Nazarene kids give youngsters Easter surprise

By Matt Bewley | The Daily Journal

Published Friday, April 13, 2007

Strangely enough, no one called the police Saturday morning when Laurie Mitchell said, “Let’s go egging,” and took 21 kids out to egg three homes.

That’s because the eggs were actually Easter eggs full of treats and they weren’t thrown, but hidden in the yards and around the homes of three lucky families.

Mitchell and the kids are all part of “The 12,” the First Church of the Nazarene's youth group.

“This is our second year doing this,” Mitchell said. “I read about it in a Focus on the Family magazine. My husband, Clay, is the youth pastor so things like this are always on our minds. I was trying to think, ‘What can we do for our kiddos?’ I mentioned to Clay that this would be a good idea.”

The youth group, comprised of kids in grades seven through 12, focuses on helping their community.

“We try to have our youth involved in service projects,” she said. “It’s good to pour your life out. It takes our focus off of ourselves. This is really something that the kids look forward to doing. The first year, we had maybe 12 kids, and now we have double.”

The recipient families were selected by the kids.

“I told them to pray about it and see if the Lord laid anyone on their hearts,” Mitchell said. “They came up with three families. One had a baby on the way, another was a new family to the church with three young kids and the third was a family that did not belong to our church, but had a house full of kids.”

So they went out shopping for treats and toys. The money would actually come the day after the Egging, but they put up the funds themselves.

“We purchased on faith,” Mitchell, said. “We knew the money was coming when we served the Easter morning breakfast, which is one of the fundraisers we do.”

The shoppers, Mitchell and four girls, bought gift certificates at Service Foods, Target and Coffee Cabin. Then they bought candies and egg-sized toys at the Dollar Tree.

On Saturday morning, they got their goodies all ready for delivery.

“We stuck with candy and would write scripture verses and put them in the eggs, too. We got buckets for the gifts certificates, toys, videos and puzzles. And we got things like bath salts and books for the moms. We tried to personalize it for each family. One had a little girl and a baby so we gave them dress-up clothes and baby toys. Everyone came in and assembly-lined it, to fill the eggs.”

They filled over 300 eggs, loaded everything into the vans and headed out.

“The kids poured out of the vans with armloads of eggs, and hid them all over the yards and around the house,” she said. “After we’d done the second house, we drove back by the first one, and saw a very pregnant mom out there helping their kids look for the eggs. That was the highlight for the kids.”

When they got to the last house — whose occupants did not know what was about to happen — Mitchell decided to play it safe and rang the doorbell.

“I said, ‘Just wanted you to know that you’re being egged right now. Have a happy Easter.’ Their kids poured out to look for the eggs. It was a really fun and unexpected treat for them.”

They will be doing it again, next year, so if you happen to look out your window the morning before Easter Sunday and see a bunch of kids piling out of a van with colored eggs in their hands, call your kids to come see.

There’s a new kind of Easter Bunny in town.