Holiday Club Day THREE

Searching for hidden clues

(Remember you can click on the pictures to enlarge them...)
Our 'Secret Agent' kids returned today wearing Banana yellow, the security level colour for today. Many of them even remembered our challenging Password for the day: Krypto-Comm! All the yellow made a lovely colourful background to the sea of smiling faces as they sat together in the hall at the start of the day.
First up was a group observation exercise where

they had to find items hidden in the pictures they were given. Our young spies are quite good at observing!

Agent AA and the spychief

Then the Spy Chief (our minister, Theo!) had a clandestine meeting at the 'Nile Coffee Shop' with none other than the famous Agent DoubleA: Aaron, brother of Moses and Miriam! How amazing to hear first-hand about all the plagues in Egypt, and to see the spy-cam footage. Made us feel a bit of what it must have been like. It seems amazing that despite all the suffering Pharaoh kept

on answering "No!" when Moses gave God's message of "Let My people go!" It was a tough time for Moses and Aaron. We learned that when our faith is tested, like theirs must have been, we have a God who is in control. We need to trust him and cling to him and wait to see the salvation he will bring.

Wake up Agent M

Our "Who's the Mole?" Drama had Agents M, O, S, E and Z crawling among the children (much to their delight!), trying to find the enemy agents and rescue their top secret and very valuable Moses documents. Thay have received intel that the enemy agents are at the station. Little do they know that the word 'petrol' has been torn out before 'station', and so they end up at the train station -  the wrong place all together, and they do not find the enemy agents at all. It seems that like the Israelites, they need to hang in there and trust God even though things are not going well. At least the Israelites didn't have to keep on waking a sleeping leader!

TEAtime

Wednesday is always cup-cake day at Holiday Club, and the kids really enjoyed their treat - a BIG thank you to all the cup-cake bakers and servers!

Our game today was a real spy-fest with kids trying to identify the 'kidnapper' from a group of suspects. They had to interrogate suspects, do fingerprint analysis, examine possible crime scenes, and gather evidence. With the correct password they had access to sweets to sustain their energy for the hunt, and they successfully identified 'Shady Raccoon' (a really shady character) as the kidnapper. Shady has promised to return Miriam to us tomorrow, or face the music...

Fingerprint Paint

Craft time today appropriately focussed on fingerprints and the kids produced some creative fingerprint art-work.

Our memory verse for the day was presented with actions and the super-intelligent spies soon had Matthew 11:28 committed to memory: "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."

The day ended with some games in the hall and a closing time of praise and worship. The kids and leaders are really getting into the singing and actions!

And with that we are more than half way through our MISSION:RESCUE Holiday Club!
(There are more fotos on FaceBook - click here

16Square is the best game ever!

Interrogating the Suspects

It's fun chasing suspects!

The Suspects

Memory Verses

Holiday Club Day TWO

Camo-kid super-spy

A few more children arrived for holiday club today and almost all of the children who were yesterday were back for more fun! Some of them dressed for the occasion in camo-colours and "incognito" disguises. They also dressed in "Aquamarine Blue" which was the security code for the day.

The day started with some cool spy activities and exercises and a great time of singing praises to our wonderful God. There is an exuberance about children's worship that really moves the soul.

Agent M's phobia...

The "Who's the Mole?" drama was very funny and exciting with the messenger pigeon zooming across the room to bring messages to the agents (and poop on Agent Z - does the bird know something we don't?) We also discovered that the intrepid Agent M suffers from coulrophobia (the fear of clowns) and pogonophobia (the fear of beards) I leave it all to your imagination...!

We

Not a stealth phone!

learned about stealth and what stealth is NOT and we saw how God's Mission was revealed to Moses at the Burning Bush. Moses' God is a God who sees, hears, is concerned and comes down to free His people. Moses discovers that like the burning bush the Mission will set him on fire but not consume him. We learned about prayer and stuck our prayers like flames on the bush. The faith of kids is astounding!

After tea and a few games we settled down to the crafts and then it was time for the memory verse ("Acts 7:34 I have indeed seen the oppression of my people in Egypt, I have heard their groaning and have come down to set them free")

Before we knew it, the day had come to an end.

You can see more photos on FaceBook by clicking here

Agent M's other phobia  

  

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Registration helpers

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Who's the mole drama

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Songs with actions (fast!)

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Spy calisthenetics

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Children's worship

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Group Quiet Times

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Some of our very littlies

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An awesome prayer

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Pictures for memory verse...

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Children's flame prayers

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Deep prayers

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Holiday Club Day ONE

(You can click any pic to enlarge and press "back" to return)

After lots of preparation and pre-prayer-ation, we launched our annual holiday club. On Day ONE we had 58 children and 20 enthusiastic leaders. Our theme is "Mission Rescue" and the holiday club has a spy-theme and focuses on the story of Moses and the Exodus. Our first day was a great success and we hope it just gets better and better.

Forming Groups

Weeks before Brenda, Diana and their helpers have been slaving to get ready for today, the crafts have been prepared, cookies baked and our awesome team of leaders (mostly teens with a few young adults in the mix) spent Saturday in training. You have to admire the dedication as it was only 2°C at 10h00 on Saturday. On Sunday the chairs were moved and we are ready to go.

Groups

Monday morning dawned, a bit warmer than the three before and the leaders were there by 6h55. The final pre-briefing done, the kids started pouring in. Games were played and groups were set up. Names, passwords and disguises were the order of the day along with the gripping drama "Who's the Mole?" with agents M, O, S, E and Z. Just who will the mole be?? Spy Chief Theo talked to the kids about how God rescued Moses to be His Secret Agent to rescue His people.

Then it was time for games and relays. Followed by tea, cookies, crafts, quiet-times and singing!


Before we knew it, day one was done! But never fear there's always day two!

See more pics on FaceBook (click here )

Ten legged races

Disguises!

Bible Story Time

Fun Singing

Disguised

Quiet Time

Studying Intently

Serious Disguises

More relay fun

We like our group!

                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Games Afternoon

We'd had some freezing weather and so we were concerned, but the weekend was warm and Emmanuelites and Grace-ites joined together for an amazingly enjoyable afternoon of picnics and games.

Gavin and Shirley Tucker, along with Greg and Sean (thanks guys!) made all the arrangements and set up all the games for the afternoon and soon we were tucking into delicious picnics and the children were already starting to throw frisbees, kick balls and wind up their hockey sticks. After lunch, the games began in earnest with Volleyball, Soccer and Touch Rugby being the main events although there was a fiercely competed game of Scrabble on the sidelines too.

It was a lovely afternoon and we are very grateful to the Glen High School for allowing us the use of their stunning premises.

One Day without Shoes!

Although the official "TOMS Shoes - One day without Shoes" event was on Tuesday the 5th of April, we decided to have a shoeless Sunday and it was a HUGE success. It was really thought-provoking to consider how fortunate and blessed we are to have shoes!

Emmanuel Human Rights Breakfast

It was Human Rights Day... on a Monday! What better way to start a public-holiday Monday than with a cooked breakfast. Ben and Patricia and their fellowship group put it all together and we all came and enjoyed a rather yummy brekkie together.



 
 

Shaveathon

We do it every year - spraying, shaving or NOT.
But we all get involved and we all support the worthwhile CANSSA charity.
We were privileged this year to be joined by Gerry and Janine Couchman who are with Willow Creek and supported us in this outreach which raised over R7000 and a lot of thoughtful fun.

The pictures say it all!

Me + U + God = MUG

Mug is our first-and-third Friday of the month get-together for teens.
This is really picking up pace in 2011 and we had a great evening get-together to get the ball rolling for the year.

Baptise Rorisang Mashoko

Theo was very privileged to be asked to baptise Lentikile and Tumi Mashoko's son, Rorisang.

Click here to see the video.

Reaching out to needy learners

Each year we reach out to needy learners in the Pretoria West Area by purchasing school stationery and making donations. Minister Emeritus Rex le Roux spearheads this outreach (he used to be the member of parliment for this area yesteryear). The photos below show the pile of stationery, the children at the afterschool centre where they are given a meal and thank you letters from the headmasters of some of the local schools.