The church we went to a few years back blossomed overnight and suddenly my
wife and I went from 5 Buckaroos to 33. All of us together in a small room
was a challenge in itself, but when the church built a new playground, it was
impossible to get a lot of the boys (all ages) to want to come in at all let
alone on time.
My wife found a dozen or so hard cardboard rolls about 2" wide by 20" long.
Some of them were shorter and about 8" wide. We cut holes in some of them
and made a couple of complicated tunnels and with some small boards we had
bridges and roads. A trip to Wal Mart (my wife's best friend) and a few
dollars loaded us up with metal hot wheels cars on sale for 33 cents apiece.
We set up early in the room and were playing with the cars ourselves having a
grand time, when by word of mouth, ALL ages of rangers came in and began to
rearrange the "roads" and "bridges" and "tunnels" to suit themselves. As
soon as it was time to gather, I lined the boys up and marched them into the
beginning excercises while my wife cleaned up, putting every thing in a
special unknown place for future use. Every week the boys got there earlier
and earlier trying to discover where the cars were kept.
After that, we changed around. The next best thing that really worked was
the marbles my wife found in the dollar store Four or five bags set us up.
We used tape to make circles on the floor and began lessons on the ancient
way to play marbles.
Before we knew it, 30 min or more before service, old timers, men and women,
were squatted down on our floor shooting marbles with the boys. We saw they
were getting pretty good, and started a marble tournament. That was great
fun.
The Bible says, "GO OUT AND COMPEL THEM TO COME IN." I guess that's what we
were doing. It worked for us. Wayne Hale, OP 190, Splendora, Texas
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