Fall Festival by Joshua's Hands

The Fall Festival is an annual event hosted by a local family. They've been doing it for nearly 25 years. And since their second son died in an auto accident in 1998 at the age of 16 or 17, they have done the event in his honor.

This is my 3rd or 4th year to be involved with the event. Previous years, I had only volunteered for an hour or two to help with crafts or games. This year, I committed to helping with the food--an all day committment. They provided rolls and drinks for all the volunteers at 7:30. I hadn't promised to be there by then, but I wanted to be there if I could. I actually tried to get up at 7:00, but my body rebelled. Getting up about 45 minutes later worked much better.

Before I left the house this morning, I discovered a wet spot on my carpet between the living room and the kitchen. :( As a couple of years ago, the house had trouble with water coming up under the floor in both the living room and the bedroom, I was immediately making sure I hadn't missed any other wet spots and called Mark. They were preparing to leave for vacation for the week, but he did come over briefly. He believes the water is coming in this time because the gutter is broken near that point. (Water had come in previously because the rain wasn't draining properly through my yard and was instead going under the house.) He already has someone coming in to fix the gutter. Hopefully, I'll be able to get the carpet dried out before it mildews.

Arriving at the Fall Festival, everything was re-arranged and covered to host the festival in the rain. It had rained all day Friday and was predicted to rain all day today (for a total of 3-6" of rain)--and it did. At one point in the afternoon, one of the guys pulled a bucket from the back of his truck. It had just been out since he'd parked his truck that morning, but there was at least 2" of water in the bucket--all rain. But blessedly, the day was relatively warm. For the morning, anything heavier than a rain jacket was almost too warm. The temperature cooled noticeably through the afternoon. Even so, I heard someone say it was still 60 degrees when we were tearing down after 5:00.

The rainy weather, naturally, put a serious dent in attendance. Last year, there were 1,200 kids at the festival--plus their parents. Early estimates from the parking attendents (and rescuers when vehicles got stuck in the muddy field) put this year's total attendance around 1,000.

And the food? The chili and the chicken noodle soup and the hot dogs were all very well received--but the chili was especially popular as peoeple were trying to stay warm. We started out the morning heating some cider for drinks, but weren't able to keep up with the demand with the burners being used to heat the chili for lunch and afternoon.

The cloggers normally perform at the Fall Festival. However, the festival was reduced from 3 entertainment stages to 2 stages--and they were both in the same building, so couldn't be used at the same time. The entertainment schedule had to be completely re-worked.

As expected, the day of working at the festival was tiring. At the same time, it was very rewarding. It was truly a joy to serve the food as an act of love and service. I was neither working the event as a paid employee nor having to collect money for anyone else.

If you are ever in this area for the Saturday of Columbus Day weekend, I'd recommend that you take the time to stop in and witness the fun and ministry of the Fall Festival.