Guidepost - Day 1

I just got back from my first day at guidepost!!! EEKK! For any of my friends reading this, you will know just how excited I have been and just how much guidepost in general means to me. It truly changed my life last year when I went for the first time and was so inspired and so filled with all of these wonderful emotions that I decided to pick up my Christian faith again, which I had lost for a few years when less and less people my age were becoming religious. I can honestly say a year on that I don't regret my decision in the slightest, and although this year hasn't been easy (when is life ever easy?), I have found so much comfort and joy from my religion.

So, last night there was a commissioning service where you basically just pray for the week ahead and ask for all good things, and then a training service where we had to go through all of the do's and don'ts  of guidepost, including the hang able offence of wearing a hat inside a tent!

After that, myself, my friend Milly, and another friend went to Mylie's house, yes another friend of mine (I'm just so popular) before the first day of guidepost. We had dominoes and watched possibly the chickiest chick flick ever, Clueless. We settled down quite early (in sleepover terms) and although we did get a fair amount of sleep, it was groans all round when the alarm clock went at 7:30am.

As today was the first day, we had to be there by 9, so after a quick breakfast of Krave (mmmmmm), and some fussing over clothing and makeup (you know girls) we were out the door and headed full speed ahead to the guidepost field where around 11 huge marquees have been erected for the event.

We started the day with a pray and preparation session for all helpers where we again prayed for the day ahead and just went over some of the super important points from the training again before separating into our teams. I chose to work with the 5 year olds, and because they are so young they have their very own tent that they share with the 4 years olds called the ark tent.

Within the 5s, there are a lot of groups, and each group has a leader and lots of assistants (I'm an assistant) and between 10-15 children. Each group then has a name based on a theme, and the theme was parties, so our group was called the Presents. We then grabbed our colourful sign and waited outside while the countdown played in the speaker, counting down the seconds to the official start of guidepost and when the parents would be let in to start the chaos. The first 40 minutes were just spent by the children coming up and being assigned to a certain group, and then being taken in to sit with the rest of the group to do colouring and activities while waiting for the rest of the group to arrive.

After everyone had come, we got on with the starting show done by the leaders of the 4 and 5s. See, all week they are planning a party and need everyone's help to make sure it's perfect (this is designed for 4 and 5 year olds, please understand). We then went off to the first activity which turned out to be craft.

In craft the children made these incredible hats in the shape of lighthouses. They had this large cut-outs probably about 35cm from top to bottom which they coloured in and decorated and then a spinning shining light was added to the top. My favourite was a little boy who is clearly going to be an interior designer, because he made extra sure that all of the curtains in the windows were beautifully decorated. A band was then stapled onto the base of these lighthouses so that the children could wear them on their heads. When they all got them back at the end of the day and were all wearing these huge self decorated lighthouses on their heads... there are no words.

After craft we went back to the ark tent where a local vicar came and talked to the children about Moses, and how God fed all of the Israelites after they had been rescued from Egypt. It's always really good because he gets children up to act out the story and everyone in the audience to make the various sound effects and actions to go along with the story.

After craft we headed to drama, where everyday a part of a big play is put on for all of the children. This year it's all about a knight in shining armour and his squire, a beautiful princess, the bad knight and the missing secret ingredient for the King's birthday cake. Again, there is a huge amount of interaction with the kids boo and hiss and shout things out. There was a very funny bit where the knight and his squire got eggs cracked on their heads. We finished by playing musical statues, but it was very difficult to find a winner because everyone was so good!

Then, it was lunchtime! A favourite of everyone's, I think we can all agree. It passed rather uneventfully, only with a few trips to the loos. Although, during lunch one little girl's tooth started bleeding and I had to take her to first aid. Those damn apples!

We were still in first aid for most of naptime unfortunately, where the children all lie down and someone comes and reads a story. Today it was the gruffalo. Unfortunately, we'd only just back into the tent when the fire drill alarm went off - which meant we never got to finish to book!

Then after nap time, it was games which is when the children all get to go out onto the field and play with balls and hula hoops and things. There is a whole team of people who are meant to play with the children during this time. I can't actually tell you much about it because I spend 95% of the time at first aid with the 3 injuries that came about. Interestingly enough, 2 of them involved girls hitting themselves in the face when playing with hula hoops.

After games, we filed back into the tent for just under an hour before the end of the day where we played lots of games. One of the best bits is when all of the group leaders have to go up and their group is asked is question about what they have learnt that day. If the group gets the question wrong, then the group leader gets pied in the face! Luckily that didn't happen to our group leader today!

The after that, one assistant from each group has to go up to play a game in which the looser gets gunged by something different and disgusting each day. Luckily it wasn't one of our group's assistants that got gunged! However, when they were playing a game, one little girl asked me what happened to the looser, so I explained to her about the gunging. Her eyes widened in fear even after I tried to assure her that it wasn't at all scary, but she refused to watch it so I had to take her out of the tent while it's happening. There's always one kid like that every year, so we now need to work out a rota as to who is going to take her out of the tent each day. I can't get too mad though, because I know that when I was little an went to holiday clubs, I was the kid that was afraid of the gunging!

After that, the mad chaos ensued of all of the parents coming in to collect their children and their lunches and their beautiful hats. Of course, there's always the one who looses their lunchbox but all too soon it was over and done with.

We went back into the main tent afterwards for relax and reflect, where people talk about their 'wow' moments of the day, moments that really made them stop and think, and it was just a nice calming session after the busy day. And although I haven't mentioned it here, the whole day was spent singing and dancing which is probably my personal favourite part of guidepost.

And that pretty much brings us up to the present! I am about to rush off to one of the evening activities that are held for all of the teenage helpers, but I'm planning to write about that when I get back and I'll probably upload it around 8:00am tomorrow, so look forward to that!

Here's to an amazing evening and an amazing rest of the week!

P.S. You may have noticed that this is coming a bit later than usual - just for this week I am moving my upload time to 7:00pm so that I can actually have time to write and regenerate between the busy day and the eventful evening!