The First Wednesday night dinner was a blast! Generally Outreach is not in charge of the First Wednesday dinner because it falls so close to Epiphany that we do a service then a meal. This year, Epiphany falls today!! This is the day that celebrates when the Wise men made it to see Jesus. The days from Christmas to Epiphany are the 12 days of Christmas. This is why our Christmas tree is still up! I love having the 12 days of Christmas after Christmas, it makes the celebration last longer.
Anyway, back to the Wednesday dinner... We had such a fun program this year. To start, families brought canned goods to give to our local food pantries. We encouraged everyone to bring three things to represent the three gifts the Wisemen brought Jesus. Then, everyone was encouraged to leave a shoe behind signifying the long journey the Wisemen took to get to Jesus (while everyone was eating we put gold chocolate stars in the shoes to show the start they followed). All this and we were just getting warmed up! After dinner, our dessert was a king cake that contained 3 beans and a little baby Jesus. The individuals that found the beans and baby Jesus were to represent three kings and baby Jesus. We had their costumes ready at the front. Some of our kids helped to dress them then we asked them to leave so we could prepare our "offerings" to them. We then passed out to each table a mad libs type story about Epiphany for them to fill out. This was a great way for tables to work together and there were some wonderful and hilarious words chosen to fit into the stories. The kings came back and someone from the table read the story. It was a wonderful intergenerational event as the children were laughing hysterically just like the adults! To end the evening we passed out sparklers. We were hoping to light these outside to sing together but it was too windy. So, we passed out the sparklers in the dining room, pretended they were lit and sang together, "This Little Light of Mine." The entire program was about 30 minutes, perfect timing for everyone! I know that I had a blast doing it and I hope everyone else did too!!
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Laura EstevezDirector of Outreach and Missions at the Episcopal Church of the Advent. Archives
June 2017
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