/FREEdom

Saturday, we spent 12 hours at the park (14 for Nathan!) for our first major outreach project for Revolution Church. We had about four booths set up for the annual 4th of July Celebration: one for food, one for door prizes, one for games and prizes for kids, and one for face-painting. Everything at our booths were free and any donations were used to send bibles to troops overseas (which we had on hand if anyone wanted to write messages inside).

Nathan got there a little after 6am to start setting up and get the shaved ice machine running.

The kids and I arrived just after 8am. I got to work on posters until my first facepaint "customers" arrived, and then I didn't move... for five hours. Literally. Facepainting was a hit!


We pretty much just let the kids run wild playing on the playground, bouncy houses, going from booth to booth collecting free candy, free SnoCones, free flags, pinwheels, toys... we had friends spaced out all over the park, so everyone was kind of watching everyone's kids. At one point, I know I saw them riding the firetruck for at least 30 minutes strait. They were having a BLAST.







At noon, half our team (including Nathan), left to go over to another park to play in a co-ed softball tournament where they lost gracefully, lol. And then played another game that afternoon that they also lost before heading back to help us man the booths for the last couple of hours.



At six o'clock we took our kids down to the stadium for the parade- actually, they WERE the parade. The Andersons on their bikes, our kids and the Freemans, and a handful of others... all decorated in red, white, and blue, wearing hats and waving flags marched around the track while the crowd cheered! They loved it. After that, the meltdowns kicked in. We'd been there 11 hours... too much sun, too much sugar, just TOO much.

It took us another hour or so to get back down to our booths and get our things, get loaded up and say goodbye. The fireworks were getting ready to start and the park was getting crowded, but they were D.O.N.E.

We all were, but the day was a huge success I think! Revolution Church served between 600-800 people! Around $500 in donations were made. I know that I personally spoke to several people about our church who showed genuine interest in joining us Sept. 12th for our kick-off service, so we're excited!



Pastor Kris Freeman and his wife Jennifer :) Love them!