Woodlake, California Parade

May 10, 2008

by Reverend Wayne Butler

On Saturday, May 10, the Woodlake, California, Apostolic Faith Church participated in its fifth annual Woodlake Rodeo Parade. The parade covered a quarter-mile route down the main street, which is the heart of Woodlake. The sidewalks were crowded with enthusiastic people, some of whom began putting out chairs around 6:00 a.m. for the parade at 10:30 a.m. The parade organizer estimated that approximately eight thousand people would attend this parade—a fantastic turnout considering Woodlake only has a population of around seven thousand!

This year our float theme was “Jonah and the Whale.” We nicknamed the whale “Willie,” and he was quite a sight, measuring twenty-two feet in length with a tail width of seven feet. We constructed the whale out of PVC pipe, conduit, chicken wire, paper mache, and three gallons of paint. The large mouth was made to open and shut so it would look like he was trying to take a bite out of Jonah, who was right in front of him during the parade. Water spewed about twenty feet in the air from the whale's blowhole, thanks to a Super Soaker squirt gun that had been altered to spray instead of shoot a steady stream. The parade onlookers got excited every time the whale spouted water.

Two trailers were connected together and decorated so it would appear that the ship headed to Tarshish was being followed by the great fish. The overall length of the float was nearly sixty feet. The float was preceded by two people carrying a large banner with the name of our church and our logo, “Jesus the Light of the World.” The Sunday school participants wore aquatic sea creature visors, and they threw seventy pounds of candy to the onlookers. They also handed out over two thousand coins that were imprinted with the question, “Where will you spend eternity?” on the heads side and the words of John 3:16 on the tails side. Thousands of bubbles floated in the air from two bubble machines located on either side of the towing truck, and Veggie Tales music resounded from the truck's sound system.

If asked to describe our participation in this parade, the words would be “fun, fun, fun!” What a great opportunity we had to get our church name known in the community, and the feedback we received from several sources indicated that it was a great success!