Party at the Patch 08

Can I just say, I Love our church!!!! Our former pastor started a vision at our church to IMPACT Iowa. He is no longer there but the church carries on that theme. Every year we do a pumplin patch as a fund raiser of some sort, last year it was for the Guatemala trip and this year it was for the Childrens Ministry. We have made excellent money in the past but this year we got a rotten patch of pumkins. No pun intended - these pumkins literally rotted faster than anything I have ever seen. the fund raiser only produced 1/3 of what we made last year. However in the midst of all the discouragement and rotting pumpkins a wise man in our church said, we need to remember all the people that are being introduced to Jesus through the patch. How true! Our church really wants to IMPACT our town thru everything we do and the pumpkin patch is no different. Everyone who comes to the patch gets to interact with someone from our church (what a perfect opportunity)! The culmination of the patch is "Party at the Patch" done as a Halloween alternative. During the



party there is free food, face painting and games. The games all have a biblical theme and story to go along. It was so cool seeing kids who would never come in to our church sitting there listening to David and Goliath then sling shotting marshmallows at our "giant" (a deacon in our church).



AWESOME! Some kids came for the free hot dogs, most came for the free candy but all left with the Gospel and a positive interaction with Iowa First Baptist. I love "practical ministry"! I am so excited and thankful that the Lord saw fit to "drag" us to IFBC! What a great IMPACT we are able to make in our community for Jesus!























ok, so one more pic...I couldnt not put a pic of the kiddos all dressed up before the patch