The child within.....

Around ten years ago, Sue insisted that we needed a character puppet to add to the programs we were doing with kids. She bought a worm puppet and "Larry Funzel" was born. At first I wasn't convinced that Larry would be a puppet people would warm to, but true to form, he wormed his way into thousands of hearts, mine included. You could say that we are the closest of c0-workers and I am needed to give him a helping hand. But somewhere between the script and the performance, a strange transformation takes place. Larry takes on his own personna - radical, conniving, confusing, frustrating, funny, warm, tricky, muddled, endearing.... he is a bundle of contradictions and kids young and old love him. School kids chant "Larr-ee, Larr-ee" until he appears, and at one camp teens long graduated from the kids program still turn up to give him candy. One young friend was heard fiercely defending him at a recent camp "Of course Larry's real. A puppet can't have his own email can he!" Yes, Larry does have his own email. For the curious it is larry.funzel@carpenters-cross.org He is soon to feature in podcasts from the ccm website and so the legend lives on. Larry has taught me many things, not the least being "Don't judge by the outward appearance" which reminds me of the Bible verse "Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord sees the heart." I know there are many handsome puppets out there but I've seen Larry's heart (he tells me good earthworms have up to nine of them) and as far as I am concerned, Larry is here to stay.