I survived my first lock-in. What fun!!! I led a devotional about God's love, using the parable of the lost sheep. I used a demonstration of God's love flowing through us to spill out to others. I found the example on the Internet. Creating a pyramid of glasses, the top one represented ME, while the other glasses stood for friends, family, and others. I poured water from a pitcher (God's love) onto me, which overflowed through His giving us His Son Jesus to die for our sins, His committment to us as our Father, and His promise to stay with us wherever we go. This love overflowed through ME to others. I thought it was a pretty neat visual!
We played all kinds of fun games outside. We also went through their rehearsal for Sunday's musical program about God's love. Sadly, while we were outside, I was tackled by a 3rd grader, which showed my lack of strength. I gave piggyback rides, and I joined in on all the fun. I joined 7 girls in their room. We all stretched out on the floor with our sleeping blankets and pillows. After many stories and games, we finally settled in after about 2 AM.
At quarter til 3, I felt something crawling in my hair. I panicked, thinking of roaches or spiders. I looked up, and the door was cracked, and several of my male students/former students were giggling like mad. They had the door cracked, and were playing a prank on me, pulling a string (or something?) through my hair. I crawled down the hall after them, but they escaped to their room. I had already joined them in a pitch black dark room while they bombarded me with their pillows. OUCH. I collapsed once again. A little later, the group leader entered our room, and told me the boys were EXPECTING me to pull a prank on them, so they feared going to sleep. HAHHAHAHHA......I began to search around the house for something, anything....but to no avail! Finally, I found some duct tape. They had threatened to tape ME to the floor. After a giggling/snorting fit from the leader and me outside the boys' door, the boys got VERY quiet. After resolving our laughter,she opened their door, and I swiftly crawled in with my tape ready. There was a problem--it was pitch dark. I could see nothing. I could hear someone's fake snore. I taped a head. The light snapped on, and all the boys tackled me. I was on the floor, and they taped my shoulders, wrists, ankles, and, yes, even my mouth closed. I was laughing uncontrollably. They tried to pick me up, but it didn't work. hahahha. I managed to get to my feet, and they shuffled me down to the girls' room, waking them up to show their delight in capturing me. Finally, after they pulled my hair out getting the tape off, we all settled back into our rooms.
At 6:15 AM, we got up to cook breakfast. I was given some shaving cream that miraculously appeared. I went into the sleeping boys' room and creamed some heads and faces. They almost didn't budge. It was so funny. P. followed behind taking lots of pictures. One boy made a wheezing whiney noise. I almost died from laughter. I escaped long enough to hide the shaving cream. They sleepily arose, and they figured out quickly it was ME that had GOTTEN THEM!!! I had to help clean a few of them up. Of course, some of them used my shirt as their rag.
What fun!!! Sharing my love with my students.....
My body is sore from the tackle, the riding, the taping, and the sleeping on the floor....but it is all worth it.
I am about to go see them present their program tonight.
