That was our goal last night; to Shine!! And I gotta tell you I think we did. Please don’t misunderstand that statement. Last night wasn’t about RiverChurch it was all about letting Jesus shine through us into our community, and man it was amazing.
We only advertised at the school where we held the event, that was scheduled to start at 7pm. We planned to start when it became dark outside so we could light the hilltop up with tons of lights. But people started showing up at 5:30 and we held them off as long as we could. Once all of our cars were in place and the decorating was complete we flipped the switch and the first ever City on A Hill was clear for lift off.
There’s no real way to know how many people came to City on A Hill, but suffice it to say there were a lot of people that came. We prepared almost 500 hotdogs and before the night was over every last hotdog was gone. We were even scrounging to find a few pieces of candy for people who were coming right up until 9pm when we shut it down.
Our team was amazing, they laughed, they dressed up in great costumes, and they smiled and hugged, and oohed and ahhed at every kid that came to their cars to play a game and get some candy. And these kids loved it. Some came by themselves and just clung to some of our workers.
I think the coolest thing about the night was what happened at very beginning. All day long it had been raining, and although the weather forecast was supposed to clear up there were times throughout the day that it didn’t look very promising. We started setting up at 3pm under a vey heavy cloud cover, and from a distance we could see what looked like more rain coming. I walked through the parking lot of ths school praying that God would blow the rain over. Then somewhere around 5:30 or 6 the sun came out just as it was setting behind the school, and directly over our hill appeared the most beautiful full rainbow. It was absolutely breathtaking.
The custodian for the school walked up to me, and said “I think somebody’s happy with you tonight!”
I’d sure like to think so. I’d like to think that we shined for him last night, and it made him happy!”