12 | May 2024
Sharing the Light in the Dark By Stephanie Heading, managing editor
WILLIAMSBURG, Ohio Q: What do you get when you have 180 kids, flash - lights, and a dark night? A: You get a unique Easter outreach event—the Night - time Easter Egg Hunt! For the past six years, Central Baptist Church has sponsored the Nighttime Easter Egg Hunt as a com - munity outreach in its hometown of Williamsburg, a village of 2,570 people in Clermont County, east of Cincinnati. “It’s typically just like a regular Easter Egg Hunt except it’s dark and they use flashlights,” Pastor Brad Whit - eford said. “For some reason, adding the flashlights makes it a totally different experience for the kids.” On Saturday, a week prior to Easter the event kicks off with free food. “We usually do food before we do any activities, so we had hot dogs, popcorn, bottled water, coffee, hot chocolate,” Whiteford said. “We had our parking lot full before we were ever sup- posed to start at seven o’clock which is not normal. And this year we had all sorts of people.” Whiteford
noted that 180 children, toddlers through sixth grade, were part of the total attendance of 400-500 people. For the first time, The S.O.S. Blacklight Drama Team from Batavia performed for the children. “Basically, it’s a blacklight puppet show,” Whiteford said. “They put on a 40 minute presentation that was gospel focused and then that allowed us to use the Evangecube to come out and share the gospel with the kids.” The team’s performance was a hit with the children. “They were paying attention. They were clapping and singing along.” Twenty-two children came forward af - ter the program wanting more information on following Jesus. “I think we were excited as a church because we really tried to figure out how to do a gospel presentation that was fun for the kids and this just seemed to work with what we are trying to do,” Whiteford said. “When we asked the Blacklight Team to come along with us, I really think that was kind of the secret sauce.” The egg hunt followed the gospel performance. “We divide the hunts into age groups. We have toddlers to four-year-olds, kindergarten and first grade, second
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The Nighttime Easter Egg Hunt drew 180 children and a total crowd of 400-500 for the annual event.
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