Each year in the East End of London two churches get together to do a holiday club
for mainly Bangladeshi kids. My church- Church for The City and an Anglican church called Christchurch Spitalfields chooses a different theme each year and chose this year to have a pirate theme after the recent release of “Pirates of the Caribbean” third film.
We have had themes in the past that have included Grand Prix Winners, Seaside Rock, and an Egyptian Pyramid theme.
I have developed into “Mr Fixit” over the years I’ve been doing the club. I find out what theme the club is and seek to get equipment and props to enhance the week.
This year was a bit of a challenge. I scoured the Internet, particularly EBay and found several sellers offering Piratie stuff. I could have gone overboard (forgive the pun) and ordered quite a lot. But we limited ourselves to just a few items in the expectation of people coming up with their own things.
Each year I buy t-shirts and place iron on logos on them. This year I was able to get long-sleeved t-shirts for only a pound each.-Bargain eh?
Last year the theme was Grand Prix Winners. I found another church had done it the previous year. They still had some F1 papier-mâché cars we could use. This year’s theme, however, was new so no one had done it before. The equipment and props I was able to get I was able to pass on to another church, from Sussex, who was doing the club the following week. They were most grateful for what we were able to pass on.
The leader of the whole event is Alice. She has a real vision for doing this kind of thing.
Christ Church has some land near a park on which they had erected a marquee. In the past, and certainly this year, there had been a problem with security. For the first time the youths had sought to set the marquee alight! When I arrived on the first day ready to get started there were several burn marks where they had used a lighter to scorch the canvas. This was a worrying development. Some of the team were crying, worried we would not have tent to do the club in. The best thing to do was to pray. Praise God, we had no further problems of that kind after that!
Each day was started with setup. we all turned up about 11 and set up the wooden tables. These would be used for each team to gather round.
As it was a pirate theme we decided to name the teams after jewels, Red Rubies,
Blue Sapphires and Green Emeralds are just a few examples. My team was the black Jets. Jet, if you were wondering, is a semi precious stone from fossilised wood.
We first made sure the kids were registered and had permission from their parents. And the put them into teams. The had coloured material based on their team colour. The boys tended the make them into ninja bands around their heads. The girls wore them like sashes. I wore my black material like a pirate bandanna.
Each day we did craft with the kids. Making badges or creating a poster or a making a treasure chest with jewels to stick on. For one day we were going to get th
e kids to make a model lighthouse. The more we thought about it though, we decided it was a bit too ambitious. They seemed to really enjoy each craft we set them to do. They got really stuck in (another bad pun!).
"On the beach!" was the cry from the Captain. So everyone sat on the mats in the middle of the of the tent. The captain was local rector Andy. He is normally not that exuberant but really got into the part. He made silly comments that children always seem to enjoy, especially about the stuffed toy parrot I was able to get hold of.
Songs were sung. We learned the Pirate Song.
It went like this.
Ah-oooh! Ah-oooh!
Trying to reclaim the treasure that’s in store
Ah-oooh! Ah-oooh!
Chorus
And we’re keeping going, on towards the prize.
And we’re keeping going, never take our eyes
Off the treasure, ah-oooh! The treasure, ah-oooh!
We’re pirates from the open sea, Jesus is our guide.
Ah-oooh! Ah-oooh!
Means more to us than anything, he came to earth and died.
Ah-oooh! Ah-oooh!
We’re pirates from the open sea, here we go, wahey!
Ah-oooh! Ah-oooh!
Jesus is our everything, we’ll listen and obey.
Ah-oooh! Ah-oooh!
We’re pirates from the open sea, we have learnt to pray.
Ah-oooh! Ah-oooh!
Talking about everything, to Jesus every day.
Ah-oooh! Ah-oooh!
The Landlubbers Song
Words and music: Ruth Wills © Scripture Union 2004
Then came the games, We thank God that each day the rain held off enough for us
to play games outside of the tent. Games like coca cola challenge, skittle ball and many others. Inside we had a game to learn a memory verse. Bursting a balloon to retrieve a word was one of their favourite.
The highlight story from the week was the delivery from demons of a slave girl that the apostle Paul helped. All the adult helpers volunteered to mime it out while Alison told the story. Alison tells a very good story and everyone got well into their various parts. The evil slave master was booed enthusiastically and a guy called Will really played the apostle Paul well by showing his frustration at this slave girl following him about shouting out whilst being demon possessed. Although it was funny and everyone was laughing very hard the power of the story and how Jesus delivers us from evil really came across. You can read the story in Acts 16.
On the last night we were able to give all that we had used to another church in Sussex as they were going to have the same club the following week. It sound like the too had a great time being pirates.
