Last weekend (March 28 & 29) we took a trip to Minneapolis, Minnesota for the Twin Cities Regional Puppetry Festival with One Way Street, Inc. where Lee was responsible for handling the sales of all the ministry resources you see pictured, and Doug taught classes in basic ventriloquism, creating unique voices and developing puppet characters. In addition, Doug judged a puppetry competition, MC’ed a creative ministries competition, and delivered the closing challenge to the participants.
Actually, our trip started on Friday, when we were chauffeured to the airort by our dear friend Chloe Burke. Chloe is 4 years old, so she brought her mom, Lori, to drive. We introduced her to “Peepers” which turn your hand into a puppet, and a new friend was born! What a joy to be cared for by these loving friends. Lori is in our small group at church, and works with Lee on Kingdom Kids.
The Minneapolis area seems to be a pocket full of creative people. This festival always seems to have people who are particularly interested in good puppetry and good ministry. We renewed some friendships with creative friends we’ve known over the years, such as Bram Jarvis, the creator of the blacklight fish puppets we used last summer at VBS (see blog entry for August, ’07).
We also got to spend some time with Lisa Laird, an excellent ventriloquist from Orange City, Iowa. Lisa and her husband Alan, head the “Laird Legacy” of outstanding puppeteers and vents. I’ll get their website for you - you really should look them up. Lisa won a gold medal in the Creative Ministries competition, and taught a class on making “foam ball” puppets (We’re tellin ya - - ya gotta look up their site!).
This particular festival started in “recovery mode”, as a clerical error had sent all of the resources that were to be sold at our resource table (Lee’s domain) to Pittsburgh, instead of Minneapolis. A midnight run requiring the driving skills of KJ Schmidt and Dale VonSeggen brought the materials to Minneapolis by Friday, but eliminated the time required to set up the stage for Friday night’s theme performance. Ahhhh - the simplicity of ventriloquism! Doug stepped in with a vent performance reflecting the theme, “Planned with a Purpose”, using the simpler set up of a vent stand and a 9 foot grand piano!
Regional festivals begin at supper time on Friday nights and go at 110 mph until they roll to a stop at about the same time on Saturday. They offer anywhere from 5 to 8 classes for each of the three workshop periods, and still have time for three performances, devotions and shopping for new resources.
After the festival, the staff packed and cleaned up all that was left, and headed out for dinner. A stop at the Mall of America proved that retail in the US is thriving! 2 hour waits for a table!! We opted to leave, and headed back to the Chili’s by our hotel. A delightful dinner later, we were all tired, and headed back to our rooms for the night. It’s hard to imagine we’ve only been here since Friday!
As we’re writing this post, we’re 35,000 feet above the US - somewhere over one of the Great Lakes, and the ice floes are fascinating. By tomorrow, we’ll be back to our daily chores and business. next weekend it happens all over again, as Lee heads to Virginia to see Chrissy, Todd, Sam and Dylan, and Doug heads to Brooksville, Florida for the Tampa Bay Area regional Puppetry Festival. Maybe we should just get our mail delivered to the baggage claim at Newark Airport!
Thanks for checking in - we’ll have more news for you shortly!
God be with you, and thanks for all your prayers and cares.
In His arms,
Doug and Lee
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