CHILDREN'S PAGE

SUNDAY SCHOOL

In the first term we studied some of the unknown heroes and heroines of the Bible, mostly from the Old Testament. Have you ever heard of  Bezalel? Well, neither had I. It was interesting and instructive.

Much of the second half of that term is always taken up with rehearsals for the nativity play, this year The Angry Hotel Man: 'funky', 'cool', 'definitely different' were but some of the comments. We added two songs to give the Chorus a greater slice of the action. Lynn Hand wrote the boys' Cowboy Song to a tune from Joseph And The Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat, while I wrote the one for the girls to some pop song I'd never heard of.

Lynn's words were far better, but then she had slightly more musical music to work with! It was amazing to see the sudden animation of both boys and girls when the pop song was first played. "Can we dance?" they shouted. "Louder!" they yelled.

You have no idea of the difficulties involved in putting on even a short play. First gather your actors: it is no small feat to have them all at any one rehearsal. As for the dances: we rehearse in the hall which is spacious; Debbie choreographs a BIG step backwards". Translate this on to the stage in the Church and everyone falls off.

Ah! The stage! On the Sunday before the performance the stage goes up for the first dress rehearsal (for 'goes up' read some stalwart men, who have not previously read the omens and escaped, are dragooned into carrying 10 separate bits of staging into the Church from the Choir Vestry, screwing on the legs, placing the finished articles in position and taping them together, all the time surrounded by children wishing to be 'helpful'). An hour later it is struck (read 'goes up' in reverse) to make room for the weekday services. On Saturday it goes up for the second dress rehearsal and comes down for the 9 a.m. service on Sunday. Up again between services, the children perform, and down again during the offertory hymn!

The second term was spent looking at Jesus: Jesus the Light of the World, Jesus the Good Shepherd, Jesus my King, Jesus my Saviour. You will probably have seen some of the children's work on the walls. We're very pleased that our Light of the World mural features on the Church website!

As well as Sunday mornings we have had a few more social events: we had a boys' and a girls' afternoon: the boys played with Lego and the girls painted T-shirts. The boys built in almost total silence, the girls never stopped talking. As an exercise in encouraging friendship the latter was probably the more successful! Twice we had a family picnic lunch in the hall followed by swimming at George Watson's pool and, by the time you read this, we hope to have had a cycling trip to Balerno (weather permitting). Our final jaunt of the season is our second camping weekend at Bamburgh:

18 - 20 June, if anyone else in the congregation wants to join us!