Holiday Fun Week 2008
Pirates
Hoist the main Sail!
Aye aye captain
Raise the flag
2 words: "
Fun" and "Week" and it was!....
Monday's
journey started at 9am for morning prayers led by Father David, whom no-one recognised in his pirate garb until they spotted THOSE SHORTS. We touched the community and beyond as the motorists supported Father David (on his bike in his outfit) with the odd whistle. The word was spreading......
Our ships sailed into port from across the B5 seas. Our crew included 1st mate – Jen, Ship Mate Max and myself as the Admiral. Our first day was to learn a pirate song which will stay with us for ever.
The Clergy given the task of unveiling the story of Saul (Paul). Father David was given the heading “Saul – the persecutor of the Christians” How were our leaders to translate ‘stoning Stephen to death’ to 5 year olds without giving them nightmares? This is how the theme Pirates came into play. The leaders translated this through play, songs, craft, cooking - showing them how enthusiastic Saul was and how he thought he was doing the right thing by ‘Catching Christians’.
On Tuesday Father Damian gave us a visual display of how Saul was preparing to set out for Damascus as all the Christians had now learned of Saul and were fleeing to places like Damascus.
On Wednesday
our Methodist rep ‘Ros’ gave us a life changing experience of how Saul was blinded by the light when Jesus spoke to him on his journey to Damascus. Ros had gone into the hairdressers on her way to Port Methodist and asked for her hair to be changed into a Pirate – but her accent got confused and she came with green hair and red streaks and looked more like a parrot!
The children made sunglasses and played blindfold games to learn how Saul would have felt.
Thursday came and Jenny Morgan our URC minister talked us through how Saul waited patiently in Damascus for someone to tell him what he must do and how he didn’t eat or drink for 3 days. Whilst Jenny and I could relate to this over the past week, Big Pirate Roy struggled with this idea so the children continued make him cakes, pizzas, ice-cream, bread, biscuits.....
On Friday Saul had started out as a keen Christian catcher, but instead he’d been caught by Christ! How would he cope with his new life? He set out to tell everyone of his strange experience on the road to Damascus and how Jesus WAS really the son of God! However, some angry Jews who did not believe him and put guards on the gates so he could not escape. Saul did not want to be killed! So Allison, our rep from St Ann’s gave us a visual experience of how Saul escaped in a basket and set off on his journey to be a good Christian.
Our drama covered the story of how a bad Pirate who wanted all the treasure turned into a good pirate and glowed and the treasure was actually....Jesus. The showed us what we have inside and how we can share it.
This is just how our Golden Galleon changed; from being Grey & Dull to becoming a glowing golden ship, as Saul did! Our B5 teenagers also set out on a Journey; from Port Methodist to Port All Saint’s pushing the ship on wheels through Banstead. The community really did see our good work and rewarded them with a few “aye aye Captains”
And on a final note; one little boy said “I know how you can change?” “How?” I said, “Be kind and smile”, out of the mouth of an innocent child! Our work was done – this was the equivalent of job satisfaction.
Emma Duke
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