The biblical story of creation will come to life when Ruhl's United Methodist Church hosts a drive-through event on Saturday, June 26. The festivities will take place at the church, 4810 Elizabethtown Road, Manheim, from 10 a.m. to noon.

Over the past year, the church has held several well-attended drive-through celebrations, said Kris Gray, one of the event organizers. "We did a drive to Bethlehem at Christmas and a drive to Calvary at Easter, and they were so well received, we wanted to do something similar," she stated. "We were brainstorming ideas, and God laid it on my heart to do a creation event."

Gray declined to give too many details about the stations that will be featured, noting that organizers want to keep an element of surprise. "There will be seven stations, and I will say there aren't many people involved in the scenes since people weren't created until day six, so we won't have a lot of costumed characters like we've had for past drive-through events," she revealed.

Along with the creation scenes, the event will feature live music by the church's praise band. A free bag lunch will also be offered. The lunch will include a ham and Swiss cheese sandwich, a bag of chips, fruit and a dessert. Reservations are required for the bag lunch and may be made by calling 717-665-4499. The deadline for reservations is Thursday, June 24. Reserved lunches will be brought to each vehicle at the end of the drive-through event. Although reservations are required for the lunch, the drive-through is open to anyone.

Gray said the creation event offers the church another way to reach out to its neighbors and share the message of God's love. "We want to connect with our community, and especially during COVID, the drive-throughs were a way we could do that and still work with the restrictions," she stated. "Even though we weren't able to meet the community in person as a large group, we still wanted to connect with a message about the Gospel and provide food for the community. It's important for us as a church to meet the needs of people both spiritually and physically."

Ruhl's United Methodist Church holds services on Sundays at 8 and 10:30 a.m. Sunday school is offered for people of all ages, including adults, at 9:15 a.m. The church will hold a vacation Bible school from Monday, July 26, through Friday, July 30.