Highland Park Church to hold annual Lights of Lakeland event

LAKELAND, Fla- In its ninth year, Highland Park Church will once again present Lights of Lakeland, a free Christmas experience and live nativity walk-through, next week.

The event will be held from 6:30pm to 9pm Dec. 5, 6, 7, 12, 13 and 14.

"Highland Park Church presents Lights of Lakeland every year as a way to not only bless the community with a free, fun, and family-friendly Christmas experience, but also to present the Christmas story to the community," said Highland Park Church communications director Mendy Cummins.

Lights of Lakeland is a two part walk-through experience that begins with a Winter Wonderland, complete with photo opportunities, a general store just for the kids, a Sweet Shoppe, and a food court with local food trucks. Guests can take pictures with Mr. and Mrs. Claus, as well as meet famous characters like the Grinch, the Avengers, Cinderella, and Buddy the Elf. New additions this year include:

Communications Director Mendy Cummins
strikes a pose with Lights of Lakeland's
newest addition.

-Rudy the Reindeer

-Elsa and Anna

-Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

-Expanded Food Court

-Water Wheel

-Eiffel Tower entrance

As guests exit the Winter Wonderland, they are transported back in time as they enter a live action Bethlehem with scenes leading up to the birth of Christ. The atmosphere is complete with live camels, donkeys, and sheep. The walk-through finishes with the opportunity for guests to enter a prayer station.

"Our church has seen several families come to know Christ and experience freedom for their whole family after hearing the story of Christ's birth," said Cummins.

Over 1,500 volunteers will help run the two week event, and it is expected to draw a crowd of 30,000 people from the Lakeland community.

George Jenkins High School junior Sydney Kurtz has volunteered at Lights of Lakeland for the past three years, working in the General Store, as a Bethlehem character, and as a puppeteer.

"I like that we get to impact the community in a way that shows Jesus not as a boring guy but someone that changed the world," said Kurtz.

Emily Osley, a senior at Lakeland Collegiate High School, has volunteered every year since Lights of Lakeland began in 2005.

"I love volunteering at Lights of Lakeland because of all the people! I love knowing that I've helped make their holiday season special," said Osley.

Bronson and Sam Gamble and their newborn son, Micah, play
Joseph, Mary and baby Jesus at last year's Lights of Lakeland. 

Make sure to look for the Highland Park Church float at the Lakeland Christmas Parade Dec. 4. It is rumored Buddy the Elf and Jovie will be making an appearance once again. 

For more information, visit http://hplakeland.com/connect/lights-of-lakeland or call the church office at (863) 647-3518.

Follow Highland Park Church on Twitter or Instagram @hplakeland to keep up to date or search #lightsoflakeland to see photos and videos from the event.

Highland Park Church is located at 4777 Lakeland Highlands Road Lakeland, Fl 33813.

Coming out of the darkness...

Hello there blog readers! I know you are all probably in total shock right now seeing that I haven't posted here in nearly 3 years, but sometimes you just have to blog! Or you have an assignment that has extra credit....I'm in a journalism class and if we post our most recent piece on a blog we can get extra credit! And who doesn't love extra credit? So of course, I will be posting an article about Lights of Lakeland. Feel free to read it or totally disregard it, whichever you would like. But who knows, you could be following the blog of a future world renowned journalist (but I doubt that haha!).

Happy reading :)
Arin

Things are starting to get old.....

Man, have I been busy. School and sports take up all my time now so not a lot of time to write. I might have to go to a every few day basis on entries. But don't worry, they'll be here :)

Anyways, stuff is starting to get really old. Like school. How many days until summer vacation? All this homework is driving me nuts, and it seems like half of it is completely mindless yet so time consuming! And then there are the teachers. Holy cannolli, can you can any more scatter brained than my AP Bio teacher. You walk in and the dude has no clue what he's going to teach. He just stands there, awkward silence, then someone asks what we are going to do and he says "well, we could do this, but....I don't know, what do you think...well, maybe we should do this. But not now. Maybe. Ok, let's do it now." AHH, I'm going to go insane!

Field Hockey....Oh field hockey. How you drain me. Once again, we lost. In overtime. And the ball just rolled on in. I'm going to go bald by the end of the season if this is how every game plays out. I feel like I'm going to rip my hair out standing on the side lines. And then have an anxiety attack. Then a heart attack. And then maybe drop dead on the floor. I mean, we had 26, TWENTY SIX, corners and not a single one was a goal. The other team? Two. And when did they get a goal? In the last few minutes of the game just by luck someone tipped it in. We have to start finishing what we start. We outplayed those girls a hundred to one. We deserved to win. But we missed our chance, because we didn't follow through. We played 75% of the game on their side of the field, but every shot was a miss. Yeah, it's true you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. But you also don't win if none of those shots don't go in. I don't know...it's just so frustrating that we have never won a game. But we will. I know it. We HAVE to...or like I said, I'll be bald. And that won't be too attractive :)

A day of firsts

Today was the beginning of many scissor runnings, daring exhibitions. The first day of school, always so nerve wrenching yet it's the same every year. Anyways, I survived. Didn't run down the hall hoarding my books, running into people or getting lost. I'm beyond that now, I'm a big kid now. Do I feel like I'm in a little too over my head? You could say that. Is the school system getting dumber and dumber. Amen. Ridiculous, I tell you. I'm worried for society, I really am. Have we really gotten to the point where middle schoolers aren't allowed to wear hoodies? Because, you know I'm just gonna reach into my hood and pull out a hand grenade. And purses? For all the guys in the world who think it's unfair I can carry a purse. Be that way. Carry a satchel. Or a murse. Or just leave me alone! I've got stuff in there I need that you can go without.

First game of the season. Like you couldn't load any more nervousness(is that even a word) onto my plate. Most intense game of my life. 0-0 the whole game. Go into the dreaded overtime. 7 v 7. We load the field with offense and midfield so I sit the bench and watch. And wait. And yell. And scream. And pull my hair out. We literally thought we were going to pee our pants, the anticipation was so high. 1:05 and the other team smashes it in the goal.....Where's Road Runner because an anvil just landed on me. The most awful feeling ever, we were so close to our first win ever yet so far. But, we can't keep our heads down. It's only the beginning and we've got a whole season in front of us.

"That's what learning is, after all; not whether we lose the game, but how we lose and how we've changed because of it and what we take away from it that we never had before, to apply to other games. Losing, in a curious way, is winning."

RICHARD BACH, The Bridge Across Forever

Wise words, sir Bach. Wise words.

Keeping my head up high though. Life is tough, but I'm tougher. And I can run with scissors, so you better watch out :)

What is this?

That's what you are probably thinking.....what the heck is a scissor running? Well, it's basically an explosion of this ingenious mind. You may be thinking "I still don't get it." I don't either, so we're on the same page.

I've come to notice that I journal in my head. It's weird, I know. But I do. I can't stand writing in a journal. Tried it, not for me. It takes too long to write out all my thoughts so I just think them. In the long run, though, I can't ever remember all these brilliant ideas and tidbits of my life. So I thought, "what if I started a blog?". Not an online diary though, you don't need to know EVERYTHING about me. So this lovely blog will be snippets of my life. All the humorous, intelligent, stupid, fantastic bits and pieces that will make your life even more wonderful.

We could start now, or we could wait. I like suspense, so you'll just have to wait and see :)