Telling the Story Again

Once again we had the privilege of sharing The Real Story of Christmas this year at Crossroads Church. This was our seventh year to produce the show and we worked hard to scale our efforts after such an amazing response to the show last year. In order to reach even more people with the story, we expanded to two weekends and twelve showtimes - three on Saturday and three on Sunday the first two weekends of December. Our goal was to reach more people and make our crowds more safe and manageable. Last year we had several "standing room only" crowds and it was far from ideal. 

Our efforts paid off in some regards and failed in others. We did have a pretty major setback when the School Board decided not to allow us to put an invite in the hand of every child in the Parish like we have the past few years. However, that didn't prevent us from growing. This year over 15,000 people attended the show! More importantly, over 2,000 responded to the gospel! 

The premise of the show is so simple a child can understand it. The moment our main character - Grace Doll - admits she's broken and looks to the Toymaker for a new heart, the gospel comes alive for so many people and they immediately see themselves in the storyline and desire to become a part of the real story themselves! 

The aspect of our efforts that didn't work as well was spreading the crowds out over the twelve performances equally. The second weekends show were almost all at capacity, where the first weekend we had several shows that were pretty light. We are hoping next year, people will work with us on distributing the crowds more equally. We are considering offering online registration for seating as a measure to achieve this. If we are able to spread the crowds out, we literally could accommodate 20,000 people with our current schedule! 

Another real success for us this year was financing the outreach. It is very expensive! Over the past few years we have opened the show to sponsors, began selling concessions and merchandise and this year made a limited number of prime seats available for purchase. All this really paid off and allowed us to put on the production in the black! The reason this is so important is because, by underwriting the outreach we are able to tell the story again and again! 

Elsie Willow

We are so blessed to welcome the newest addition to our beloved family! Little Elsie Willow arrived just after midnight on December 17th! Weighing in at 8.7 pounds and 20" long, she is bigger than Ezekiel at birth - a wonderfully healthy baby girl! 

Her mom and dad are head over heals in love with her, Poppy and Lovey are completely smitten, Uncle Chase is already securely tied around her little finger and big brother Ezekiel thinks she's the cutest!

I love that she was born on the 17th! My birthday is January 17th. Similarly, Robin's birthday is January 8th and Ezekiel's is February 8th. Donna's birthday is September 11th and Chase's is February 11th. I don't know if I like this for sentimental reasons, or it just makes it easier to remember! 😁

We are so thankful for this little bundle of joy and so grateful for the blessing of enjoying our children's children.