Church Mice

Each month at my church, we have what we call 'Second Fridays'. Second Friday is on the second Friday of every month, and is when the Youth and Singles play babysitter for the parents for a night. We clear all the chairs out of the Sanctuary and let the kids run around and play for a couple hours. Most of the time that gets pretty boring, so every month we have a Game Coordinator. As it happened, this particualar month (April) I was chosen.

Actually I volunteered, but that's not the point.

Everytime I do games for Second Friday, I am amazed at how easily kids get bored these days. Games that I used to love are passionately hated....go figure. So coming up with decent and entertaining games can be quite a chore... especially when you're dealing with about 40 kids.

Another thing you should know about me- even though I am a fully-grown woman, my voice still sounds almost exactly like it did when I was 12 years old. Seriously, it's barely changed. Singing-wise it's kind of nice...but the down side is that my voice doesn't carry very far at all.

It really doesn't...I used to volunteer at a Assisted Living home about once a week. I called Bingo for the residents on teusday nights. I call the numbers, yes, but they are also flashing up on a really really big screen that was behind me. Well, every once in a while some elderly people would come in to play who couldn't hear Jack Squat. For some reason, these same people would almost always manage to sit as far in the back of the room as possible. Go figure. Anyway, one particular evening a lady came in. She was petite, had very white hair, and (as time would tell) was as deaf as a post. True to form, she sat in the very back of the room...never mind that there were three empty seats in the front.
So I was calling out the numbers...and like I said my voice doesn't carry well, so I was projecting quite a bit.
"B2!"
The little old lady in the back couldn't hear me. Apparently she couldn't see the 7 inch tall letters flashing in the background either...so she asked for a repeat.
"B2!"(louder)
Again, the poor woman couldn't hear.
"B2!!"(louder than the last one)
And again she couldn't hear. At last, I drew every last ounce of air from my lungs as I screamed,
"B2!!!!!"
By this time the other contestants in the room were weary of all this, so they all pointed in unison at the bright red flashing board behind me and said,
"B2!!"
She finally got it and the game went on from there.

Anywhoo, the point of that was that my voice doesn't carry very far at all...and that is why i brought my Dad's professional referee whistle to Second Friday and why I had to use a microphone.

I still lost my voice that night.

The games seemed to go pretty well. No one was seriously injured, thank goodness. One of the rules of Second Friday is that none of the kids may leave the sanctuary unless there is a break or thery are bleeding. So far that rule has gone pretty well in the sense that we've only had one broken bone... so far. Yes I know, it's encouraging. This time, however, things went very smoothly...we had relays, races, dodgeball and octopus tag. After all the games were up I had the kids help the Singles to put all the chairs back...which is usually a very lengthy process.

While we were putting up chairs, I was unstacking them by the back wall of the Sanctuary. I had just put a chair down on my foot when I heard one of the kids yell, "There's a mouse!!! Catch it!!"

And then the mouse ran about 4 feet away from me and disappeared in the closet.

Being a member of the gender known as Females, my first instinct is to jump up onto a chair as fast as possible...and I am ashamed to say that I followed my instincts quite well that time. As soon as I did so, the thought ran through my head 'Emily, you're the leader of all these kids and you are up on a chair!! what is wrong with this picture?'

I got down from the chair about as fast as I jumped up.

But, of course, all the kids saw the whole thing and I still haven't lived it down.

Anyway, the mouse instantly attracted all the kids to the closet. They stood there in a group for about five minutes until Mike, one of the Singles in our church, broke up the gathering.

And then Mike goes and makes up the saying, "There's a mouse in the Lord's house!"

I know, it's cheesy.

The little group congregated again in front of the closet to watch for the mouse to run out. This time it obliged. The mouse sped out of the closet right into the group of kids.

I'm sure you can imagine what kind of a reaction that started.

After that I wasn't able to quite get control of the kids, but the parents showed up at the same time so it's all good.