THE PUPPETS OF ST. ANDREW'S by Louise Bowles

One of the puppets, (it was the little chipmunk, Chadder!) just now nudged me and said I'd better get busy doing a report on their work, so I knew I'd better turn the computer on and start writing.

Our puppet ministry began at St. Andrew's through the prayers and promptings of a former rector, Fr. Charles Robinson. Roped into action by the Holy Spirit, I set about learning all I could on the topic. I enlisted the help of Hope Warlick, and together we went out looking for puppets and books and scripts, etc. There are many approaches to puppetry, but we decided to restrict our characters to friendly furry animals, and to restrict our plays to uplifting, informative and spiritual-type subjects.

Our first play was presented on November 1, 1998, and the production company is called "Narrow Road Puppetry" taken from the Matthew 7:14, "But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life." Once each month at the second service, we had a short puppet play right after the Gospel is read. From time to time, we brought the puppets to both the 8:00 and 9:00 services.

Due to hand surgeries on both hands, our Puppet Master, Louise Bowles, has been on sabbatical this past whole year. In years past, we all enjoyed a monthly Children's Puppet Sermon during our 9:00 Sunday worship services, and if you remember, the adults usually took a little more home from these than even our children did!

Hopes were entertained that a cheerful-and-somewhat-"insane" adult would step into the shoes vacated by yours truly (aka Louise Bowles, self-described here-in). This hasn't come to pass as yet, but the need and interest for the return of our adorable animal puppets remains. If you are interested, or know anyone that you can coerce into trying on the "puppet-shoes", please contact me. I will stand beside you to help, to train, to encourage; my hands simply haven't recovered sufficiently to get back into the fun yet. Thanks~!