Working on the theme park is so much fun! It’s not work to me, but more like a reward.
One part that I really enjoy oddly enough is planning the village in the SNOW. I grew up in NH mostly and of course you look forward to the first snow, to snow days when school is cancelled! To sledding, skiing, ice skating and even camping in the snow. But honestly after a few months it tends to drag on. In university I began to have a strange longing for palm trees. I wrote a few poems, well at least one I remember, and saw them in the bible as a symbol for God’s people I think. Moses was told to add them to decorations on the temple and things and then going to Florida for vacation one time I remember seeing them by the ocean and it just caught my heart in a very strange way.
Later when I was asked to go to the Philippines on mission I had prophetic dreams with palm trees, and then moving here palm trees, especially coconut trees, are a part of daily life. I think God was preparing me even at that early age for my future calling to serve him here, that’s what I think anyway. And I live in a place in the Philippines, in the Central Visayan region where every day is almost the exact same temperature. There are no real seasonal or yearly variations to speak of! In one sense, coming from New Hampshire, it’s a paradise! Literally. ‘Paradise’ means ‘Garden’ if you didn’t know. I think I do still own jeans, but I wear shorts every day for so many years now they are lost somewhere in storage, and even though to me it’s still very hot almost every day, I still just enjoy it!
So when God asked me to make a theme park and I worked for years to try to come up with original, heart-felt experiences to portray in our various areas, I struggled with the idea of a snow feature. You need to understand, I don’t just spin a wheel of colors or cities or regions and pick one at random–I need to ‘feel it’ and then do a draft, show it to the Lord and wait for his feedback before it’s confirmed. A few of my ideas he said just plain No! A few he has never commented on. Most came from him first. His ideas are usually bigger, more dramatic, more colorful, more fun and more daring than mine. Well, I like to think we are a team, and of course we are, but I lean on him in every part of well, every part that I work on, as much as I can, and look to him for inspiration, guidance and advice.
But when we are talking about planning a 222+ hectare development (which is about 500 acres), and when I have a very high standard of design and want everything to meet or exceed the standard of creativity, uniqueness and quality I have seen in Disney parks, it’s not a task for the faint of heart. I still end up filling in a lot of blanks, things I am not sure will work, sometimes I later throw out, sometimes he later confirms are the exact things he wants!
Pardon the rough low-poly sketch in this scale placement overview map but each section is already a huge file, and there are about 24 sections! Some sections have twenty models or more within them, so this layout placement map substitutes a flat jpg or placeholder for each section because it is only for giving me an overview and to measure large distances and align positions, etc. The planning I’ve already done is just too much to share all at once actually! The main castle is not marked but is the diamond-looking triangular shape center-right, also unmarked is the children’s castle, or Untamer Gamer Zone, etc., but the butterfly shaped enclosure is the 7 hectare Flutterby Forest and attached Swallowtail shaped hotel. But the Women’s Castle is in the center of the 100 hectare ‘grounds’ at left which this overview was made to help me layout which is why is it in color, and what I want to share briefly on today.
So yes, Jesus asked me to make THREE castles in the Park, not one!! That was hard at first, but now we have the two main castles in a very awesome advanced stage of design and the third coming along quite well also. The Women’s Castle, the Crystal Castle, is “white and steel” and set in the middle of a large area that comprises about 100 hectares (240 acres or so) which is divided into eight “Gardens” which are more like walk-through attractions that are bordered by a circumferential ring road, and beyond that eight “Lands” which are more like themed areas you come to expect in a Disney kind of park with rides and shops and food, etc. I first made the gardens smallish but God finally said he wanted the distance from the entrance to the Lands to the Crystal Castle to be 300 meters! It was too much space for me to design at first, but I got used to it and worked diligently and now it’s just right! I’ll talk about the Gardens later, but the Eight Themed Lands so far include:
- JUNGLE which I am using a lot of South East Asian references, like from Thailand, Malaysia and India as colorful inspirations.
- DINOS, in which we are making a Hamilton Jet Boat ride through a dino-infested river while the dinos chase and try to eat you as the main ride.
- God said one area has a BALLOON theme, and I was stumped for a long time until I came up with a floating City in the Clouds. I’m designing the technology in a Steam Punk-style, which is an alternative technological development trend starting in the era of Steam Engines. So think of a ‘Jules Verne’ kind of Victorian-era off-shoot of technological development style for this land.
- SPACE, a space colony area based on the book STARQUAKE, and I am using one of the space cities that feature in the book called ASTROTERRA.
- Jesus asked me to make a large indoor playground area for children with disabilities. I have seen no visions of this so far, but call it THE REFUGE right now, until I get a better name and more details. In this map it was still being called Kaleidoscope before God clarified the name.
- CARNIVALLEY, a Coney Island-inspired boardwalk area that is a carnival in a valley but I have had little confirmation of this one so far and I am waiting on more feedback, but big noisy rides, hot dogs and games. We already have an amusement area called Untamer Gamer Zone on the other side of the park, and without more clear direction Carnivalley may be reworked, but for now this is the plan.
- Another area is still UNDEFINED. We can open the Park with this one still undeveloped and see what ideas we have for Phase Two or Three expansions. I have had ideas for a water park but it was much bigger than this space (4 hectares), and a few other ideas that didn’t pan out. So this is a blank zone still until we get more clear direction.
- And finally, WINTER which is the one I want to talk about today.
Let it Snow!
I have had several visions and conversations about this so I feel comfortable sharing a little, but just think how many Filipinos have NEVER even SEEN snow? I went to a snow park in Thailand once, and well it was frozen yes, but it wasn’t snow! Everything had turned to ICE and it’s not really a lot of fun to fall head-first into a giant ice bank at the bottom of the indoor sledding hill, is it?! And yes, I’ve done it before! Ouch!
So I want snow, REAL SNOW, cold, fluffy snow!! But more than that, this area is designed to be an entire Winter Village inside what may turn out to be a 2 hectare freezer. The ceiling is very high, making vertical space for the village buildings and trees, and the pressurized snow equipment will be in the ceiling scaffolding so we can easily maintain it, but also so when we need more of that wonderful fluffy stuff, it really falls from the sky!
There’s an ice rink, maybe it that goes into a cave under the hill, and a small village on top of that. I placed a candy maker’s shop, a toy maker’s gift workshop, a small open air mall, a Carol Hall in the Village. The main ride will be something like a snow coaster, like a roller coaster in the snow, or like a night ride on a snow mobile or some kind of fast and cold skiing-themed coaster. I see wolves howling on a lone hill in the snow, a small village with pine-scented smoke, icy cliffs, frozen ravines, and sure a few spills and thrills along the way to make it fun!
But lastly I really want is a nice family restaurant.
I haven’t had a traditional turkey holiday meal for about 25 years! You can imagine what I’ve had to forego to obey the Lord’s calling. Yes, he over-compensates me in other ways but I really miss the holiday turkey family meal. So what I want is an entrance from the snowy village, and once inside the restaurant it’s decorated to be an English Manor, like an ancestral home, with deer antlers, heraldry, paintings of Duke of This and Duchess of That on the walls, fireplaces with mantles full of silver decorations, scented candles, wreaths for sure, and if you listen you can hear someone watching the game on TV in the next room, and kids somewhere running down the halls laughing, and mom is yelling from the kitchen for more gravy!!
And what’s really special about the menu is they serve a full turkey or roast ham family holiday meal for 30 people every day of the year. We’ll have a dozen or more feasting halls for small family gatherings, and yes a general seating area for smaller groups as well, but I’ve planned every room to be ready to host a full holiday family feast and so everything is decorated like it’s holiday season in an ancestral home.
But I want it to be classy, traditional, warm and authentic––so no department store santas, reindeer or elves, yuk!
And so you can imagine how busy I am planning all this and after outlining the winter village version two or version three, and looking for confirmation if this was the right direction, I was looking at the Manor feast hall and Jesus spoke to me and said, “Oh, just wait till you see that restaurant!!” He said I would love it once it’s done! That’s all the confirmation I needed! Maybe I won’t be the one to have to do the detail work, or build it, that’s a relief! Maybe you can be the one to help? But one thing for sure, I am looking forward to having a real sit-down turkey meal, with stuffing, candied yams, cranberry sauce and real snow outside the window … all in the middle of July, in the Philippines!!! Amen to that, and so be it!
This is obviously a VERY BREIF description but these reference images go a long way to share what I like, and what I would build, but I’m always looking for great ideas, and would love to hear what YOU would do if God asked you to build an indoor snow village for a theme park in the Philippines! So go ahead and tell me, What you YOU do? Feel free to leave it in the comments! Who knows, maybe you are the very person God has chosen to bring this part of his vision to life?