The Makings Of A Snow Hill

Many times in life we have dreams that never come true. In my offices, you will find a picture of a piece of barren land in Florida with a quote by Walt Disney that says, "It's kind of fun to do the impossible". It is fun to dream up something and work out the crazy details and see it happen. Last night, I got to experience one of those crazy fun days that you get to do something amazing. Here is how it came about...

About a month ago, I was looking at the calendar and noticing our annual Kid's Rock Christmas Party. I thought to myself, "Last year was fun, but I need to take it to another level this year". I stepped back and began to think of things about Christmas and this time of year that would make the night memorable. I thought about giant Christmas cookies and Snow men. I considered Christmas light tours and hot chocolate drinking contests. Nothing seamed right. I kept going back and forth on different things and two different things happened. First, I was having a conversation with someone about the greatness of the movie "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation". I thought about the scene where the Grizwalds put some special cream on a sled and it takes off across town like a rocket. I am sitting here chuckling as I am thinking about it. Then, I went and visited some friends in Cleburne for a wedding that I was supposed to perform on an icy weekend. I saw snow, ice, sleet, and a host of other cold stuff that totally messed up my weekend plans. I had fun hanging out with friends inside but while I was gone I had an idea. What if I made some sort of snow hill, real or fake, for our kids to sled down at our Christmas party? It would be worth thinking about. 

Driving home, I asked Marge to look up snow machines, snow rentals, snow blowers, snow makers, anything to do with snow. I had no idea what it would cost to make this happen or if it was even possible to make it happen. We found fake snow that they use in movies and productions. We found people that sold snow by the bag. We found someone that would mail you snow from the Rockies at a small fortune. She would read information and websites to me as we drove. If it sounded like something I needed to look into further I had her text me the information. I got back and tried to figure out a plan for staff meeting and had some general stuff, but not all my details. I knew I needed to just throw the idea out there. If you don't ask about a dream then you will never know. My Pastor kinda looked at me like I was crazy at first, you know we do live in south Texas. Then, he said get good details like how much and stuff and then we can talk more. I preceded to calling "snow" companies about this crazy idea. 

The first company, they never returned my call. They had different ways of doing this but I know God was guiding this dream because the next company I called was the one we ended up using and they were great. It costed about a third of what my Pastor initially thought it would cost.  It was still kind of expensive but I was willing to bring our Youth department in on it too. We split the cost and Pastor said he could make up the difference. He was on board and that encouraged the dream. Called the snow guys up and everything was booked. They showed up about 6:30 last night and shot about 8000 lbs of snow onto the front lawn of our church on a day that it was in the 70s in San Antonio. Our kids got a "white"Christmas... party and got to have an evening of sledding. It was a great night.

The thing I love about this, I knew I could dream and take a shot. Whatever you do, "Dream!" You don't know if it is crazy until you tell someone. Even if it is crazy, do your homework and see if you can get others to get on board. I love my pastor, without him being encouraging this would have never happened. He saw the potential for kids to have a very memorable night at God's house by helping make this happen. I have worked with and know other kid's pastors that work for Pastors who may have thought this was just a waist of money being put on frozen water. They would have missed an opportunity. Nights like these are the things outside of the altar that I want to create. Memorable moments that kids fall in love with church time and again. It is at church where they can learn about God and have fun. So dream, dream big and don't be afraid to ask. Even if it does seam as crazy as putting a snow hill in San Antonio.