04 Nov Family Night & Celebration

We absolutely love the Loy children we have in our Kids Club every Saturday! We also want to make a point to show their parents and families that they are just as loved as their kids. We aren’t able to do as much with the kids’ parents because of the extreme work schedules they all have, so we have been wanting to throw a party or do something special.

A few weeks ago we had a DTS team from England working with us. It was refreshing for all of us to be surrounded by so many passionate and energetic people. Since we had the extra hands and help, we decided to throw this big party we had been dreaming about!

I was in charge of taking a family photo of every family as they arrived, and they were all so excited. It seems silly, but this might have been the first party like this many of them have ever attended, and I could tell they felt important and special. What a perfect picture of God inviting us to His table and His party!

After they got their picture made, every family received a free blanket and Angel gave each person a raffle ticket (the prizes were a clock, fan, and rice cooker). Inside there were about 7 different stations with carnival games. We had face paint, balloon animals (thank you Harpenden team!), ring toss, ping pong bounce into a bucket, football kick, corn hole, knock the pyramid of cans over (baseball type throw), and a clothes station. We had a ton of clothes donated so every person was allowed to pick out one item. It was like Black Friday mayhem (but the good kind)! We had so many clothes that we ended up letting people just take as many as they wanted. Our team bought some groceries and four of the Loy moms cooked a delicious Northern noodle dish for dinner. It was perfect!

I ran up to Angel as she was eating and said, “leave your food for just a second and go look at the mom’s and dad’s faces as they play the games!” People were having SO much fun. Angel never returned to her food because it was so much fun! There was so much laughing going on and just pure joy. I teared up on multiple occasions because of parents laughing with their kids. The dads loved the ring toss! If you got a ring on a coke bottle in ring toss, you could keep that coke – naturally it was very popular!

After all the games we played some movies we had made of the Saturday Kids Club on a big projector. They LOVE seeing their kids and themselves in a movie! They laughed and smiled so big when we showed those videos. So much joy that night!

The boys sang a song about building your house on the Rock and the girls sang a song about how God loves you and me. The parents were so impressed with their kids and their hand motions – none ofus adults helped them sing or remember the motions. They’re pros!

We then had some group games planned and called the dads to come play. They all sat on a stool and their kids stood behind them with a cookie. The dads had to look up to the ceiling and their kids placed a cookie on their foreheads. The goal was the to get the cookie in their mouth without using their hands. It was SO funny as the dads were making all kinds of ridiculous faces trying to inch a cookie past their eyes and down their cheek into their mouth. I was laughing so hard I was on the floor crying! We then called the moms up to play and that was equally as funny! Nirut had an eating game for the dads after that, and everyone was going crazy cheering and screaming! I can’t describe it well enough to do it justice! It was the most fun I have had in such a long time. We had prayed for the love of God to be so evident during that celebration and party. Holy Spirit blessed us so much with joy and love.

Please be praying for the Loy families and community as we continue to love on them and tell them of God’s great love. He is so madly in love with these families. We want them to know that crazy love. Join us in prayer for this. Take a few seconds right now and pray however God leads you. Thank you!

God is doing something in these people and you are playing such a huge part.