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Spiritual Discovery blog

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

A Fire Pit and Some Rubber Duckies!

Tim,

We had a great evening.

I told my neighbor, Donna about what we were planning on doing. She wanted to help. I said, "All we need is a fire pit". She said she had one we could use. Donna also joined us since her husband was out of town.

We brought the nice chairs from the back deck. We circled them around the fire pit. We had a table with hot chocolate and coffee with the favors.

For the kids, we had a duck pond. All the ducks had number on the bottom. The kids told us the number and we gave them there prizes. The prizes were pens, highlighters, sticks, candy and super-superballs. All the kids got glow sticks and candy and a spider ring as well. The kids had fun.

Conversations were flowing with the neighbors. Even if they didn't want coffee or hot chocolate, they still stopped to talk. Some stayed for a long time and we talked and laughed. It wasn't long until the neighbor on the other side of us joined us as well for the rest of the evening.

Saturday morning, another neighbor was walking by and started talking about the fun and hot chocolate that she heard we had at our house.

We were tired when if was all over, but it was worth it all.

In Christ,
Dianne and Mark

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Friday, October 17, 2008

Redeeming Halloween in Your Neighborhood

Last year in our neighborhood we decided we'd try something different for Halloween. Usually we turn off all the lights in our house, hide in the basement and watch TV pretending we're not home! This time we thought we'd get out of the rut and make Halloween a part of our outreach to our neighbors. We made hot chocolate and coffee and stood out at the side walk talking to adults who came by with their kids. Our kids served up the candy while we got to chat and meet new people. And just to push the envelope a little more, we brought our fire-ring around to the front and had a fire going.

The pinnacle of our strategy (which we didn't actually plan) was Leo. Leo was a friend we'd met through the International Ministry. Leo wanted to see what Halloween looks like, so we'd invited him to join us. After finding out that Leo knew how to play the guitar... you can see where this is headed... I gave him my guitar and he joined our front yard Halloween venue providing live music! It was awesome. People stopped, talked for a few minutes and even make comments like "You must not be from around here... this is the coolest house we've stopped at all night."

Watch this blog in the next couple of days as we post practical suggestions for redeeming Halloween in your part of the city.

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