It’s been a busy week for theExplorer’s kids club Team, as we have been busy, busy, busy with drawing, painting, cutting and pasting animals that will be ready for the decoration preparation on Sunday.

This week has been a wonderful and creative experience. Early on in the week we went to Plymouth Music Zone and experienced a range of samba and unusual instruments. Plymouth Music zone is a community music organisation that provide opportunities for people of all ages and training for adults.

The instruments we used were known as penitone instruments, which basically use notes of the pentonic scale.

The aim was to get us to be more confident in front of people when talking and to be aware when standing in front of people of our mannerisms. We had a quick lesson on projecting our voice and then went outside. We talked across the garden to our partner saying loudly “red lorry, yellow lorry” rather loudly and getting faster. If the neighbours were listening they must of thought those students are behaving rather oddly.  

After a brief talk on our strengths and weaknesses we had a speed dating type exercise of practicing talking on a surface level with each member of the group. This was weird but good as it taught us to listen and ask questions. This will be good when going into the schools and on mission, giving more confidence in striking up conversations.

We had more practice standing up in front of the group talking on a subject for two minutes just given to us. This was hard but good. Then we were videoed, and repeated the same process, which enabled us to improve on our good points and bad points. A challenging but fun day had by all.

SWEATIES practicing their preaching skills

The stickers on Matt’s face is the Coffee cup stickers from the McDonalds Coffee cups.

Q: Who goes into McDonalds at 8am on a Friday morning to have a drink and play UNO?

A: SWEATIES do! We had so much fun playing UNO in the middle of McDonald’s and having people looking at us and not quite understanding us and what we were doing there.

This week we have been really busy!

We found out who is running Kids Club in February  Half Term and who is running Illuminate in March. I am running the Soup Sale at Celebration on Sunday Afternoon.

Josh is running Kids Club

Mark is running Illuminate

Sam is helping to peel the all of the 108 carrots,that we need ready to go into our soup that we in Celebration on Sunday.

We went to St. Peters Primary School, and performed two dances to the children. which was really fun and enjoyable to do.

On Thursday Evening We helped at a Youth For Christ group for youth aged from 11 to 18. The youth Group is called Wired. The group was really enjoyable and exciting. We will be helping every Thursday Evening.

Joshua is helping to sweep up the mess that we made in the kitchen, with all the veg peelings!

It has been an exciting start into the new year and term 2 of SWEAT, as we go into new things. It is so good to be back and I’m so excited to see what God is going to do in me and the other Sweaties this term.

To start off on the first day we had SWEAT games. As you can see on the picture me and Taylor with the winning prize, the glorious golden sink plunger, which was smithed by Travis in the depths of the SWEAT house.  

This week we have been learning how to manage our time in our personal lives and in a management position. And practically outworking what we have learned so that we can grow and procrastinate no more! No more making tea every five minutes! No more spending 1/2 hour to find the right pen and spending 10 minutes getting it to work! No more avoiding the big priorites because you would rather spend doing all the things which are not so important and by the time you’re in the right mood you’ve ran out of time! This is a time to knuckle down and give all the glory to God, to change us through challenges, building our character and leadership skills. This term we will be heading up Kids Club and Illuminate at the Living Well Church Building.

We have also been doing 40 days in the word, dwelling in the word of God richly in all new ways. Learning about how amazing our God is and how much we  can get out of His Word that he has provided us with so freely, just so that we can have a relationship with him. I’ve learned so much already in just 1 week and there is still 4 weeks to go.

The first day we had to run around our local area of Plymstock and The Barbican. Here’s a picture of our team outside the famous Dolphin pub.

The second day was a cycling challenge. On that day we went all around Plympton on a treasure hunt. The fun didn’t stop there – it went on into the night and included some interesting decorating to my face. See below…

The third day we had to do lots of challenges in town. One of the challenges was to take a picture of someone we didn’t know wearing a silly hat.

The amazing race has been a really fun way to put into practice many of the leadership principles we have already learnt this year. We’ve had to work in teams and strategically think how to complete events under time pressures. It’s been a really fun 3 days, and I’d love to go into more detail but I can’t ruin it for any future students reading this blog! So if you want to know more then come and ask me and I’ll tell you all about it. The amazing race has really set us all up for a refreshing Christmas break.

The term is coming to an end, everyone is looking forward to going home for Christmas and spending time with family, we leave on the 18th so there will be one more blog before we leave.

Thank you bye.

48 hours seems a very long time but it’s really not!! Especially when you have to do a challenge in that amount of time.  

It was difficult at first as you don’t know what to expect from the challenge or how we would react as a group.

Try to imagine how much you can achieve within the day time of 48 hours? Now try to imagine how much you could achieve by using the fall 48 hours.

For the challenge we were:                                                                                                                                                                                                        

- given a book to read

- To write a summarize version

- To create a video

- And act out a piece of drama, with very little sleep!!

We all had an average of about 5 hours sleep in the 2 days.

When the challenge was set everyone was nervous and had different emotions towards the challenge as some people had never done anything like this before let alone lead the group in the challenge.

When the challenge was over we all felt a sense of achievement as we all thought we would not be able to do it at the beginning. We managed to work together so I think have was another sense of achievement. I think by doing this challenge it has bonded all the team together, and now we are all a strong group.

When we had finished the challenge we got given our jumpers with our names on it that we had ordered. So that was really exciting to finish on a high with receiving our jumpers. When we had finished everything we all decided not to go to bed but to go and treat ourselves to ice cream from McDonald’s!! we did go to bed eventually!!

We had so many memories made from the challenge. We had some laughs from making the video and the drama that we will continue to talk, discuss and laugh at the crazy and emotional times for years to come.

It was as it said on the tin, “Lads and Dads”, if you did not have a Dad or a Lad this did not matter because they found you one, when you got there. It was an amazingly funny and fun weekend with shooting, table size catapult’s, fireworks, a fire and rugby in the dark. 

The hosts Mike and Carol made us feel really welcome and cooked the most amazing food. This all took place down at Camelford in Cornwall.We even got an outing to Tintagel.

We had real good man time, and fellowship time. I found for my self it was great to have my Dad come  down as I don’t get to spend time with him so it was nice to do this. Our pastor from our church came as well, his name was Mike he has a very demanding life so I think he enjoyed the break. It was good to see him and have him join us for the weekend. The absolute highlight for me was the marshmallows and spoon carving around the fire.  

What do we do now

Me and my Dad

Check my group of pellets out on the target

Bed time in the Barn

I have a bigger sombrero at home

These ice creams from Granny-wobbly's fudge shop are the best

The Girls Very own Firework Night

Yes! A weekend without the Guys!! and when I say guys I mean boys or Men. It was so relaxing. We had sparklers, small fireworks, chic flicks and a pamper night; Chocolate or Fruity Face masks with cucumbers and Manicure/Pedicures. Very Girly Indeed.

This week has been more of a low key week, than usual…(I think). Since Sunday, we have been reading up on our first assignment for SATS, so that means studying and concentrating on revision for the upcoming dates for our test. Bring it On!!!

This weekend we also had a Masquerade Carnival set-up by the wonderful M.A.R.J. They did an excellent job with Decor and Food and everyone came with a variety of masks and costumes. I do believe there was some Neon Pinks and Yellows, with owl and cat masks.

All in all, through the lecture based teachings, I have really enjoyed this week.