PRIZES AT LIVING WATER!!

This past week, Holly Ward emailed me and asked if I'd ever had a raffle at Living Water. I told her I hadn't, but I was open and asked what she had in mind. She had 6 Wonderland tickets and wanted to donate them. (Wonderland is the local amusement park for those who don't live here.) I told her to be praying and I'd do the same and we'd see how to use them.
As I prayed about it, our Bible verses came to my mind. Each week, we give three prizes for the first three people who can say the new Bible verse of the week word perfectly. Our prizes haven't been expensive prizes, but it's generated enough interest to get people memorizing--my main motive. So this week, I decided to have 4 verses that we've already memorized and give the Wonderland tickets to the first person who could say all 4 verses at the same time word perfectly. Later Gib came to me and told me we had a spiral sliced ham that we should give away. And then Gayle White brought a jewelry cabinet that she wanted to donate. (Both without knowing what we planned to do this week!) So we had our first, second and third prizes!
I wish you could have been there! George Nies was our "listener" and had to determine who the winner would be. We have 45 minutes from the time most people get there and when we begin our service. So people were cramming on those 4 verses those 45 minutes and standing in line to say their verses to George! There were three kids (10-14) who tried so hard to win!! I bet this first boy said the verses about 6 times trying to win.

This boy said the 4 verses over and over trying to win the Wonderland tickets. But he just won the ham...

This young woman was the first to say all 4 verses word perfectly. She was given the choice of the Wonderland tickets or the jewelry chest. She took the chest because she knew the kids wanted the tickets so badly...and she was hoping one of them would win! (So sweet!) And then she found out what a prize she had---it was full of jewelry!!!

But it was this gentleman on the right who won the Wonderland tickets. The crowd erupted when George announced our winner!! It was so much fun---the crowd LOVED it! Thank you, Holly, for such a generous fun idea!