Imagination at work: Children cover church parking lot in chalk art
JOEL MARTIN | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 3 months, 1 week AGO
The parking lot at Moses Lake Alliance church was a giant canvas Saturday for the church’s first Imagination Running Wild event.
JOEL MARTIN/COLUMBIA BASIN HERALD
The parking lot at Moses Lake Alliance church was a giant canvas Saturday for the church’s first Imagination Running Wild event.
A young artist fills in an outline at the Imagination Running Wild chalk art event at Moses Lake Alliance Church Saturday.
Artists took advantage of the huge expanse of asphalt to draw a racetrack among the drawings at Imagination Running Wild Saturday.
A two-dimensional stegosaurus adorns the parking lot at Moses Lake Alliance Church Saturday.
Most of the parking lot was filled with artwork at Moses Lake Alliance Church Saturday afternoon.
Joel Martin has been with the Columbia Basin Herald for more than 25 years in a variety of roles and is the most-tenured employee in the building. Martin is a married father of eight and enjoys spending time with his children and his wife, Christina. He is passionate about the paper’s mission of informing the people of the Columbia Basin because he knows it is important to record the history of the communities the publication serves. | August 27, 2025 3:00 AM
MOSES LAKE — Moses Lake Alliance Church may have had the best-decorated parking lot in town Saturday. Children braved the heat for the Imagination Running Wild event, decorating the lot with drawings, inspirational messages and a long, winding racetrack.
“One morning as I was walking through to the door, looking out at the giant parking lot that we have, I thought, how fun would it be to cover it all in chalk?” said Nick Armour, the church member who organized the event. “So, I came and told (Pastor Emmanuel Jatou), ‘I’m going to cover the parking lot in chalk.’ ... I said, ‘I’m going to get all the kids I can to come and help me do this, and I’m going to cover it all.’”
At one point, 40-50 children were drawing in the lot, Armour said.
“They did a good job,” Armour said. “They got almost total coverage.”
Church members rallied to the cause, supplying not only chalk but food, water and Gatorade to keep the young artists hydrated in the Basin summer heat.
“We did this whole thing with a budget of zero dollars,” Armour said.
Not everyone who drew was a child to some extent, even the older ones. Theresa Yearout, a bona fide grownup who teaches preschool Sunday school at the church, was putting the finishing touches on a drawing of the sun.
“I’m kind of being a kid for the day,” she said. “Just being goofy.”
A large electric fan kept the food and the volunteers from getting too overheated, which Jatou said was divine providence.
“I’m from Nigeria; I don’t care if it’s 110 (degrees)” he said. “But when I heard it was going to be 90, and then I saw the advisory that (there were) going to be heatwaves, I prayed last night “Lord, help us so that the weather will be good.’ … And then (I) came down and saw this giant fan here and I said to somebody, ‘That’s God, right there. He answered our prayers.’”
The church uses its parking lot for other children’s events as well, Jatou said, like a trunk-or-treat at Halloween.
“If we got more than five kids out here and they had a good time, it’s a win,” Armour said. “We definitely got more than that and it turned out pretty good.”
The parking lot at Moses Lake Alliance church was a giant canvas Saturday for the church’s first Imagination Running Wild event.
A young artist fills in an outline at the Imagination Running Wild chalk art event at Moses Lake Alliance Church Saturday.
Artists took advantage of the huge expanse of asphalt to draw a racetrack among the drawings at Imagination Running Wild Saturday.
A two-dimensional stegosaurus adorns the parking lot at Moses Lake Alliance Church Saturday.
Most of the parking lot was filled with artwork at Moses Lake Alliance Church Saturday afternoon.ARTICLES BY JOEL MARTIN
Moses Lake teachers march downtown
MOSES LAKE — Teachers from across Moses Lake marched from Sinkiuse Square to Frontier Middle School Thursdayin support of the Moses Lake Education Association’s work stoppage. The teachers stayed at Frontier while a band played at Carl Ahlers Park across the street and passing motorists honked. The teachers had been on strike for four days while the union negotiates a new contract with the Moses Lake School District.
Mini-farm for sale has deep Grant County roots
SOAP LAKE — There’s a little piece of history in the mini-farm for sale east of Soap Lake. “It’s been with the same owner since the 1930s,” said Anna Van Diest of Moses Lake Realty Group, who is listing the 25.19-acre property at 20226 NE Adrian Road, just south of SR 28. The well, still in use, was dug in 1931, she added, more than two decades before the Columbia Basin Project brought irrigation water to the Basin. There’s not much left now of the town of Adrian, but if things had gone a little differently in 1910, the Grant County Courthouse might have been located where the farm now stands. When Grant County was formed out of the eastern part of Douglas County in 1909, the city of Ephrata, then just over 300 people, was named the county seat. The people of Adrian got up a petition the following year to grab the county seat away, according to the Washington history site historylink.org, but were defeated in a 945-802 vote. A few remnants of the town and the railroad cutoff nearby are still visible from the road or in aerial photos.
Small, local shops offer unique Christmas gifts
MOSES LAKE — Plenty of people do all their Christmas shopping from the comfort of their laptop. But just a few blocks away, local small businesses are offering things you won’t necessarily find online. “Most of our shoppers, they're looking for something unique, not something they can get from Amazon or from China,” said Ken Haisch, one of six vendors at Third Avenue Antiques in Moses Lake.