This Easter saw Broadway run its first (in a VERY long time) Holiday Club. After talking about it on and off for a few years, Emma stumbled across The Restoration Station. The Restoration Station was created by Scripture Union and has all the scripts, drama, videos, games, group work, work books, everything you could possibly need, written out for you.
With a core team of 4, we set to work figuring out how we could run The Restoration Station, what it might look like for us, how much of the material we would use, how many volunteers we would need etc. Given that none of us had run a holiday club before, and one hadn’t been run here for at least 14 years, we had no idea of how many people we would need, but felt that if we could aim for a team of 10, we should be able to host 30 children. So Emma set to work finding volunteers, and boy did she find a great team! We ended up with a team of 11. From that team, we had 6 group leaders (“workshop leaders”), which enabled us to have 3 groups of up to 10 children; 2 team members who were in charge of registration/welcoming the children to the club each day; and 1 person to take on the main role in the daily drama, freeing up Emma and Rosie to effectively run the club from the front.
We were all feeling slightly apprehensive when the invitational flyers went out. How many kids would we get signed up?…Would we even get ANY children signed up? But we needn’t have worried as we had 29 children turn up for the full 3 days!
Each day we looked at a different story where Jesus repaired and restored someone, (the officials son, a lame man and Jesus very own friend Peter) all our drama, crafts, activities and workshop discussions were based around that story. There were set times for the children to watch a video, times to reflect and explore their thoughts on the story (either by thinking, talking or creating), times to play games, and times to answer some questions about what we had heard/been learning about. Then, at the end of the day, the children were invited to stay and have lunch with us. Which was a lovely way to end a fun-filled morning.
It was such a blessing to see children turn up on the first day very shy, come out of their shells, friendships were formed, belly laughing instilled, in jokes were made, memory verses memorised and we hope and pray lives were changed or at the very least seeds planted.
It is impossible to share with you all that went on, because the days were full and glorious, but I think it was safe to say that the children, and the team, had a brilliant time. And we can’t wait for the next one!
‘Anyone who belongs to Jesus has become a new person, the old life has gone; a new life has begun. 2 Corinthians 5:17
