PTL. Passion Tea Lemonade? Or Praise the Lord? Or both?
Inspired by a visit to Toronto’s Snakes and Lattes Board games Café (Bathurst St. and Bloor St.), we organized our own board games café at our church office, which took place every Wednesday evening between the hours of 7:30pm to 10pm.
‘PTL’ at Starbucks is what the barista writes on your cup when you order a Passion Tea Lemonade. We thought this cool refreshing drink, which shares the name of ‘PTL’, which also stands for ‘Praise the Lord!’, would be an excellent name for our summer board games café.
Each evening began with a time of singing praises, which is a very fitting thing to do in the PTL house! Then we had a short devotional prepared and led by our fellowship committee. Afterwards, the tables and chairs would be set out, and the games would come out of their hiding places inside the storage drawers. Baked goods that had been prepared by the ladies in the fellowship as well as drinks brought by the men were laid out for people to enjoy.
This was a good outreach ministry because we invited our friends, Christian and non-Christian, to come and enjoy fellowship in person over board games. Every week there was a different group, often with new faces. The PTL House had a lively atmosphere, with sounds of laughter as well as conversations. This board games café was for all age groups: on several nights, we were joined by our youngest board gamer of one and a half years old.
Finding out that the Watoto villages had a need for board games was like a match made in Heaven. Since we were enjoying life by having fun playing board games, our brothers and sisters in Uganda should have the opportunity to do so too! The goal was to raise $4500, and to show that it wouldn’t be by our own wisdom, but by God’s delight to work though small, unexpected means, we would by faith raise the funds in coins alone. Some laughed at this goal; many did not believe it would be possible to raise even $1000, but one young man in our midst spoke in faith that we would be able to raise $4500 in coins. He was the first one to give his coin collection to the cause. Every Wednesday night when the PTL house was in full swing, the coin jar was laid out, and lo and behold, in the first week alone, a little over $1000 was raised!
PTL indeed! Praise the Lord! At the end of the summer, we counted all the coins we had collected. And to our surprise, we had raised just over $4000. Sure we did not meet our $4500 goal, but God had surpassed our expectations. Who would have believed that in a little over two months, our little church (of little faith) could raise $4000 in coins? It must have been God’s work in our community, and also in the Watoto community. He must want all the children there to enjoy playing the games we enjoyed so much this summer.
So to close off, we just wanted to share a list of our favorite games:
Dominion
Settlers of Catan
Apples to Apples
Taboo
Dutch Blitz
Monopoly Deal
Spot it!
Connect 4
Watoto Canada 