Long Sunday

We finished out our Narnia storyline today as we covered the book, "The Last Battle."  Josh made a wonderful animated version of our popular show, "Real Talk with Shanikwa," where a dwarf was trying to to convince everyone that he knew Aslan and in fact brought Aslan to the show.  Of course, it's not Aslan, but a donkey dressed up like a lion, a major nod to that last book.  Fortunately, Aslan calls up on Zoom or something like that and sets things right.  Meanwhile, on stage, the kids are saying their goodbyes to the faun, the wigglemarsh and Mr. and Mrs. Beaver as well (you can see one of the beavers above at the top of the mountain).

I'm so glad we did this series.  It was one of those things that added a whole lot of extra stress back in December, as we were doing so many other things at the time.  A whole new series is pretty time consuming, and the idea of doing a Narnia series for an audience that might not be as familiar with the stories of Narnia could have been risky.  But we had at least three services - actually four - where we showed extensive action-packed clips from the movies themselves, and during other points we had a visit from Aslan on stage or in today's case an animated story of Narnia.  Puppets and costumes created by Mom really helped a lot, and each day I'm reading a devotional to Maddie that was written by Joey, Camille and myself.  We're reaching the end of that one now, getting to "The Silver Chair" tonight as we were reading.

Pastor Lance has been enjoying the series too, of course.  He himself portrayed Aslan in a play many, many years ago, and the stories of Narnia have always been a place of wonder for a lot of us on staff.  Hopefully some of these families will read them as a result of our mornings at KidPak.  I was worried that we wouldn't do the theme justice, but with so much help from others, we really were able to put something together that I was proud of.  

Ah, here's the bad guys again.  We found out this week we'll keep this set one more Sunday, so we just might keep these characters around next weekend too.  I'm not sure what we'll do, as the message is more about football.  But I kind of think it would be funny to combine the themes of Narnia and football.  We'll see what happens - it'll be a standalone sort of thing, so odds are it will be pretty wacky.

Maddie was fantastic as always this series as an actress.  She and her friends onstage were doing really well throughout, and have been all showing such growth with their abilities on stage.  After the second service, they all get together - as has been their custom lately - to play UNO.  These are pretty loud and boisterous games, very super competitive!

We got home very briefly.  Very briefly.  Mom made us some lunch, and we had time to do some of our puzzle games together, but then we were out the door because another service awaited.  This was the 4pm service that will take place a few more times in February, one to go with the "Better Together" theme at the church.  We did a board game theme for these 4pm services, today's game of choice being "JENGA."  We had the game played boys versus girls, and it was fun, and the message was great too, about having a firm foundation.  It was simple, but clear, and a fun night.  Maddie came along with me, and decided that she wanted to help out by taking pictures of tonight's service.  So she was our sole photographer, and she did so great!  We added a good deal of her pictures to the church library online, and I can't share them all here, but below you'll find a few of them taken tonight.

We got home tonight, and of course we were tired.  Long day at church.  But we were excited to livestream with thousands of others the debut of episode seven of season three of "The Chosen."  It was pretty exciting to join so many others in this, and we enjoyed the episode quite a bit, knowing it was all a set-up for what is to come next episode, which debuts Tuesday.  The three of us wouldn't miss this one tonight, so we watched it, along with all the extras in front and after the episode.  

It was time for bed after that.  We read tonight, from our devotional, and then from a new book in the Discworld, "Reaper Man."  We left Rincewind for the time being, and are visiting with Death for a bit, and seeing what he's up to.  These are older books, but they hold up well.  I'm enjoying them too!

Anyway, we said our prayers afterwards, and it didn't take long for us to fall asleep tonight.  It was a huge, very long day!