Samson, Our "Homeless Puppy"
Scavenger Hunt
The Winning Team
Homeless Dinner
Ben says, "I'd die if this was all I had to eat!"
Painting Our "Houses"
Dinnertime
Pre-Movie Snacks
More Sugar, PLEASE!!!
Breakfast and Bed Hair
The much-anticipated first annual Zero Gravity lock-in finally arrived....and it was sooooo worth the wait! We had a BLAST! The theme was Our Cup Runneth Over and based on teaching the kids more about Terrace Palm's homeless ministry and the importance of serving our community in that way.
We started the evening with a fierce scavenger hunt that Jen Smith (everyone's "Aunt Jen") put together for us. If the rhyming clues to where the next clues were hidden proved too much for the seekers, Jen would give them another clue...provided they could recite at least a part of the Scripture on the back of their clue. She had some very creative hiding spaces and the first team finished in just about 25 minutes!
Their scavenger hunt left them at their appliance boxes they brought to eat and sleep in and there we served them chicken noodle soup (with very little chicken and noodles) and crackers and water.
Once their homeless dinner ended, they got busy decorating their boxes. Some of these kids are quite artistic! While our boxes dried, we ate our real dinner....BBQ beef sandwiches, cheese and crackers, grapes, chips and salsa...We even had the opportunity to feed David some of our dinner. He's the homeless man who sleeps under the church's awning when the rain has soaked his normal dwelling place too much. David was very appreciative and graciously promised to keep an eye out for us during the night.
After dinner, Miss Jennifer cranked up the music, turned out the lights, and sardines it was. Sardines is a game where one of two people hide while others search for them. Once they're found, the person or people who found them hide with the first people until more discover their hiding place. The last ones to find the group of "sardines" are the first ones to hide during the next round. Ben and I hid in a tight spot, but proved to be pretty hard to find for quite a while! Of course we almost screamed when the air handler where we were hiding kicked on....LOUDLY! That should give you a clue where we were hiding!
About 10:30 we put on PJ's and hit the snacks before our movie started. We had chocolate chip cookie bars, Rice Krispie treats, popcorn, and ice cream sundaes. Some of us made root beer floats instead. We had a very strict "no puke policy" in place so we tried to choose our poison wisely!
Then we watched The Blindside, the true story about the once homeless teenager Michael Oher and the family who met his needs and helped him achieve his dreams to become an NFL star. We finally bunkered down about 1 a.m. and slept until 7....leaving us just enough time to get up, pack up, eat up, and clean up before parents arrived at 8! The kids' challenge while they slept was to hide and not lose their tootsie pops that could be "stolen" from them during the night. We talked about how this is just one fear homeless people have on the streets every night. Lucky for the kids, the potential "thieves" were too exhausted to commit the crime!
Thanks to all the parents who brought food and boxes and to all the Zero Gravity kids who helped make this a most memorable lock-in. I've been told it'll be hard to top next year!
