Deerfield UMC hopes to reach out to children

     Deerfield UMC just completed a week of a fabulous VBS using puppets and skits and music to reach the kids from our church and community. Our hope is to use this as a building block to start a weekday afterschool discipleship ministry with children one day a week during the school year. We are working out the details and hope to get that off the ground after school is back in session this fall. More details to come on this. During VBS, where might you see and experience God? I experienced God when I was sitting on the floor listening to a story and a child who needed a hug would come and climb into my lap and snuggle up to me while the story was being read. I saw God when a little one had pudding all over her face and down to her elbows and needed someone to help her get cleaned up and that was provided with a tender touch. I saw God when grown ups danced and sang with the children and we all laughed together around the story of Christ. I saw God using grown ups to make sandwiches to feed hungry children and enjoyed the conversation around the meal each night. Posting a fun picture of our event and we look forward to working more with the children to teach them more about how much Jesus loves them.
     I am almost done reading a great book called, "Heaven is for Real" by  Todd Burpo. I started it last night and could not put it down until I could not hold my eyes open. It has been a great read that I commend to you about a child's experience of Jesus Christ being made real in his life.

Deerfield has exciting day with Yankee Baseball

     Last week, Deerfield UMC hosted Bobby Richardson, a former player with the New York Yankees who still holds the record for playing in 30 consecutive world series games. It was such a great time to open the doors to the community as Bobby and his wife Betsy came to share their story of their life of faith together, a lot of information about Yankees baseball, and he also participated in a radio interview with me on the morning he was going to be speaking at our church. What was the most exciting thing to me about the event was that the opportunity fell into our lap. If we can learn how to say yes, when God opens the doors for us to open the doors to our community, I wonder how that will change the face of the United Methodist Church. That night we received an offering in a collection basket to be divided between the mission work that his daughter is doing in Africa, and our Relay for Life Event. We are so blessed that the community did come out for the event, and they did give to two very worthy causes.
     Last Friday Watauga County celebrated their county wide Relay for Life Event. I planned to attend the event and told our Relay Team that I would help in any way I could. So they signed me up for a big role in speaking to lead the ceremony that night, and I was grateful for the opportunity. As I walked laps around the track at Watauga High School, I saw the names on lumanaria of those we were honoring and those we were remembering. It struck me that so many of the names I read are people that I now serve at Deerfield UMC. I gave the Lord praise that he brought them healing and has allowed me the opportunity to get to know these people and to serve them. My life is so much richer because of each one of them. Relay was a spiritual event to ask God's help to bring a cure for cancer and a spiritual event to work together for a common cause, and to pause with thanksgiving for those who were there to walk the track because God had brought them healing. It was spiritual and moved my heart to participate.
     During the last week, we celebrated Vacation Bible School using the theme: "I love to Tell the Story." Using puppets and skits and fun songs, we used the scripture from the book of Acts to tell the kids in our church and community the story of how much Jesus loves them. It is our hope that we will be able to launch a new children's ministry this fall when school is in session using the puppets and skits and music to reach the kids in our church and community for an ongoing time of discipleship. At the end of each night, our music teacher, Pat Lanno would lead us in the song, "We're going to Chicago," and we would sing and dance and laugh and have a great time to close out each evening. Thanks so much to all the workers who have put in extra hours over the summer to help with the Bobby Richardson event, Relay for Life and Vacation Bible School. We could not do what we do without people working hard to make these opportunities possible. God has blessed us so richly with these opportunities to bind our church family together with a common purpose as we have worked on each project.
     We still have two projects to work on before the end of the summer. We want to build a playground for the children of our church and our community and a water garden. So we still have some fun things to do together and we will have something to show for our labor at the end of each day. Please contact Deerfield UMC if you would like to come and join us for the work we are doing in the name of Christ here in Boone NC.