I am writing as a very tired person after a looong day! Praise the Lord, we had 39 kids at our first day of bible club today. We were encouraged by the numbers, and it seemed to all go off very well. A breakdown of the day:
Woke Nick up at 5.30 so he could have a short quiet time and be ready to leave home at 6.30 to fetch people at 7.00 am. This all successfully accomplished. The boys and I were ready for the day by the time he returned at 7.30. Then it was all the last minute setting up to do, which took us right up until 9 am, when it started. We kicked off with about 8 songs, then everyone split off to the various stations, according to their age groups. We found that the first session was too long and time hung a bit heavy – fortunately there is always colouring in as a backup for the craft, and Simon Says is a great activity! The snack time was also too long and everyone started getting a bit out of hand, from our perspective anyway, although perhaps the kids just enjoyed the freedom to run about and play with their friends. Then, off to the second and third stations, by which time we had readjusted the time slots and trimmed down the allocated time for those sessions, but they turned out to be too short. We closed with some more singing and a five-minute video on some farmyard plants and how they grow (provided with the SonHarvest material). The kids then left at 12. The leaders stayed behind for a quick feedback session, and all felt the times were a bit of a problem, but other than that they enjoyed it and felt it was a good start. Nick did very well as the co-ordinator, I can’t believe he doesn’t enjoy children’s ministries as he is quite funny and the kids respond so well to him. (He’s giving me that patronizing face with a fake smile while reading this…)
Then, Nick had to take some people home again, while I got some quick lunch together for the boys and myself, and then did a bit of cleaning up in the church and schoolroom, then I had to drive to the radio station to pick up a mic stand for the rest of the week, so Nick doesn’t have to strain his voice (it’s feeling quite sore after today’s shouting and very loud singing), popped in at the Half Tree Hollow Spar to do some grocery shopping (month end, but I only managed to get about 10 items from my list!), got home, did more cleaning up and preparation for tomorrow (set out all the craft goodies I need), then off to Thorpes to do the rest of my shopping, after first dropping Nick and the boys off at the swimming pool. Got a lot of shopping done (yippee, Jaffa Cakes were on the reduction shelf as they all expired earlier in the month – down from about £1.50 to 90p – bought two boxes of those!!). Then fetched the swimmers, came home and unpacked the groceries, then made supper which was bullseyes (groan) and chips. Not altogether bad, but I could have cooked them for longer, because I had to leave some flesh attached to the bone which wasn’t prepared to flake off nicely. The small boys thought it was fine as it was. The bigger one wasn’t too sure, he detected that there were some chewy bits and reminded me that he doesn’t like sushi. After supper, I had to wash up quickly because the 20-odd flies in the kitchen were about to carry the left-overs away, then I had to hang up a load of washing, put the boys to bed, and do a spot more cleaning up. So this is really the first time I am actually sitting down to relax all day. Tonight we are watching a DVD. Nick has to try squash in all his bible study and sermon prep in the afternoons which is quite hectic, but we are both so tired at the moment that there is no way he could have done anything constructive tonight.
Nick introduced the call of the Jahobadee da-de-da Minithnithne Bird today at the bible club. The call of this bird sounds surprisingly like half of a recorder blown into with much force, which produces a loud screechy noise which is effective in getting the attention of lively children. They laughed every time he said the name and they just couldn’t get it right. His activities were very funny, he did a lot of variations on the ones that the book suggested – like pulling pews around in the church to create a maze, which they had to navigate through tied together in pairs, with a balloon! The kids all seemed to enjoy the bible story time, and my craft, which was making cups with soil and seeds (hat hair ladies, which should have been grass hair men but for the lack of grass seeds in the shops in town) also went down well. Caleb and Aaron particularly are quite excited about it, and it was good to be able to show the kids the one I did last Monday which has just started sprouting little green shoots. One girl even got an earthworm in her cup, which provided a good biology lesson for them (hee hee, Lynn the Homeschooling Mother!).
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