Serving God: Bringing His Message to Little Children Part 2
by Pamela Hahn
(Le Roy, Il.)
This posting is an update to a posting where I laid out my retirement plans.
What a year I have had. I did retire as of June 1. And now, my life is rather like I go to work each morning in my own home, working to bring awareness to the story "The Star Who Almost Wasn't There
." The calling to get this story to children everywhere is a tall order. It is not something I can do myself. So I am trying to engage others and form a nonprofit with that goal.
I am setting up a web site to bring donors together with churches and other nonprofits who will distribute the book to children who otherwise may not learn about relationship with God, through their mission networks. The site will have a list of participating organizations. Donors can choose to donate books and select the organization they would like to have distribute them.
I have started a mailing campaign, a 3 part series, to try to engage churches and organizations in my community. So in addition to building a new web site, I am writing and sending letters with information.
I find that all fun. But the most fun is in participating in various Christmas events and creating artwork. For example, I have been designing a Christmas Tree for the Festival of Trees which raises funds in my community for an organization called the Baby Fold. I have scheduled several readings of the story for young children at libraries. And I am creating centerprieces for a Woman's Christmas Breakfast.
I'm stretching myself. I've created custom made tree ornaments that have the entire story, page by page per ornament, and I am fabricating a couple of sets of these, one for the tree I am designing of course. And I've created a clay model of a tree topper with the character of the little Star, am currently creating a rubber mold of that model, and hope I can cast a 2-part plastic resin 'hollow' model into which I can place a LED light.
I find the variety of activities exhilarating!
But I am encouraging creative efforts to share
the story on the part of participating organizations. One local church which has a group of pretty professional puppeteers, is putting on the play "The Star Who Almost Wasn't There" with their puppets for the children of the church. They may schedule another event and invite in children from the community! That is how we hope to make this story snowball.
I haven't accomplished everything I wanted this year. I still plan to create a coloring book version of the complete story which can be produced less expensively than the full color version making it accessible to more and offering another option for donations of coloring books to be distributed to children.
Are you fluent in a foreign language? I am hoping to get the story translated for distribution to some communities in the U.S. and to other countries. Perhaps you can volunteer to ehlp with that?
But sharing the book is not my only effort. I am also building my Art/Creativity studio business. I am creating prototypes of products for sale based on the characters in the book.
I hope to enlist crafters in the production of some of these products in a way that enables them to work in their homes or studios to fulfill orders that I place. I will then sell those products from my own web site and at various events.
It makes sense too to enable others to market these products online etc. sharing the profit with them.
I have work cut out for many years and I hope that I help creat jobs for others, especially fun work for other retirees.
You can find me on facebook at Hahnblog and The-Star-Who-Almost-Wasnt-There/403577159713748.
There is a link to my blog site on the retirees blog here at retirement-online.com. And you can always visit my web site thespiritoflight ie. The Spirit of Light.
I hope you all find as much satisfaction in your retirement as I have found in mine, working for God and following other smaller dreams.
God bless.
