Friday, December 18, 2009

Movie Night!

One of the things we are beginning to realize is that whenever there is a school vacation there is not too much to do on our island. Lots of our parishioners are planning to go to the US or Nassau for Christmas. (Chistmas on Nassau is dominated by Junkanoo - think Caribbean mardi-gras)

Well we decided to try something new and have movie night at Church.

We had brought a view DVDs with us and one of them was THE NATIVITY so we scheduled a movie night! Wed at St. John's and Thur at Christ the King.

I moved our TV from the rectory into the church, set up the DVD player, and we were ready to go. Ginni baked cupcakes and I picked up a case of soft drinks for 'intermission' and we were ready to go.

We had about 15-20 at St. John's and it seemed to be a hit, after the movie we talked about it a bit and for most of our parishioners seeing a movie like this was a real treat. Christ the King was a hit as well but the audience was dramatically different. We had 17 children and 20 adults - of the 17 children, 10 were there with no parents - and when I say children, I mean 5-10 year olds.

This is a PG movie because of some violent scenes (slaughter of the innocents for example) and I made a point of explaining things so it worked, but I was amazed at the number of unaccompanied children. Especially since for some of those in the more remote parts of the island we provided transportation.

Imagine pulling up to a house, honking, and have 5 little kids run out with no adults. When you ask "Are your parents coming?" the response is, "No Deacon, dey be off". Translation - no, they are off the island, meaning these kids are left alone without parents until they return, the oldest 11 year old being in charge.

Ginni sat with one crew of kids to make sure they stayed still and I was in the back with another crowd. All in all they were pretty well behaved.

Next time we do this we'll show NARNIA and have a more child-specific video for this audience.
Till next time.

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Christ the King pic

A few blog entries ago I described the celebration of the Feast of Christ the King that we had at our church of the same name. In that post I described the decorations inside the church and I have just recieved a pic from that event that I thought I would share.

The front of the altar is encircled with fresh fruit and veggies that were given to parishioners, plus a banner in front of the altar reading 'Feast of Christ the King'.
Those of you reading this from St. Timothy's in Norwood may recognize the Book of the Gospels on the altar. When St. Tim's 'upgraded' we were blessed to recieve this glorious gift and its been put to good use ever since.