Conclusion

So, I know this is an extra post, but I still thought I would go ahead and post it.

I cannot believe this is already the last day of October! The Write 31 Days Challenge has came to an end. When I first decided to do it, I had no clue if I was going to be able to succeed. Between school, work, puppets, and church activities I don't have a whole lot of free time. Therefore, finding time to write on some days was extremely difficult. However, I managed to write at least something every day for this past month.

To those of you that have been reading and following along through the entire series, thank you! And to those who just find this blog and happen to be reading this, thank you as well! Basically, thank you to anyone who reads this post as well as any of my posts!

 

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Halloween Trunk or Treat

Halloween is one of those holidays that some Christians have nothing to do with. However, we do something on Halloween that shares the Love of Christ with those present. We do a Trunk or Treat with Heaven's Handful at their church. A lot of kids come through.
The children go through registration and are then brought into the sanctuary where they get to watch us perform at least 2 songs. All of the songs we perform are Christian. Actually, with our Halloween show we do something special. Every song we perform is done in Blacklight. As I said in previous posts, a lot of people really like blacklight songs. This is actually the only time that we do the entire show in blacklight, though. We also do some songs with other special lights such as lasers for Halloween. Some years, we also have a rapper that does a song after we do 2. 
After seeing the puppets, the kids are taken outside where they are able to go around to the different cars and get candy. So, instead of only giving them candy and sending them on their way, they get to hear the Gospel as well.  

Matthew 5:16 ESV 

In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.(http://www.openbible.info/topics/witnessing_to_others)

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Nursing Homes and Making Smiles

Whenever people hear the word puppets, they typically think about it being for little kids. However, we probably have as many as if not more adult fans. We even have quite a few elderly fans, such as from nursing homes. 

Performing at nursing homes is a big part of our ministry. It is something we wouldn't give up. Some of the nursing home residents don't really get people coming to see them. Therefore, it is always nice that we are able to come and interact with them. After the show, we typically take a puppet out and interact one-on-one with the residents. This is fun because the residents really like getting to touch and talk to the puppets. We get to have some pretty interesting conversations with some residents. They are typically super sweet and appreciative. 

At one nursing home we went to, we got talking with one of the workers afterwards. She started to tell us about this one resident who was fairly new there. I don't remember if she had only been there a couple weeks or if it was a couple of months. Anyways, during the time that she had been there, she had not smiled once. The worker then told us that the resident was smiling all through our show. It is things like that which remind us the importance of our ministry. 

Matthew 6:21 ESV

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (http://www.openbible.info/topics/taking_care_of_the_elderly)

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Fan Favorites

Over my years of doing puppetry, I have gotten to hear reactions to a lot of the things that we have done. I thought I would share just a couple of "fan favorites" with you guys. 

The first of which is something that I talked about a couple of days ago -- blacklight. This is one of those things that people seem to request pretty often. Blacklight is something that is used not only in puppetry, but also in other creative ministries such as hand miming. It is actually used sometimes for Halloween. Blacklight also allows for some interesting puppet choices (see video below). Along with some of our blacklight songs we incorporate other special lighting such as lasers and spinning light balls (I don't know the technical name). 

Another thing that many people seem to enjoy is audience participation songs. These are songs that get the audience up and moving. I am an early childhood education major, so I know that kids (and even adults sometimes) enjoy getting up and moving. Sometimes, that is even something that they need if they have been sitting for too long. The video below shows one of our audience participation songs called The Moving Song. 

 

There is one song that we started doing toward the beginning of our ministry. That song is called Go Jonah. To this day, we still typically perform this song whenever we go to new places. This is because it is a song that we in a way act out. Plus, it is a parody that some people recognize. We did this song on one of our mission trips and the audience was laughing basically from the beginning of the song until the end. The video of this is below.

 

One other thing that many people seem to enjoy is when we perform along with a band such as Anointed Hearts. This shows different ministries working together and makes for a different experience with puppetry. See the video below to see one of our times performing with Anointed Hearts. 

Colossians 3:17 ESV 

And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. (http://www.openbible.info/topics/entertainment)

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"I Have Been Blessed"

We did an odd thing tonight and actually did a midweek performance. I say it like that because considering my parents work and I work and go to school, we typically don't do shows on school/work nights. However, since my parents are off this week, we went ahead and scheduled this show. I am glad that we did. 
Over the summer, Anointed Hearts had performed at this church. They did one of their songs, I Have Been Blessed, and they really seemed to enjoy it. We felt that God wanted us to do that song there. It was a miracle it actually got done due to a few different things such as sickness and the song length in general (it is over 5 minutes if I remember correct and that is a long time to hold your arms up). However, we decided that if God wanted us to do it, then we were going to do it. 
Whenever the song started, there were people in the audience who started singing along with it. I actually looked over at my mom and was like, "Well, I guess some of the people here have been listening to their CDs," and then smiled. It is always nice to hear people sing because when we are behind the stage, we can't really know if the audience likes it or not if we can't actually hear a response from the audience.
After the show, my parents got talking with the pastor of the church. He told them that I Have Been Blessed is actually the church's favorite song by Anointed Hearts. Actually, he told them that just recently he had actually done a message about being blessed. After the message, they actually played that song.

If you listen to the introduction to the song on the video on this post, Steve talks about his daughter's trips to Honduras. He tells about how the people there will make a living off of finding cans and other things to recycle by digging through the trash at the dump. However, even though they have to dig through trash to live, they still say that they are blessed because they have Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Now, take a look at your own life. Do you feel blessed even in times when you are struggling? If not, remember that God is there with and for you. He won't give you more than you can handle. 

 Note to Readers:

Currently the version of the video is not very good quality. It is actually a camera recording of the TV because we haven't gotten the chance to actually download the recording to the computer. However, I am hoping to get a better version up soon. However, I wanted to still include this version at least for now. You may need to turn the volume up to hear it well. Sorry about the quality! 

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Blacklight

Blacklight is something that many people who see puppetry seem to really enjoy. Actually, at the seminars that we compete at, it is quite common that a majority of the songs in the song competition are done in blacklight. 
I guess I should explain something such as what blacklight even is. Blacklight is when we use a special light known as a blacklight, though it is really a purple light, to shine on the puppets. When the lights are off and the blacklights are shining on the puppets and props, they appear to glow. In some cases, the puppeteer has to be above the stage, but we still don't want to be seen. In those cases, the puppeteers wear all black so that they aren't seen. See the video below for an example. 

From Tennessee Mission Trip

Matthew 4:16

16 the people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned." (http://www.biblestudytools.com/topical-verses/bible-verses-about-light/)

As a Christian, we want the light of Christ to shine through us -- we want others to see Him in what we say and do. Like blacklights do for our puppets, shine Jesus' light bright in your life so that others will see that light and begin shining themselves.  

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Hispanic Festivals

Each year, we perform at one or two different Hispanic festivals in Missouri. This is fun because no one of the team, Adventureland or Heaven's Handful, fluently knows Spanish. We may be able to come up with a couple of words, but we definitely couldn't carry on a conversation in Spanish. However, thankfully, our puppets are still able to perform in Spanish, as well as any other language we may one day need. This is due to the fact that we use prerecorded music. I suppose the prerecorded music thing is good for multiple reasons. One is the language barrier and the other is that the songs are sung nicely as opposed to our lovely singing voices. 

The Hispanic festivals are fun to perform at because it is something different than we are used to. We are outside (which at times can be a disaster if there is any wind at all or if it is raining) and are in the children's pavilion/area. The Hispanic festivals themselves are not actually Christian events, however, we are thankful and blessed to be able to perform Christian songs and share the Love of God with the people there. 

Galatians 3:28 ESV 

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (http://www.openbible.info/topics/culture)

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