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My first experience on family worship and puppets started in 2001 at the Revive camp at Ashburnham. At the last minute I helped out in the children's tent, Mike Burn was leading the team there and everything was very new to me. There was a box of puppets at the back of the stage, one session I brought up a young girl puppet and she became a regular slot throughout the week, we named her Sally.

Since then we have been on training and have set up a very successful puppet ministry, we have a teenage group of 18 and a group of 25 under 11's, we also have a small team in France.

We use the family worship music heavily in our ministry, the songs are so unique and expressive, we have developed dance, flag dancing, dance with sign language, ventriloquism and puppetry.

The Rising Generation CD is fabulous and we have used this many times. We have the french words and the backing track cd's, and we have taught I will Lift up the Name of the Lord to children in Romania and in France as well as here all over the United Kingdom. Rising Generation we use with flags and dance. Peace Child brings a tear to my eye every time, it is such a moving song and is so expressive, it has been used in our Christmas productions using sign language with the puppets, dance, flags and using the fabulous video as a backdrop.

Dance on the streets was a theme tune we used in one of our missions. We danced on the streets through France with our big puppets Max and Crystal (named at one of the Family Worship Roadshows).

Personally I have been exploring Ventriloquism and have won puppet director of the year; European winner in the ventriloquism competition two years running. I have also won silver awards in America and should graduate from my second year in the college ventriloquism in America this year. I entered the competition last year with my old lady puppet and we sang together When you Pray from the Teach us to pray album. The American's loved it, the whole album is scriptually based and is wonderful to use alongside the booklet written by Faith Forster. The song If you believe on this album is also a favourite of ours.

This year I am entering the competition with . It is such an easy song to follow and the words are lovely.

The new album Get into the Word is just as anointed and of the same quality as all the others, all based on the word of God. We went along to the launch of this album and accompanied the Family Worship band and did a couple of the songs with puppets. They are a fantastic group of people to work with and we find it a privilege to work with them.

One of our puppeteers favourite songs is Your name is wonderful. We have a dance to this which is high energy, the puppet we use is an black puppet who leads all the powerful songs, it is excellent for getting children up and copying the actions.

Jesus thank you for the cross was a powerful piece we used at Easter to tell part of the Easter story. We do sign language with this song with actions with the puppets going on behind stage.

The beauty about all of these CD's is that they can reach all ages, from the very young to the very old and all in between, they can be enjoyed by all. One of my favourites is Reach for the Stars. If you haven't already, I advise you to get this collection of CD's - they will enhance any children's ministry and help it to excel, and bring depth into your relationship with Jesus.

A big thank you to the family worship team - you are helping many ministries around the globe, God Bless you all and all the best to our friend and encourager Mike Burn.

Ella

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