Letter from John Grondin

The Beginning of the puppet team

In 1993, we were members of a small church, West Hills Alliance Church, in Pittsburgh, PA. As with many churches, a request for volunteers went out to start a small children’s program . We prayed and felt it upon our hearts to take up this “simple little program” and it began! Initially, we started with sock puppets as it was supposed to be a “one time” engagement. The children enjoyed it so much that we were asked to do it a little bigger and better. Little did we know “God had his own plan”, and it all started with a pair of old sox!

We didn’t realize the impact this type of ministry could have until we obediently started taking it out to the public and trying to communicate God’s plan for salvation through skits and songs. Like most teams, we started with PCV material and bed sheets for our first stage. “Our” ministry went on for about a year, but was dying on the vine and looking back now it was terrible, but God was gracious and blinded the audience to most of the mistakes. After many attempts and failures and finally, after much prayer, (why do we wait?) we came to the conclusion that this was not our ministry, but God’s, and “turned the mess over to Him”. DUH!

Interestingly enough, after we finally relinquished the reins to Him, we found out about a company called One Way Street that is dedicated to using puppets, illusions, and unique activities to convey God’s love and plans for our lives. It’s amazing, but One Way Street “just happened” to be coming to Pittsburgh, PA, for the first time and within 20 miles of our home. We attended their regional Christian-based Puppet Festival dedicated to spreading the good news of Jesus Christ and “everything changed!” We were very excited to see people that were coming to know and accept Christ through His use of people using puppets, props, shadows, blacklight, pyro-techniques, etc., which could deliver a message that ordinarily would be difficult to convey in today’s sometimes anti-Christian environment. God led us to do shows at nursing homes, for the Girl Scouts, other churches, and even at a public mall. We were originally told that we could perform and then a few weeks later that we couldn’t perform in the mall unless we agreed to drop the name of Jesus in any skits. It was devastating to the team, but we should have known better and were taught a valuable lesson. God is bigger than even mall managers! “Somehow” that mall changed its mind, reached out and contacted our pastor and asked if we could perform after all. Don’t know why the original mall manager left, but his replacement “just happened” to be Christian. Things that make you go “Hmmmmm!”

The puppet team continued to grow, learn, and experiment with new techniques and new puppets while being sure to attend every annual One Way Street festival that came to the Pittsburgh, PA, area. These activities continued to enhance the knowledge and experience of the director and team as the festivals helped create new ideas, regenerate enthusiasm and develop camaraderie with other puppet teams. As many times as we had been to One Way Street, we didn’t feel led to participate in a One Way Street Festival, even though the focus was on learning, and not competition amongst the teams.

Forward in Time

In 1997, we moved to Olathe, KS. We had no stage and kept only 2 puppets, one was a blacklight puppet and the other was a standard puppet we had bought for ourselves and kept as souvenirs (or so we thought)!

To be completely honest, we had no plans of ever doing puppets again with any church, but it seems someone else had other plans for us. That’s when we visited JCCC (Johnson County Christian Church, Overland Park, KS). One thing led to another and wanting to help out we agreed to keep some of the kids in the church entertained while their parents participated in bible studies and such, at a retreat.

With such short notice we decided to do a little craft with the kids that consisted of working with the children painting small paper bags to look like candles with luminescent paint. They were all amazed when we turned on a blacklight (the only one we kept as a “souvenir,” used the blacklight puppet (Yes another “souvenir”) and started the music to “This Little Light of Mine”. The cat was out of the bag as such and many questions came as to how did we know how to do that?

Well, “we could run, but couldn’t hide!” Once again we prayed in earnest saying “Your will be done” (but really meaning as long as we didn’t have to do puppets again) and asked for some type of leading if it was really His will.

Well, it “just so happened” that One Way Street (yes, the same one that was in Pittsburgh, PA) started doing annual puppet festivals in the State of Kansas that week for the first time. It also “just happened” that they were coming to an area less than 20 miles away from where we lived! We surrendered, went to the Kansas Regional Festival, got excited all over again, bought another stage and were off and running again.

We joined Olathe Christian Church in Jan., 2000, and when one of the members found out we did puppets, they asked us to perform at their Fall Festival. We gathered some students and started yet another puppet team called H.I.S. (Hands In Service) Puppet Team. We began again using more object lessens, special effects, increased the difficulty and began doing shows that we would never have attempted before.

The newly formed team showed so much talent and dedication to the Lord that we immediately started taking shows out on the road to lots of different places (see below).

The very next time One Way Street came to Kansas we decided that not only would the entire team attend, but also participate in the actual competition. Once the team was made aware of the puppet festival, they all wanted to take center stage. For the first time we felt convicted that this was the direction God was leading us and there was no question of the outstanding dedication and commitment to hard work by the young team.

H.I.S. Puppet Team was on the March

One Way Street festivals are for praising God, learning skills, gaining new ideas and fun! Basically, when you enter the competition you are competing with yourself and challenging yourself to work even harder. The judges critique categories such as puppet technique, lip sync, presentation, creativity and character believability. The only part of the entire festival where there is actual competition between the teams is for the People’s Choice Award!

That year after a great deal of prayer, in March of 2001, we competed with 19 other teams in front of about 500 people and came away with a clean sweep of all categories including a Gold medal for puppetry techniques and believability, the People’s Choice Award and Exceptional use of Props and Scenery. Remember we were concerned that we might not be good enough to share the stage with some of the other outstanding teams. Wow what God has done since we “turned the mess over to Him” and stopped trying to do it our way!

Time for an explanation of the term the “God Factor”; this a term we coined after the first festival performance which means, when you do your dress rehearsal and everything you can in practice the night before, everything inevitably falls apart and you “look terrible”. Then before the show, you humble yourselves to the Lord, pray for strength and His will to be done, and whoompa, you look good even though you have many flaws and no right to deserve it! (Go ahead, ask any puppet team member about it, it’s real and has been repeated many times).

The Mantle gets passed

The puppet leadership has now transitioned to one of the OCC puppet team members, Randy Friesen, who continues to develop the ministry in new exciting ways and is carrying out God’s calling while working with a whole new group of youth and adults to praise God in this manner. It is interesting that shortly after Randy joined the team he stated that he wanted to make a puppet team his ministry when he got older.

We have seen God’s power in changed people on the team, audience members starting to come to church, people coming to Christ and in the many, many blessings we have received by following His direction.

If you are looking for a ministry where you can have fun, express yourself for the Lord, and be used by the Holy Spirit, well here it is! This is not a “children’s” ministry only; in fact, some of the themes and plays are only appropriate for an older crowd because, yes, they can speak of Hell and the truth according to the BIBLE. Oh yeah, you get to play with pretty lights, listen to loud music, and make things go flash and bang and such! Cool stuff!

H.I.S. Puppet Team has performed in the following locations:

City Union Mission

Nursing homes: Good Samaritan Center, Johnson County Nursing Center, Centers for Long term Care, and Meadowbrook Rehabilitation Hospital

Olathe Christian Church: VBS, OCC Pre-school, Daughter’s Day Taco Buffet, Youth Group Silent Auction, Christmas musicals, Spring Variety shows and the Fall Festival mentioned above

Other Churches: Lenexa Christian Center for the One Way Street Puppet Festivals (winning 4 gold medals, 2 silver medals and 1 bronze medal), Prairie Center Church of God, First Baptist Church and Tonganoxie Christian Church

That, That, That’s all folks!

In Christ,
John & Arlys Grondin