godzone sleepover 2008

alright so it's sunday and the Godzone sleepover is finished...i'm exhausted!
it was very good though :)
although for kids work i'm based at LF for this year, i still wanted to so the Godzone sleepover because it's one of the major events of my year. and it didnt let me down!

saturday morning we all rolled up to church and finished setting up (we'd done some of it the night before). over the next hour the teenagers started arriving and by 10.30am we appeared to have set up.
after a leaders/teenagers briefing we prepared for the children to arrive...and they sure did arrive; there were 27 of them which is way more than last year which meant we had the girls and boys in seperate buildings which complicated things slightly but seemed to work.

we then did a craft activity and James ran a session with them that started looking at our topic for the weekend (being friends with Jesus) which was a really good session and i think it really challenged some of them on where they're at with Jesus.

and then we had lunch which was brilliant, i was sat on a table of girls and had a really good chat with them. the highlight of that chat was the following conversation:
girls: sarah, do you have a boyfriend?
me: no.
girls: why don't you have a boyfriend?
me: because boys smell.
girls: (lots of chattering in agreement)
hehehehe!

after lunch the children went with the adult leaders for the 'going deeper' session which looked a bit deeper at the topic.
during this time us teenagers (yes for the purposes of this weekend i classified myself as a teenage helper when it suited me) cleared up lunch and prepared for the wide game...by this point Kat had arrived and the fun really began :D
for the wide game we each had an object and the kids had to decode a bible code number to find our object. my object was a teddy bear and Kat's was a blanket...hence how we ended up on a bed made of chairs with a blanket over us, cuddling the bear and pretending to be asleep!
it was a very clever and fun wide game.

after this we had about 45 minutes before the rest of the Godzone kids would arrive for the party. so I took the kids over to the corner suite to play Bible charades and a couple of games of splat! (the exclamation mark is part of the name 'splat!' rather than me feeling very enthusiastic about the game...although i do feel very enthusiastic about the game.)
the next hour was a blur since it was the party and i was with the older kids group this year and i spent most of it helping with games and also being a first aider- you get alot more injuries with the big kids group than you do with the smaller kids.
then it was the upfront session which was brilliant. we did some puppets and a very very fun quiz where i didnt help the kids win, obviously.
and then lots of songs, particular highlight was James coming on stage and pointing out that this is my last Godzone party (although he also said they were going to get me to come back next year!) and that we should sing my favourite song! after a couple of rounds of 'every move i make' it was time for the kids to leave.
under the chaos of kids leaving the party, the teenagers sneaked over to the shops on a mission to buy some very expensive milk (if you dont get the joke then don't worry) and then stealthily made our way back to church, we used the shadows as cover and it was a lot of fun :D

then the teenagers stayed with the kids while the adults set up for the film. it was a time for them to chill out but needless to say that some kids got a bit noisy and i had to use my leader voice...apparently its a skill i have!
after that we watched a film (Ratatouille- surprisingly it was an alright film) and ate some supper (hot dogs...yum!)
then we put the kids to bed.
by this point Kat, PJ, Richard and myself were the only teenagers left (although Richard didnt stay overnight). we offered to put the kids to bed.
obviously it goes without saying that we didnt wake the kids up for a midnight feast and we didnt give them lots of sweets and stuff, and clearly when my mum popped across to drop something off we didnt have to rush to switch off the light and hide everything....because that sort of thing isn't allowed!

i didn't sleep amazingly well, our airbed didnt pump up so Kat and I were on cushions (although Kat ended up sleeping at the bottom of the stairs...don't ask!). especially since a watch in Andy's office (where we were sleeping) had an alarm that went off at 5.45am!
the girls woke up early and had some sleeping bag races...noisy but they seemed to have fun.
we then had them pack up their stuff and head over for breakfast.
after that we played some more splat! and when it got to 9.20am we walked them over for Godzone.
i stayed for the first 10 minutes and then had to leave to go help with Lazers up at LF which was fun.
however its now midday and i'm shattered! we're going to have lunch soon and then i plan on crashing on the sofa for the afternoon...particularly since i have to go out for cells tonight!

ah well...it was ALOT of fun and i wouldnt have missed it for the world...just give me a month to recover!
hope i covered everything, will blog again later this week.
much love xxx