The event itself started with a cold morning, at the school across the road from our church so we were all shivering while setting up each game, which were bean bag throwing (skill), running (speed), quiz (mind), balancing challenges (balance) and lastly cup-stacking (team).
At 9am we started, and kids started trickling in, we broke them up into groups, so we had a blue group, red group and yellow group.
One thing we found is that holding events early means that kids take a while to arrive, but once they arrived it was all good. Prior to this event we did a lot of advertising, and it paid off with a few new kids coming which was awesome indeed, and they looked like they had fun too, which was even better.
We had planned for running each game for 10 minutes but some games ended up running a bit longer, and because of our time flexibility we just allowed them to stay on each game a little bit longer, and scrapped our cup-stacking game, saving it for another time.
But of the games we did have, I think bean-bag throwing was the most popular, if only to watch the kids try and aim beanbags into a hoola hoop. Relay was good to get the older kids tired, but kids these days recover pretty quickly so they weren't tired for too long.
Following our Olympic games we headed into the school hall for the talk, done by yours truly, and a puppet originally name Donny, by my sister, and then renamed Sonny, pronounced Sunny, by Lisa S, because it fits the SonRise thing.
I decided to try and do the whole ventriloquism thing, which I think worked pretty well, originally Sonny's voice was going to be more squarky like a parrot but 20 minutes of practicing the voice destroyed my throat, the voice I ended up on kind of came out of nowhere when I was practicing so I don't know how to describe it, other than 'easy on the throat'.
The talk itself I think went alright, trying to stay inline with the Olympic theme I talked about a race, and how in the Bible if we run the race and win, we get a crown, that gives eternal life. The passage below was where most of my talk influence came from.
1 Corinthians 9:24-27 (New International Version)
24Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.25Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. 26Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. 27No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.
So how do we get this crown that gives eternal life, lasting forever? Well, we have to trust in someone, and who that person is, is Jesus. We told this to the kids through a skit, which, due to my poor planning had me running up to people and enlisting their help, explaining their role to them in the morning. So big thanks to Julz, Wendy, Sylvia, Billy and Mr Patterson, who is always willing to help. The skit turned out well, involving the main character wanting to play Trust with people, Trust being the game where you fall back and someone catches you. Julz was the main character, and I was the narrator. With no rehearsals beforehand things were interesting, and it ended up being a combination of the characters working off my cues, and me working off their acting. After the skit I concluded my talk, getting the kids to acknowledge that we should trust Jesus, because he will catch us, more so, he will look after us, and give us salvation forevermore!
My attempt at ventriloquism
After the talk we handed out ribbons to the winners, which took a loooong time, then ended with food, a lot of food, so much that I wish I was a kid and could stay around eating and eating, so I settled with 3 cups of jelly, which I ate during morning service at 11am.
Overall, the event was good, and is only just the beginning of the direction we want SonRise to head, with post-evangelism events the following two weeks, to ease the new kids into the way we normally do things. So big thanks to those that helped out and pray that the new kids that came will continue to come and find a new friend in Jesus, as he could possibly be the best friend you could ever want to have, water into wine, mass bread and fish, one-way ticket to Heaven? I'll follow that, and so should you!
