summer — Blog — Christ's Church, Harwood

Well another year, another great Kings Club! Our theme this year was Backpackers; we looked at the story of Jesus coming into Jerusalem, the Last Supper, his anointing with perfume by a woman, Judas’ betrayal, and Jesus’ death and resurrection. It sounds like a tall order, but with the help of the Scripture Union book, video, and helpful information, the message came alive for all of us.

Each day started at registration with a team challenge. Monday - cut out paper hands and write on them what they like to do, so that we could get to know the children. Tuesday - banners showing what their best day or best day out had been, we think we had everything from ‘playing with friends’ to ‘going on holiday’. Wednesday - pennants showing their favourite food which, surprisingly, turned out to be pizza, McDonald, and Burger King! Friday - thank you post cards. My favourite day was Thursday when they did ‘What would you put in your backpack?’ Well we had clothes of all kinds, hairbrush, toothbrush (but no toothpaste and no soap or towels for washing!) A tent, sleeping bag, compass, map, chocolate, cake and sweets - not bad to start with, but not sure about the PS4, mini fridge/freezer and DVD player!

The teams were named after places in the UK - we had Edinburgh Castle, Angel of the North, London Eye, and Blackpool Tower, so it was no surprise when the team from Blackpool put carrots in their backpack for the donkeys, but we were a bit concerned about the parachute!

We did,however, play with a parachute in the afternoon (no, we were not jumping off the roof) but we did have fun playing ‘cat and mouse’ and ‘sharks’ with it, along with other activities in the afternoon - craft, music, football, hockey, and prayers/parachute. We had 2 guests who came for an afternoon - Gina doing First Aid and a group giving us a Martial Arts demo, which the kids loved.

When the groups got together in the hall in the mornings the sessions started with the ‘Silly Daily Challenge’; silly socks, silly gloves, team colour, and silly masks, with points awarded for the best one, followed by our video and talk about the story so far. The video took us to Paris, Sweden, then Italy, Switzerland and back home to London. Our drama introduced us to a group of people taking part in a reality TV bus tour game show, with everyone wanting to win the prize of a world tour. There was Alex, Jamie and Bertie who were all good friends, and the Shipperbottoms, who were a grumpy couple who seemed to complain about everything and everyone (well Mrs S did all the time), Then there was Carl the Tour Guide, oh and Nigel who we never saw - he was the bus driver and always seemed to be being told off by Carl for something or other, and as with all ‘good’ TV shows there was a twist as they had to vote off members of the tour group, but who? Would the 3 friends vote the same or could Mrs S talk one of them into voting her way and vote one of their friends off? We would have to see! Well, as the trip went on and the secret votes were counted, it did not really matter as Nigel the bus driver (who we never saw) had fixed the game and somehow had won, leaving the whole group puzzled.

Each day ended with the group who had been doing music giving us all a small show, the club quiz - with questions from the video and talk, and the Club game. This year the Club game was based on the game ‘Battleship’ where each team had to find places, forms of transport (cars, bus etc) and eco energy cards. All through the week the teams collected points which were changed into miles and we set a challenge to all the teams to see how far they could get from Bolton. On Monday we got to Doncaster, Tuesday to France, Wednesday to Germany, Thursday to Italy, and by Friday we ended up in the Mediterranean sea off the south coast of Malta.

On Friday, after all the points were gathered and counted, the over-all winning team was Red Team (Edinburgh). Yellow Team(London Eye) won the Battleship game, and every team member was given a certificate and a baseball cap in their team colour. We rounded off the day by singing one of their favourite songs “God’s not Dead” and the week’s Backpackers song.

So, thanks to all who volunteered in any way, and the Kids for making it a great week.

Gail