Wednesday's Word of the Week - I Messed Up

We’ve all messed up. Said the wrong words, loved the wrong person, reacted the wrong way…walked when we should have waited, indulged when we should have resisted.

You’ll mess up more if you let yesterday’s mistakes sabotage today’s attitude!

The Bible says, God’s mercies are new every morning. Receive them. Learn a lesson from them.

Thunderbolts of regret can ignite and consume you. What makes the difference? Counteract them with downpours of God’s grace, daily washings of forgiveness.

Once a year won’t do. Once a month is insufficient. Sporadic mistings leave you combustible. Weekly showers leave you dry. You need a solid soaking every day!

Lamentations 3:22-23 says “The Lord’s love never ends; His mercies never stop. They are new every morning.”

What a gift He has given to you. What more do you need?

From Great Day Every Day by Max Lucado

Wednesday's Word of the Week - Sling It

On Wednesday's I bring you 'Word of the Week' - a devotion you can use with your girls at GB.

Sling It

Materials:
2 tube socks - roll up one sock and place it inside the bottom of the other sock.
Copy paper - write the following references on separate sheets of paper: Philippians 4:13, Exodus 15:2, Psalm 28:7, 2 Timothy 1:7.

Tell the Bible story "David Fought Goliath" (1 Samuel 17:1-50)
Display the tube sock sling to the girls.
Demonstrate the proper way to wind the sling in the air several times before tossing it at one of the verse pages on the floor.
Invite each child to identify a time when she feels scared or troubled and to toss the sling at a verse.  If the sling lands on a reference, guide all the kids to find the verse in their Bibles and read it aloud together.  Repeat the activity until all the verses have been read.
Debrief by explaining that by trusting God to give them power, they will experience peace and joy.

Youth Olympics

With summer starting late this year we are blessed with beautiful nights for Girls' Brigade. Lets get out there and make the most of it. Being the year of Olympics, this has inspired us to hold our own.

Girls could name their teams and make banners/flags for their countries.  Idea is to have some combined events (all girls together in their teams) and separate events (teams separate rotating around activities) each night.

Ideas so far:

• Discus - with a paper plate or frisbee
• Shotput - with a peanut or cotton wool or rolled up toilet paper
• Javelin - with a plastic straw
• Long jump - standing jump i.e. no run up
• Running - 3 legged race
• Volleyball -  Blind!  Set up the net and put the sheet over it so each team cannot see the other team and tell the kids to play volley ball. Pretty funny to see the reactions as the ball comes over the net. Also, you can have the kids stay on their knees or make them sit down to play. if inside you can use different types of balls like nerf stuff but I would not recomend balloons it does not move fast enough.
• Ideas are endless for any type of Relay's - since its summer a water transfer relay would go down well
• Frisbee golf
• Archery -  Tie up the toilet seat on a beam or a tree so that it will move if it is hit with something. Have the "athletes" stand pretty far away and try and make as many "bulls eyes", which would be throwing the toilet paper through the hole of the toilet seat as many times as they can during a certain time slot.

Traditional games that you can play without getting silly:

• Petanque / bowls
• Hockey
• Soccer
• All swimming events (try your local schools pools)
• Cycling / BMX
• Tennis

Some foodie categories that would be fun that could be run at any event:

• Blender of Doom - a bunch of gross food pureed together and each team have to eat it - play that one outside! 
• Grapes and Onions - make a large tray of jello and drop in peeled grapes and baby onions before it sets. Kids run across the yard, stick their face into the tray, grab one of the balls of food with their mouth then come back to the team and spit it into the appropriate bucket labeled onion or grape. Hilarious to see the reactions.

Devotions - discuss the values held by the Olympics
The Olympic motto is "Citius, Altius, Fortius." These Latin words mean "Swifter, Higher, Stronger." Again these can be admirable goals. A similar motto of the Christian faith would be "Faith, Hope, Love".

“Run the race with your eyes fixed on Jesus.” (Hebrews 12:1-2)

Should it rain:

Bible trivia quiz

Name that song - with Christian songs

+ some of the above activities can be done inside if need be