GraceQuest: The Final Challenge
I've been helping out with the 6th-8th grade youth group at church. I wasn't looking forward to it at first, but it's proved to be quite enjoyable. Last Sunday was no exception.
It was the final meeting of the year. Typically, we meet from 6-8pm on Sundays, but this time, we took off after church and spent the entire afternoon out in the woods, at a church family's house. I volunteered to drive a big white van full of teens out there (45 minutes). It was funny to me, to hear the way they interacted and the things they talked about. I don't remember any details, but I mostly just smiled to myself in the front seat. Oh, and at one point, they started rocking the van back and forth, in unison. They really got it going!
We played several awesome games. The idea of the youth group is that there are 4 teams that compete against each other throughout the year. The team with the most points gets a special reward at the end of the year (a free trip to DC; teens on other teams can pay to go). And this meeting was their final chance to earn points, so the competition was fierce.
One game we played was my idea. For lack of a better name, we called it "rock ball". I got the idea from a couple of friends of mine from India. There's a stack of rocks, and two teams take turns throwing a ball at it. The first team to knock it over (call them the throwing team) chases down the ball and tries to either tag or throw everybody on the other team out. The other team tries to re-stack the rocks. Isn't that an awesome game? I wish we'd known about that, growing up. Although, freeze tag was fun, too... :-)
Then we did a relay race. Beforehand, we gave them a couple rolls of Mentos and a couple two-liter bottles of Diet Coke. (Yes. We really did. Mwahaha...) One person on each team, the catcher, had a small plastic cup. They tried to catch as much of the foam as possible. The starting order for the relay race was determined by the amount of coke caught. It was hilarious watching the foam spew all over everything--especially the catchers! The adults just hung back and laughed, hands alternately on our knees or hips. So funny!
Then the relay race started: a three-legged run, then a wheel-barrow. Then, they had to grab a frozen t-shirt, beat it out until one person could wear it, and then run down a slip-'n-slide. Best. Relay race. Ever. :-)
Then we started tying water balloons. This was actually not for a chaotic water war. Rather, it was for a chaotic capture-the-flag with water guns and water balloons. :-) Each adult leader had a flag, there were flags hidden throughout the woods, and also, there was a "base" with two special flags and lots of water balloons. We strung alka-seltzer on a string, and the teens wore it around their necks. If their alka-seltzer fizzled away because of getting hit by water, they were out. Isn't that brilliant?
I hid behind a tree and waited. I was wearing a green t-shirt, but eventually, a hunting party spotted me. I charged at them, trying to hit their little alka-seltzer targets, but not having much luck. They eventually realized that and started chasing me. I took them all on a merry chase through the woods, ducking under branches and jumping over creeks. It was awesome. At one point, I saw the woods end in a field, and I figured I had better stay inside the woods, so I took a sharp right. Winded, I found a large tree and hid behind it. Amazing, I had lost them! I heard them behind me, tromping around, saying, "Where did he go??" Eventually, they ranged wide enough to find me, and I took off again. As I ran, I ran straight into another small hunting party, and their fresh legs proved to be enough to chase me down. :-)
Lastly, we all inhaled lasagna and cookies before piling into the vehicles and heading home. What an awesome (if exhausting) day!
It was the final meeting of the year. Typically, we meet from 6-8pm on Sundays, but this time, we took off after church and spent the entire afternoon out in the woods, at a church family's house. I volunteered to drive a big white van full of teens out there (45 minutes). It was funny to me, to hear the way they interacted and the things they talked about. I don't remember any details, but I mostly just smiled to myself in the front seat. Oh, and at one point, they started rocking the van back and forth, in unison. They really got it going!
We played several awesome games. The idea of the youth group is that there are 4 teams that compete against each other throughout the year. The team with the most points gets a special reward at the end of the year (a free trip to DC; teens on other teams can pay to go). And this meeting was their final chance to earn points, so the competition was fierce.
One game we played was my idea. For lack of a better name, we called it "rock ball". I got the idea from a couple of friends of mine from India. There's a stack of rocks, and two teams take turns throwing a ball at it. The first team to knock it over (call them the throwing team) chases down the ball and tries to either tag or throw everybody on the other team out. The other team tries to re-stack the rocks. Isn't that an awesome game? I wish we'd known about that, growing up. Although, freeze tag was fun, too... :-)
Then we did a relay race. Beforehand, we gave them a couple rolls of Mentos and a couple two-liter bottles of Diet Coke. (Yes. We really did. Mwahaha...) One person on each team, the catcher, had a small plastic cup. They tried to catch as much of the foam as possible. The starting order for the relay race was determined by the amount of coke caught. It was hilarious watching the foam spew all over everything--especially the catchers! The adults just hung back and laughed, hands alternately on our knees or hips. So funny!
Then the relay race started: a three-legged run, then a wheel-barrow. Then, they had to grab a frozen t-shirt, beat it out until one person could wear it, and then run down a slip-'n-slide. Best. Relay race. Ever. :-)
Then we started tying water balloons. This was actually not for a chaotic water war. Rather, it was for a chaotic capture-the-flag with water guns and water balloons. :-) Each adult leader had a flag, there were flags hidden throughout the woods, and also, there was a "base" with two special flags and lots of water balloons. We strung alka-seltzer on a string, and the teens wore it around their necks. If their alka-seltzer fizzled away because of getting hit by water, they were out. Isn't that brilliant?
I hid behind a tree and waited. I was wearing a green t-shirt, but eventually, a hunting party spotted me. I charged at them, trying to hit their little alka-seltzer targets, but not having much luck. They eventually realized that and started chasing me. I took them all on a merry chase through the woods, ducking under branches and jumping over creeks. It was awesome. At one point, I saw the woods end in a field, and I figured I had better stay inside the woods, so I took a sharp right. Winded, I found a large tree and hid behind it. Amazing, I had lost them! I heard them behind me, tromping around, saying, "Where did he go??" Eventually, they ranged wide enough to find me, and I took off again. As I ran, I ran straight into another small hunting party, and their fresh legs proved to be enough to chase me down. :-)
Lastly, we all inhaled lasagna and cookies before piling into the vehicles and heading home. What an awesome (if exhausting) day!