Is There Anything Better Than Candy? Box Tract ~ A Homeschool Crew Review

If you or your church are looking for child evangelism tools, I am definitely recommending Let the Little Children Come.  Today, I'm just writing about one item they have available, but I have an assortment of children's tracts to help you share the beautiful salvation message.  I'll be telling you more about the others another day.  For now, I'm sharing this adorable little pumpkin halloween tract candy holder.

The Is There Anything Better Than Candy? Box-Tract comes in a set of 20 pumpkin shaped boxes.  They are made of sturdy, glossy cardstock imprinted with a pumpkin design on the one side and a gospel message of salvation on the flip side.  You simply and easily punch out the template.  The pumpkin is made by folding in the six individual "petals."  Two of them have little stems on the end that hold the entire thing together.

I appreciated that this halloween tract is not frightening.  I don't mean frightening because it's halloween related, I mean frightening in the fire and brimstone kind of way.  Does that tactic ever work?  I just can't imagine Jesus wanting children coming to him only because they are terrified.

These little pumpkins are about 2x3 inches when closed, so there are plenty of small treats that will fit in them.  I managed to try out a few candies here.  Some things that fit:

• funsize/bitesize candy bars (I tried an individual peanut butter cup and a tiny pack of three whoppers.)
• a few hard or chewy candies (I had zotz, sweetarts, laffy taffy, pack of two starburst, and they all fit.)
• licorice (With some coiling, I got two individual twizzlers in the pumpkin.)
• a lollipop (My caveat with this, the stick was a bit long and I tore the last petal when I closed it up.  I bet a safety pop with no stick would work well.)
• Candy corn and other small candy (which would need to be bagged up to keep them inside the pumpkin).
• Pumpkin Spice tea bags!  (Trust me on this.  Have a MOPS group at your church?  Do you host a "tea and testimony" or similar get together?  Moms would take these home and show these to their children while sipping a lovely cup of tea.)

There are many uses for these little pumpkins.  There are the obvious Trick or Treaters, Trunk or Treaters, and harvest festival attendees.  I thought about giving these to the students in my co-op class about Native Americans, when we discuss harvesting at Thanksgiving.  But every year, I half-heartedly consider reverse trick or treating at a local nursing home.  That's where the trick or treaters dress up and deliver treats to the residents.  Our co-op is having it's second annual service day in the middle of October and one of the things we did last year was prepare music for them and "do the chatting."  That would be another great option.

A few other ideas for handing these out could include opening them with your Sunday school class or youth group, handing them out with the youth group, scavenger hunts (which the Dad is very good at organizing), table favors for harvest dinners, or as a gift at a reading of The Pumpkin Patch Parable by Liz Curtis Higgs. There are so many ways these versatile little boxes can be used.

I wish they could be folded in a way that enabled unfolding the "petals" in order.  By that, I mean the first you unhook would be #1, the second #2, and so on.  Numbers 1 and 4 are across from each other on the open template and have the stems, so they need to be closed first.  The only problem I see with the numerical opening order is that the numbers on the open segments could not circle round the template 1-6.  But I think being able to *read the message in order* as the pumpkin is opened would make more of an impact.

By the way, the answer to the question "Is there anything better than candy?" is YES!  "It's being God's friend."  This tract *sweetly* explains God's love, Christ's sacrifice, and how to accept this special gift of salvation.

Next month, I'll be telling you a bit about some other child evangelism products available from Let the Little Children Come.

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