Family-fun day
7:00 am: My alarm goes off. I sit up in bed… don’t remember what happens next. What I think is a few seconds later there is a knock on the door. Tina pokes her head in.
Tina: "Nyx, you’re leading the devotions*, right?"
*Devotions is what we call our morning meeting. It usually involves reading, songs and a time of prayer.
Me (in a state of half-consciousness): "Yeah. right. Sure. When?"
Tina: "At 8:30."
Me: "Oh. Uhhh. what time is it?"
Tina: "It’s 8:29."
Me (jumping out of bed instantly): "Oh gosh….please, please can you start the inspiration for me? Please? …..just pass the guitar or something….I’ll be right down."
Tina (The Ever-Obliging): "Sure!"
Me: "Coffee…?"
A successful morning meeting finished, we declared today a Family FUN DAY! –Instead of the usual once-a-week "family day", where the respective biological families spend the day together, everyone joins in this one, including those who don’t have kids, and we just have a lot of fun together. Today was the first of these, and hopefully we’ll have them once a month. We opened the day with a united prayer and singing inspirational songs with all the kids. I happened to be the appointed Organizer of the Fun Day.
An hour after I should’ve made a public appearance, I quickly shot up a request for divine inspiration to know what in the world to do. The realization came that it would be very bad if no one had fun today. In the bathroom, the inspiration came to put everyone’s brains to work on a Bible Quizorama for morning devotions. That one proved successful, as we used the Pictionary Board for scoring. The kids were amazing Bible whizzes, racing to find the references, and everyone’s competitive side came out–in a good way.
The parents saved my day, they’d rented "The King and I" and after everyone did their house chores, we showed the classic movie on big screen. We have a projector that was donated for our film ministry, in which we go up-country or to remote villages, showing documentaries, Christian movies, etc. And it’s great for in-house viewing. The movie was unusually long, and lunch was late, so we packed our fish sandwiches to eat outside. Most everyone ended up making a beeline back to the dining room as soon as the flies joined us on the porch. I announced that the afternoon would be volleyball and water-fights before heading off for a nap.
During the midday nap, two of the boys used their energy to strategically place barrelfuls of water in different corners of the property. When everyone had finally snacked and had coffee, "let the games begin" was officially sung, and what followed next was hours of…foul play. All in good fun, though, with those two boys against the rest of the world….painful water balloons torpedoed at me from an upstairs balcony. In revenge, I filled my weapons–plastic buckets–with detergent. 20 minutes into the war I was thoroughly soaked. A few friends came by the house to join in on the action, and when the two boys had moved their forces to the lower garden, a couple of others were seen scaling the bushes overhead with a ladder, attempting an air-raid. My own sole focus was how to tip their barrels, that being their only source of water. One of the guys is a giant compared to me, however, and he calmly sat astride his barrel while the other proceeded to use his little body to ram me into the nearest tree.
In the kitchen, a couple of the girls were busy baking snacks and dinner. Downstairs, the living room was a trail of mud. Upstairs, too. The hallways were soaked and my bathroom was a mess. They’d tried pouring buckets on the boys through the glass door of the adjoining porch. Through the glass door. Yeah, right.
I ran up to another balcony and snapped some pics of the waterfight. Finally, finally, finally! The biggest guy got soaked. It only happened because someone yelled "truce!" after three hours, coercing him into a drenching.
Good fun. Not wanting it to die down, I asked the kids if they wanted to have a costume party for dinner. They have never said no to a costume party, ever. So we decided that everyone would come to the dinner table in an hour dressed as something beginning with the letter "F". ("F" for "Family Fun") I knew it would be very interesting to see the ingenuity of this crazy bunch.
We had a FEATHER and two FAIRIES. One FIREFLY (his wings actually lit up) and a FUN-loving missionary (a 56-year-old on roller-blades). There was also a FIDEL Castro look-alike and a FAT baby. Of course we had to have a FUNNY clown, and what else….oh yes, two FIGHTERS (one complete with boxing gloves, boxer shorts, and a black eye). A FARMER and a FISHERMAN were also present, as well as a FANTASTIC FRIEND who came in brightly colored geek-clothes and a silly dance routine.
I went as… a FOUR-year old!
Yes, the day was indeed fun. We felt like one happy family, enjoying each others’ company. When the kids had gone to bed, the adults sat around the dining room table playing a quiz game. How I ended up winning I’ll never know; I felt so brain-dead!