Holiday Club!

AH!!!!

That's the typical thought that went through everyone's mind when they would think or talk about Holiday Club*. Every time someone brought it up there seemed to be a collective sigh that went up. It was coming. Oh no. And because of all the stories that people had told us about Holiday Club last year – or how there was 500 kids, unreliable volunteers, and just mass chaos in general, no one was looking forward to this week where kids from all over PMB would gather on the church property. [*Holiday Club is a BCA program that functions similar to a day camp/VBS].

Actually, I know my teammates were dreading this coming time, especially Kyle who was in charge of all the sports (which is one of the main points of Holiday Club). I however, was in charge of catering logistics and "media" related stuff as well. So since I didn't actually have to work with children (i.e. group leader), I didn't really mind that this week was quickly approaching. I actually felt a strange peace about it as everyone around me was kind of in a hectic mood.


I found out the other day that MMN apparently sends out prayer requests and a prayer came through to pray for Holiday Club and my Grandparents – all the way in Manson, Iowa, got it. But I definitely think people all around the world must have been praying for this thing because we had no money for this thing. Catering was going to cost money, transport was going to cost money, everything seemed to be very stressful because we had no sponsors and Thandi (BCA's coordinator) even mentioned something the week before Club that maybe we weren't going to have it. This is big thing for Thandi to say, since she usually has a great, trusting outlook on things. So we had no idea what was going to happen with this week.

In the end, things went amazingly smoothly. BCA decided to ask for donations from kids (not very much, and only from those who could give) and made kids pay for transport – which is the main issue. Because of this we had roughly 150-200 kids every day. But with 50 volunteers, it was definitely manageable and quieter than last year. It was great that the volunteers could spend less time "policing" the kids and more time actually delivering a quality program. As I went around taking pictures of the events, it was really cool to see all the volunteers interact with their kids, and actually know the kids' names in their groups. I am sure that even though there were less kids, the impacted made was definitely more significant.

Also, as far as catering went, things really came through. We had different ladies' cells cater each day, and they pretty much sponsored all of our needs. It was fantastic. We actually got a lot of bread donations from local stores and a really random delivery of tons and tons of butternut squash. (Actually about 50% of it was rotten, so a group of us had to spend a large chunk of Tuesday afternoon chopping out the bad parts and sorting through the rest. Wow it was so gross. But on Thursday, Aunty Phyllis came with this awesome butternut soup. It was great).

During the days, I helped with registration and getting numbers to the kitchen, etc., but my favorite thing to do was take pictures and video of the events and kids. And I discovered that maybe I studied the wrong thing. Or just didn't study enough. I really want to get into media stuff – like videography, etc. So I guess I was in the right stream as far as communications and writing at Bluffton, it just wasn't enough. And so now I am seriously looking into going back to school to get certified in this type of stuff. If I could spend all day behind a camera and actually get paid for it – it would be the best.

So overall, Holiday Club was awesome. Sure it was exhausting and towards the end of the week I was really tired of having children everywhere. But it was a good week. Things went really well, and so thank you to everyone was who praying for us. Your prayers were definitely answered.