The Great Cook-Off!

Last night for youth, we didn't have use of the church because it was "World Day of Prayer" and this year it was the Prezzy Church's turn to host it in their building. So we were going to just all meet at the Playground and have a big rally again like our kick off night (which I wasn't too keen on because it means that we'd be doing a rally this week AND in two weeks for the 40 Hour Famine).

But around 2:00 the weather started to worry me. I knew that it was going to be next to impossible to have a decent bit of weather come 7:30 for Fusion. So I had to think fast.

So I gave up. Ha. I sat at home and though "Well where am I supposed to put a number of kids (anywhere from 5 to 20) indoors that isn't in the church? The baptists don't have their own building. The TCC doesn't have their own building. The Catholics and Anglicans still don't have any idea who I am...so I emailed Karl and said perhaps it would be fair to just put a note on the door saying that "Due to the bad weather, Fusion is cancelled but feel free to join us for world day of prayer".

Karl didn't feel too good about that idea because he knew it would be way too boring for the kids. Haha. I agree. But I didn't see much else. So Karl's wife Lynley offered for the kids to come over to their place and we'd just have a quieter night, playing video games and cards and just hanging out.

So I figured that was good enough. Now I just had to come up with enough "little group" games to keep us occupied for the night. I didn't know how many kids were coming so I didn't know what to expect and what to plan.

While I was searching a very helpful website (thank you Jody Wolf for this little hint - it's saved my bum every week so far) I saw the game "Iron Chef" ...which is, yes, exactly what it sounds like.

My brother and I, for a brief time period, would stay up til close to midnight (or later, I forget) to watch this Japanese cooking show where two chefs compete to see who is better at making fine cuisine in an hour using the theme ingredient. It's quite enjoyable, but of course, no person in New Zealand has heard of this show!

So I decided that instead of playing a bunch of little games, we would have one big Iron Chef competition - with me, Lynley and John as the judges in the end. They really took it seriously and did a WONDERFUL job! Honestly...I was quite glad I hadn't had tea yet coz I was certainly hungry.

The theme ingredient, you ask? Instant noodles and marshmallows. Ha. So they made an appetizer, a main dish and a dessert with the theme ingredients and a few other things I bought. It turned out really well and in the end, the girls won by ONE point.

But if you ask me, the boys should have won because they were only three 10 year olds and a 12 year old. And the girls were...five of them between the ages of 12 and 16. So the boys did great considering the huge age gap.

To be honest we were a little scared because most SMART kids would realize that they were getting leaders to eat WHATEVER they made. In this situation, I would have made it as gross as possible...but they really took it seriously and wanted to do a good job.

We've decided that sometime during the year we're going to do it again with more teams perhaps at different houses - make it more elaborate and have the kids bring anything that they might want to use (so I don't spent $40 this time), etc...

But all in all, it was a pretty good night. I got pretty close with more of the kids and started getting them excited about small groups that Dan and I should be starting up soon.

And the game helped them with teamwork :) Yay! And hanging out with people that they don't always hang out with...the girls aren't necessarily ones who hang out at school a lot but they worked together and got it done.

A successful night, if you ask me!


(oh, and the winners got to clean up the mess...hehe the girls did a fine job of that as well!)