Jonah- As Told by Stuffed Animals

Eriek had to come up with a big final project for his class this semester.  He decided to get creative this time and make a children's book of Jonah using our stuffed animals as the main cast.  He wrote a script out and then started envisioning what pictures he needed.

We live in The Woodlands, TX and there's this area called the Waterway that just fit the bill for this little endeavor.  He wanted the Pavilion (where all the concerts are held) to be the big city of Nineveh, and there's plenty of water, boats and trees around it to capture the rest of the story.  All-in-all, it was the perfect setting. 

What I liked most about this project was that I was able to be of some help and spend time with Eriek while he worked on the project, instead of him being stuck on the computer writing for days and days on his own while I barely get to see him.  Basically, I was the Puppet Master, arranging the characters as he described what he wanted for that part of the story.

Here I am setting up the Ninevites outside of their city as Eriek gets the framing for the shot set up.

As you can see though, these guys were tricky as they didn't want to stand on their own.  We propped twigs under their feet and that helped until the wind kept blowing them over!  Eriek finally got a great shot in between gusts...

Nice evil Ninevites, huh?  They are happy little Beijing mascots plus a little Kuwait bear :)  Then we moved on to the boat scenes.  Jonah is the bird because his name means dove (foolish bird).  The Athens mascots are the mariners.  The people at the boat house were nice enough to let us use a kayak for our photo shoot!

Jonah being thrown overboard is one of my favorite pics!  We used a wire hanger and I was dangling him over the water and we photoshopped it out :)

And, of course, the whale spitting up Jonah on the shore near Nineveh.  (The whale was the mascot from the Montreal World Championships.)

And one of the last pictures was Jonah writing his story in the Bible.

There were many more pics, but I don't want to steal Eriek's work of art!  It was just so much fun to do, and I think it would be a great project to do with your kids!  Not only is it a lot of fun to take your silly stuffed animals and make them act out scenes in the Bible, but you get to know the story you're acting out much better and deeper.

Even if you don't have kids, be your own kid!  I encourage you to try it with a friend- you'll laugh so hard while doing it, then you'll have pictures to look back on and smile at.  And you'll probably get to know God a little more in the process.