Anyone looking for some fun family activities that won’t break the bank this month may want to check out the Clearwater Christian Church’s Adventure Week events, which take place Aug. 12-16, free of charge.
Adventure Week is going into its second year, with the theme of Building on Adventure, and based on last year’s success, organizers are looking forward to a good turnout.
“It’s what we’re doing, ‘building on the adventure’, so this year there’s going to be a lot of building stuff and the children are actually building a play space at the church,” said Kim Bridge, youth pastor and organizer for Adventure Week.
“I’m hoping a lot of the guys will appreciate it’s not the usual frilly crafts; there’ll be lots of hammers and nails, and crafts kids will want to take home and continue to use.”
The building theme even covers lunch, with build-your-own meals like subs and nachos.
As for the play space at the church, Bridge said they came up with the idea for the project because there are few playgrounds in the Star Lake area, so the idea is to have Adventure Week participants build one not just for churchgoers, but the surrounding community as well.
Allister Roy, who took part in the event last year, said he enjoyed the inaugural Adventure Week, noting the activity where they built rockets as his favourite.
“We made cardboard rockets and put them on these air pressure things then release it and it goes flying,” said Roy.
“It was a contest—They go probably 10 metres in the air.”
Last year organizers were only expecting roughly 20 youth to show up and ended up with close to 50 who showed up to take part in the fun.
Aside from games and crafts, there’s also chapel time where they sing songs and talk about Jesus, before taking part in more activities like playing with water toys and jumping in bouncy castles.
Then there are videos youth get to watch that feature testimonials from local residents who are on adventures around the world doing missionary work in countries like Indonesia, Haiti, Nicaragua and the Philippines.
“We got to hear about some adventures and we wanted to plant the idea that the youth all are presently adventurers, but you can go and do really cool things—if you dream it, you can do it—and we had a lot of fun,” said Bridge.
Adventure Week takes place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. each day and Bridge added although it’s put on by the church, all youth are welcome regardless of religious belief.
Registration forms can be picked up at the Children’s Art Festival on Aug. 8 at the Dutch Lake Community Centre field, or people can sign in at the event itself at the Star Lake Community Centre.
