Creation!

[curiouswombat]

This is a post about 'what I did on Sunday'.

It was the Children's Anniversary Service at Church - we had been working hard towards it for the last couple of weeks. You may remember my family producing new words for Who Put The Colours In The Rainbow...

So, at the centre of the service was a frieze that would slowly be unrolled along the back of the Sanctuary as I retold the story of Creation as outlined in Genesis - so first of all this needed to be painted -

Here are some of the artists at work -



And then we cut out and/or painted the sun, stars, moon, animals, plants fish, insects and birds to be added as we went along, and also animal masks for the children to wear. Great fun. We started with a totally black square - then God decided there should be something, rather than nothing - and he started to create the universe - with a big BANG! The children enjoyed making a big bang! And so we proceeded - until after ten minutes, which included small people climbing up onto the ministers' chairs to blu-tak things onto the frieze, we ended up with this -



We had all the congregation singing 'Who Put The Colours In The Rainbow', and 'From The Tiny Ant' as a two parter; they were all so impressed with themselves that that finished with a spontaneous round of applause! Not something you often hear in a Reformed church..!

I didn't get a chance to take a picture of all the masks, becuase as soon as the service finished, we decided to try to take a new picture of the whole congregation for our website. A few people were missing, and a couple avoided being on the pic - but this is a 'family picture' of our congregation -



We hadn't finished even then - oh no! About three-quarters of the congregation then went together to the local Wildlife Park for the rest of the day. We mostly travelled together - on a double decker bus. This pic shows some of us downstairs - with my slightly goth niece in the front, my sister and I behind, and my sister's sister in law behind again!



D-d and her boyfriend joined us there - they took the car as she needed to get him back to the airport for his flight home, he was only over for the weekend. They avoided the camera.

I just want to share a few of the pics I took - this shows some of the children on the miniature railway -



My sister and I had a great time going around the park on it ourselves...

And finally - the compulsary lemur pics -



We have a walk through area with lemurs in - they are very friendly -



We had to check my sister's bag to make sure she wasn't smuggling that one out with her - she was very tempted!



Talking about creation - I most certainly recommend Dr Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation for entertaining reading.

Comments

[rachel2205.livejournal.com]

Nice pics!

Your congregation certainly looks like a family :)

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

It is one of the things that I like about our church - it really is like a big family - although like any other family there are some one likes more than others, and the occasional squabble! But on the whole everyone cares about everyone else, and tries to support them - which is how a church ought to be, of course.

[opalescence.livejournal.com]

What a nice family of congregants. And I would love to pet a lemur. :-) Thank you for sharing!

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

The lemurs are lovely. I love the way that our church is like one big family - and going on bus trips and things together a couple of times a year is good fun.

[opalescence.livejournal.com]

Well you certainly know when someone is not in church, that's for sure!

[winsomeone.livejournal.com]

There is a miniature railway like that one in a park near us. They really are fun to ride.

Craft projects are so much fun to do with kids. They did a wonderful job.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

The railway is run totally by amateur enthusiasts - many of them have their own engines, and so which engine the train is pulled by depends on which of the club is there!

On Sunday they were running long trains with a steam engine front and back.

[bojojoti.livejournal.com]

Your church children are certainly appreciated and loved. A fun project for them and for the congregation.

The Manx climate is certainly milder than ours. I see sweaters and jackets, whilst we are sweltering in 100° weather (and likely to be so for the next month).

I would love to pet a lemur!

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

The children regard much of the congregation as spare aunts, uncles, and grandparents! Although quite a few of them are related to one or two of the congregation - the children on the first carriage of the train are all grandchildren of two long standing members of the congregation - one of these children belonging to each of their children!

It was a lovely summer day, for us - the sun shone, and it was about 68F. Today it might touch 70 - it rarely goes much higher though.

The lemurs have a large enclosure, with the walkway roped off, as you can see. But they come and sit on the posts of the ropes, or right out in the walkway, and 'ask' to be fussed if they are in the mood.

[pfeifferpack.livejournal.com]

Jealous here...you get to TOUCH the lemurs!!!!

The congregation looks the perfect size for a church family to be as it should. Love how they were really all involved with the theme, just as a family should be.

Kathleen

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

The lemurs decide for themselves whether to come near the people or stay well away. The ringtails come to have a close look sometimes but the ruffed lemurs positively ambush people some days.

As for the congregation - for a variety of reasons some of the younger generation were missing on Sunday, three teenagers and a couple of twenty year olds, and have suggested that I should 'photoshop them in' to prove that we have a family with all the generations!

[kazzy-cee.livejournal.com]

I love the frieze - craft activities like that with the children are so satisfying aren't they?

The trip looks like it was fun - and you had good weather by the look of it! :)

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

The frieze was great fun - in theory all the fish and flying things should have been in the next to last square, and all the animals on the last square - but they quickly began to spread, and it was even more fun this way.

The weather was lovely - sunny and about 19 -20C.

[ballena.livejournal.com]

That looks so much fun - what a lovely idea!! And a few smiley faces I recognise :-)

Actually, your other niece has been in school a few times over the last few weeks, with Works - we're having some plumbing issues with water coolers etc... the first time they were called, they were in for just 2 minutes because it turned out that the problem with our water cooler was that it wasn't switched on!! D'oh. Bet they love getting calls from St Thomas'. Ha ha.. I feel a bit like a stalker actually, as I bet E has no idea who I am - although I remember her being a lovely sweet little Brownie - and performing a teletubbies sketch in our show at the Gaiety!

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

The Creation Frieze was good - took us a while to plan, choose songs and poems, paint the background, make masks, find animals and fish etc. - good way to fill three Sundays, four if you include the actual service.

The trip was good fun too - the kids were able to wander around by themselves some, as there was someone they knew more or less around every corner.

Lizzie has grown up nicely, hasn't she? She loves her job. But I bet you hope she didn't recognise you on the day they found the watercooler switched off!

[debris4spike]

Thanks for sharing those pics ... I really love that banner.

I can remember doing simlar with the plagues years ago - Not such a nice topic ... and everyone teases me to this day that I had to do the dead cattle - so I cut out all these cows and stuck them on the grass - upside-down!!

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Seems a perfect way to do the dead cattle.

In the third picture down in this post (http://curiouswombat.livejournal.com/121047.html#cutid1) is the plagues interpreted as a floral arrangement by some local Sunday School children...

[jerusha]

Hee! Oh, those are wonderful pictures, and the lemurs are just too cute!

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I love being able to get so close to the lemurs. Actually you can get as close to the wallabies, or the maras and guanacos, but they are less inclined to come up and demand attention!