CARTHAGE — Sandy Bertschy arrived at the Precious Moments Inspirational Park in Carthage, Mo., on a rainy Saturday afternoon. She wasn’t alone. Along with her came her husband, her parents, her daughter, her son-in-law, her daughter-in-law and her four grandchildren. Only her son, who was sick, stayed at home.

All of them had just driven from Bella Vista, Ark., to visit the park. They walked through the visitors’ center in a hurry. No time for gift shops. They wanted to catch the 2 p.m. tour of the chapel. “It’s been a year since we last came here,” she said, before she joined her family in their walk through the grounds on their way to the chapel.

There, the family joined other visitors and listened to the explanations of Cindy Howrey, who has been working there for almost 17 years. The Precious Moments Chapel, she explained, was opened to the public in 1989. Since then, many paintings have been added to it. The left side of the chapel is dedicated to the Old Testament, and the right side shows images from the New Testament. On the ceiling, 75 angels were painted by Sam Butcher, the creator of Precious Moments figurines and the park. He painted all the other images in the chapel. Biblical passages have been turned into humorous paintings, where angels create light with flashlights and the good Samaritan helps someone with a first-aid kit.

In the chancel, the part of the church around the altar, there are three panels: “Graduation Day,” where angels wait to receive their halos; “Promises of Everlasting Peace,” where illustrations of scriptures emphasize a desire for peace; and the main panel, “Hallelujah Square,” which reflects heaven in the eyes of a child. In the center of the painting, Jesus is among children. He is the only figure in the chapel who wasn’t portrayed as a Precious Moments character. In all of the paintings in the chancel, actual people are remembered, including Butcher’s son, Philip, who died in 1990 at age 30.

In the Bertschy party, only Sandy’s daughter-in-law, Brook, and her son-in-law, Matt Disheroon, had never before been to the park. The others had been there several times. “We love the art, the setting and the fact that it is relatively close to home,” she said. When her son Robert, her daughter-in-law, Brook, and their 7-month-old twins, Owen and Royce, came from South Carolina to Bella Vista to visit, Sandy and her husband, Steve, decided it would be a good moment to go to the chapel again. Robert was sick and couldn’t go with them, but the rest of the family took the tour anyway.

They listened to the explanations at the chapel, then went out of the chapel and into the rest of the building to see the stained glass windows and the memorial rooms. In one of them, pictures of real people who are portrayed in the chapel sit in shelves protected by a glass. The visitors recognized people from the paintings, like the girl with her brown Labrador, who had her beloved dog with her even in the “Hallelujah Square” painting. The other room is dedicated to Philip Butcher. Pictures of him are shown, and on the back wall, there is a painting where Philip’s family gathers around his bed to say goodbye to him, while angels welcome him in heaven.

After the tour, Sandy Bertschy’s 6-year-old granddaughter, Regan, looks at the paintings in the chapel. “She will be an artist,” her grandmother explains. Very shyly, Regan says that she does love art and wants to be an artist someday. “It is always good to introduce children to as many and as varied experiences as possible,” Sandy said.

Outside of the chapel, Grandpa’s Island, a place portrayed in Butcher’s paintings, can be seen in the lake, but it cannot be visited. From a terrace, visitors can also see a cave where a Precious Moments angel stands holding the Scripture, “He is not here, for he has risen as he said.”

On the way back to the visitors’ center, little angel statues placed in memory of children who died line the path that crosses the garden. At the visitors’ center, a gift shop sells Precious Moments figurines, dolls, clothes and has a year-round selection of Christmas items. The center imitates a square, with big Precious Moments statues, a castle with dolls dancing and tables spread around. Even though some of the figurines can be expensive, there’s no reason not to sit and enjoy an ice cream, while the dolls keep dancing at the tower of the castle.