Another
Bethlehem Street Market is officially in the books. Well, it will be as soon as we finish all the
cleanup. The Seaside team once again
pulled together to pull off an amazing event.
Special kudos this time to my lovely wife Chris for coordinating the entire
thing. You’d be hard-pressed to find
another organizer as efficient as she has been.
Best
guess is that well over 200 people made their way in and through the Seaside worship
and retreat center and through the array of vendors setup outside under the
retreat center. And every one of them
was given a gift bag with a New Testament inside. There were four or five vendors who were
afraid to brave the nip in the air, but those who did were rewarded with a
beautiful day. Totals are not all in yet
but we made over a thousand dollars for missions. But the best part of the whole day was the
way the community and the church came together for some fun … and some
practical Christmas shopping.
On
the scary side, we started the day after Galveston’s first snowfall since 2004
with a blanket of frost on the ground and vehicles and … ramps. Both of our ramps – and anything made of wood
(read here the deck of the retreat center)
were quite slick for a good portion of the vendor setup time. Warnings were issued all around, but sure
enough, one of our young ladies exited the building upstairs, performed one of
the most beautiful and graceful pirouettes I have ever seen (unintentional, of course), and landed on
her back … side. She was embarrassed but
seemed to be OK physically. A little
while later one of the vendors was making her sixth or seventh trip down the
worship center ramp when she, too hit a slick patch and went to the ground. It took her a while longer and several of us helping
for her to get back up and move around again.
And
on the vehicular side, we got one notice that a car was stuck in the sloshy
grass of one of our parking lots. Several
of us hurried out to help, and managed to get her going again. And before we issue another warning, a second
vehicle was stuck in about the same place.
I only heard about this one after the fact, but apparently our Jamaica
Beach fire chief had just driven up, so he took control of the situation. Thanks for the help, Kyle.
So
much for the negative. Here are a few
anecdotes from the day:
As the
vendors were setting up, one of them asked no one in particular if “they” (meaning Seaside) by any chance had an
extra tablecloth around she could borrow.
Before any of us could respond, a voice rang out from a vendor in the next
room, “I have an extra.” During the day I
saw vendors chatting and showing each other how to make the different kinds of
crafts on display. And at the end of the
day vendors were helping each other carry display cases and merchandise back to
their cars. I’m not an expert on the craft
fair circuit, but I was told that such behavior is the exception rather than
the rule among this crowd. Hey, I’ll go
for that exception any day.
One
Seaside gentleman there to help was amazed at the whole situation. He told me no less than six times that it
reminded him of one of the Hallmark movies he loved to watch on TV. In that scenario I felt like the
underappreciated handyman to Chris’ absolute dominance as the event coordinator. Maybe we could sell movie rights.
One
lady approached me with a question about a particular Christmas ornament she
had seen on one of our decoration trees.
I checked around to see what she was talking about. It was one that had been donated in a box
full of ornaments. She wanted to buy
that particular one. I told her she
could donate whatever she wanted “into the pot” and it was hers. She told me, “Well, I just bought an ornament
downstairs for ten dollars, so here’s ten for this one. Where’s the pot?” Easiest sale of the day.
Here’s
one posted by one of our out of town vendors and friend Pat:
Today's adventure - I leave Galveston around 5 pm heading to
Hallettsville. I had my phone GPS set to bypass downtown Houston. I THOUGHT it
was directing me to I-10, but instead it put me on Hwy 90. Of course, it was
pitch dark, and I didn't want to risk getting lost so I just followed the
instructions. Everything was going well UNTIL traffic stopped in the middle of
nowhere. We sat forever (probably 10 minutes, but it felt like forever) and I
heard all kinds of sirens, so I thought it must be a BAD accident. Finally, we
start inching forward and notice that there is a truck picking up the traffic
cones. One of the workers motioned for us to move into the center turn lane. We
started moving along and I noticed all these people along the sides of the
road. All of a sudden I realized as I approached a fire truck with a Santa
riding on top that I was now IN a Christmas parade!!! I saw a Family Dollar and
gap in front of the fire truck so I darted into the FD parking lot. I went
inside and told the worker what had just happened and she was rolling. I think
my spiritual gift is making people laugh.
Finally,
I have to give my Christmas saying of the week award to the lady with the sweatshirt
that read, “Go Jesus … It’s Your Birthday!”
Yup.
Psalms
16:2 says, “I said to the Lord, ‘You are
my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing.’”
Father,
thank you for the great teamwork and spirit of cooperation we saw yesterday. Honor that spirit with some great
blessing. Amen.
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