Desert Detectives: The church holiday club 2003

For one week at the start of the summer holidays, lots of children and adults had fun being Desert Detectives and searching for The Mighty God Sword. Each day we watched a video about Professor Callidus and his assistants Rhona Black and Favulus. They used archeological techniques (!) to uncover treasures in the desert. The clues, donut covered donkey written on stone slab, a horn, a babies' nappy (yuk), a broken pot and a piece of cloth all helped discover The Mighty God sword.

Each day we also had fun with

• worship and video
• craft work
• games
• tent-time
and
• blockbusters quiz game

before discovering on the last day the Mighty God Sword.

Digging in the desert with a spade	Digging in the desert with a brush
Looking everywhere	Watching the Desert Detectives video
Leading worship	Singing songs

Craft work

Colouring our own T shirts	Colouring our own T shirts
Painting suncatchers	Making collages

+   +  Making edible oasis

Games

Team games	The big team

Tents

We all belonged to either Bedouin or Nomads, and each day we had time together in our tents with worksheets or making notes in our notebooks.

Bedouin tent	Bedouin tent
Nomad tent	Nomad tent

Blockbusters Blockbusters quiz game

Refreshments Fruit and biscuits/cake

Finding the Mighty Gods Sword

And finally, by the end of week we discovered The Mighty God Sword. In the Bible it says, "The mighty God's Word is alive and active, sharper than a two edged sword". And so it wasn't a sword we were looking for but the Mighty God's Word.

     

The Mighty God's Word is, of course, the Bible. Each day we discovered different parts of the Bible.

• The stone tablet with the words donut covered donkey turned out to be part of the stone tablet with the 10 commandements - given to Moses by God, and recorded in Exodus, one of the LAW books of the Bible. The donut covered donkey was part of the commandment Do not covet your neighbour's donkey!
• The horn turned out to be one of the horns used by Joshua when he marched around the walls of the city of Jericho, as recorded in Joshua, one of the HISTORY books of the Bible.
• The babies nappy turned out to be from the baby that wise King Solomon was able to give to the right mother. The history of King Solomon is recorded in Kings and Chronicles, two of the HISTORY books of the Bible. The wise sayings of Solomon are recorded in Wisdom, one of the WISDOM books of the Bible. The Wisdom books also include many songs written by King David - in the book of Psalms.
• The broken pot turned out to have contained a scroll or parchment on which was written one of Jeremiah's prophecies. This is recorded in Jeremiah, one of the PROPHECY books of the Bible.
• All the above groups of books; the LAW books, the HISTORY books, the WISDOM books and the PROPHECY books form the OLD TESTAMENT part of the Bible.
  
  
• The white cloth turned out to be one of the grave cloths found in the tomb where Jesus had been buried. The story of all of Jesus life, including his death on a cross, burial in a tomb and coming alive again after 3 days is recorded in the 4 GOSPELS of the Bible.
• After the Gospels, there are a series of LETTERS. These are letters written by Paul to various churches. The very last book is called REVELATION . This was written by the disciple John based on a vision he had from God.
The GOSPELS, LETTERS and book of REVELATION form the NEW TESTAMENT of the Bible.

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