Barneys Seven Churches Walk

 How Great is Our God!

It was a weekend of warm Spring weather and a day of beautiful sunshine provided by our Lord for the second Barneys Seven Churches Walk!

Almost 300 people from the Barneys Community enjoyed a relaxed walk through the inner city suburbs to visit 7 Christian churches who had generously opened their doors for our special day. The 5km walk was dominated by the prams and strollers of Barneys newest members (some just days and weeks old) and of course their parents accompanied them too. These groups adopted a leisurely pace and enjoyed a coffee break at the Eveleigh Markets along the way.

The 9 km walk attracted a huge crowd and an amazing variety of costumes. Some of the costumes included: baby Sophie in her custom-made  “Up” house, complete with balloons; the buff King Tut and the Egyptians who sprinted the first 100 metres of the walk in style; the Super Mario cars which were fully kitted out for comfort and speed, and of course the environmentally sensitive Team Paget, who recycled their “superman” capes from last year. We also saw a number of impressive lycra costumes that would be best described as bodysuits – including a bright green one worn by Hayden. Very brave to be wearing these on such a hot day!

Despite all of the competition, the team that were the crowd favourite on the day for the Best Costume Prize were the Arundel House Girls and their wonderful Madeline costumes. These costumes had all been hand made for the walk with late nights at the sewing machine, accompanied by Father and Sister to keep them all in their perfect lines of blue and white. They looked fantastic!

After the walk, we enjoyed lunch in Victoria Park under the shade of the huge fig trees and the children enjoyed the jumping castle and face painting. Prizes were awarded in three categories:

Best Costumes – Arundel House Girls

Biggest Fundraiser (Team) – Far East Team who raised over $9000

Biggest Fundraiser (Individual) – Alison Daly who raised over $4000.

Our special thanks go to our sponsors: Pinnacle Catering who provided lunch; Fine Food and Wine for our water; Featherdale Wildlife Park; Dendy Cinemas and AMF Bowling for the gift vouchers. Also thanks to volunteers who did such a great job in planning the walk, setting up the park, hosting the churches and helped out on the day to ensure we had a fun and safe day. We can’t forget the churches who also got behind our special day. Thanks again to Christchurch St Laurence, St Stephens Newtown, the Chinese Presbytarian Church, Newtown Mission, St Benedicts Broadway and St Saviour’s.

This year our walk raised a total of $89,000. This is a wonderful effort, especially in a challenging economic environment. The 2010 walk raised a total of $133,000. So our combined events have raised a grand total of $222,000 towards the community facilities and meeting rooms at our wonderful new Church. We have also touched the lives of hundreds of people outside our Barneys community, through the walks. We have raised awareness about our new Church, the Barneys Community and the light and hope of our saviour Jesus Christ. We look forward to inviting all of our generous sponsors to the opening of our new Barneys in 2012. Praise God!