The forecast galeforce winds didn’t arrive and the wet, bitter days that had preceded; passed. Our mighty, mighty God blessed us with a beautiful day, where the sun shone and warmed our backs.

Little faces were painted with butterflies or caterpillars and a simple sausage sizzle then doughnuts fed everyone happily. With a prayer, some acknowledgements and very little pomp and ceremony the Bizzy Butterflies Playground was declared officially open.  It was indeed inspired by God’s mercy and enabled by God’s grace.

Bizzy Butterflies Playgroup commenced in the middle of 2004 after six months of planning, preparing and policy writing. The name chosen to signify the transformation of lives.

We started with one weekly playgroup that met in the portable building at Drouin Baptist Church. A small grassed area was available for some outdoor play in the early years. As the church continued to expand, the old portable was removed to make way for a new building. This building process meant the grassed area was no longer accessible. For three years, we were running three playgroup sessions per week indoors. It was challenging maintaining indoor play and we desperately needed an outdoor play space for our children.

By 2016, we successfully purchased a playground on ebay. Because playgroup caters for babies and up, there are always little ones crawling or falling or putting things in their mouths. We decided to put “Rubbertough” under the structure; a wonderful softfall that hoses off for cleanliness and is so much easier than barkchips – it is however very expensive. At our initial meeting with Rubbertough, it became clear that if we proceeded with what we wanted we were $2,500 short.

We decided to put in an application for a BUV community engagement grant and just three days after over-committing financially at Rubbertough we received a grant from BUV for… $2,500 of course! Along the journey, God organized other little blessings that inspired us to keep going with the project when we felt like walking away and giving up on it.

We are now into our second week of learning new routines because we have outside time. The children run and climb and play. We have an extravagant sandpit that was built by volunteers and turf that will hopefully grow into lush grass. We can ask the parents how their week is going and if they need a casserole to help them through. We can be served some “chips” through the shop front by an entrepreneurial child – yes, a shop front had been on our wish list.

God in His mercy inspired our playground, so we could care for those He brings to Bizzy Butterflies. God in His grace enabled the actual building of it. All praise to Him.