surviving the lock-in

another lock-in has come and gone, and we can proudly say that there were no hospital visits or rushes for towels and ice to stop bleeding jr highers. while some may say that this would qualify as a failure, i'd accept it as a subtle victory. there's nothing like getting a phone call about a girl going to the doctors and maybe having a detatched retna from being hit in the head in glow-in-the-dark dodgeball.

we rented a bounce-house obstacle course like we always do, but this year we got one that was brand new. it had this big section the kids would race through, going through a tunnel, diving above and below inflated tubes, diving through a hole, scaling a wall, and finally sliding down a big inflatable slide. It was awesome to see the look on the kids faces as they walked into the youth center and saw this enormous inflatable thing filling the whole sanctuary. it was absolutely massive, and the slide part went almost to the ceiling.

the rest of the evening we played games like dodgeball, crab soccer with a large, rubber inflated ball. we played human foosball, had a treasure hunt were i got to run around and hit kids who weren't linked with their team with one of those pool noodles we cut in half. we played capture the flag, socks (a SGUC original where we wrap socks in duct tape and throw them at each other), and played Off With Your Head, which is a game where we rented these suits with big cylander shaped heads velcroed onto these suits and the kids had to knock the opponents head off with their jousting stick. we played Kijabe-kan-kan, where the kids form a circle around a bucket holding ropes and try to pull each other into it. we had a leader round and i cut off the circulation in my pinkie, and the tip of my pinky is still numb from it.

so much fun was had. we had 70 jr highers and they all heard the gospel and pretty much all of them had a great time. as far as the leaders go, we're still recovering from the night, and i have realized that i am now old and can't do anything without being sore in the morning.


if you want to check out the video from the night, go onto the link for the youth site to the right and go to the jr high page!