PEA RIDGE — “We’re not a snake-handling church, that was just a promotion,” pastor Rick Booyer of Twelve Corners Baptist Church said.
Youth enrolled in Twelve Corners Vacation Bible School were challenged to collect more toys this year than any year before, and if they did, Booyer would handle a snake.
Booyer, who is admittedly deathly afraid of snakes, handled a ball python Saturday.
The children are challenged every year during VBS to collect toys as an outreach mission for the oncology clinic at Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Little Rock, Scott Easter said.
“Every time the kids have to go in and have a poke, they get to go to the toy closet. The only way those toys are put into that closet is through donations,” Easter said.
Easter said the first year the church did the toy drive, they collected around 400 toys. In 2009, 801 toys were collected.
This year, the goal was set at 1,000.
The kids collected a total of 1,773 toys.
“We told the kids we would have Preacher play with a snake. So Saturdaywent to PetSmart at Pinnacle Hills mall,” Easter said.
Booyer, along with Evan Campbell, held the twofoot snake.
“Evan had a pink shirt on that said ‘tough guys wearpink’ and he didn’t even grimace. Rick touched it with his finger, put it in his hand and it started crawling around. It tried to go up his shirt sleeve and he said ‘You’ve got to take it away,’”Easter said.
Twelve Corners had 102 children enrolled in this summer’s VBS, with 81 attending in one night. It’s broken up into six classes from age 4 to 12th grade.
Community, Pages 6 on 08/11/2010