Eggs for hard boiled teens

"Actually, the whole thing was the idea of a teenager," explains Steph Tschumi, TC director in Frauenfeld, on the phone, "and that's why we dared to prepare this evening. If the suggestion had come from us, we probably would have assumed the teens would be unmotivated for something like this."

It was the shortage of leaders that prompted the Frauenfeld TC team to "hire" mini-leaders at the teen level as well, who are probably present at the meetings but don't have to take on the full responsibility. Such mini-leaders should also help to better understand the needs of the teens, as they are closer to the interests of the TC members. In addition to the "traditional" theme evenings, which focus on evangelism among other things, so-called "easy and action" evenings are organized. These are mainly about the experience and the fun, just about "easy and action". Most of the time the program is aimed at sports. Being together, fooling around, laughing and discussing is important, not necessarily what you do. And there is no big planning or organizing, but rather spontaneously agreed and decided.

Braised Eggs at the TC

Especially in winter, however, evenings need to be thought out a little better, and one of those evenings is now "served" to you:

Preparation

Quite simple: boil 40 eggs for 10 minutes, then hit the road with them.

The TC-ers were divided into groups of two or three and then given the task: the boiled eggs had to be exchanged for something else, edible, somewhere at someone's house. They were allowed to ring doorbells or "kick" people on the street. There was only one egg per group. Once this was exchanged, the bartered item had to be returned and a new egg grabbed, and on it went.

Duration

The time was full; for about an hour and a half, the teens were all over the town of Frauenfeld, grabbing all sorts of edibles.

Result

There was a lot of food, even cooked Nüdeli, which were still warmed up, or fruits, which could be prepared to a fruit salad. While eating the delicious things in the youth hostel, there was also an opportunity to talk about the experience and to have fun afterwards.

The evening in retrospect

Steph Tschumi is very pleased with the successful evening: "We would never have thought that the teens would be so enthusiastic and motivated at the Dache. The attempt was really worth it." However, another time more rules of the game would have to be set. "We would set the condition that you can only knock once in a household. Some have just focused on people from our Chrischona congregation or other acquaintances and almost "plundered" their households."

Options

On second thought, yes, you could expand on this idea or combine it with something

• "Egg smuggling" might be an option: same rules, but with the addition of gangsters circulating around town or the area trying to take the eggs from the teens.
• The evangelistic aspect in public: paint the eggs beforehand and write a Bible verse on them
• The evangelistic aspect in the TC: Design an input about the egg. In the Bible, the word "egg" occurs six times. You could look at these Bible passages with the teens and find out what to read about the egg.

So the egg swap idea seems to work. Why not give it a try? It doesn't always have to be eggs either. You could also swap tomatoes in the summer and straw stars for the Christmas tree at Christmas...

Source credits:

Content and cover image: Copyright BESJ, www.besj.ch

Snapped up and narrated: Christine Gamper, TC Frauenfeld