Here are the details on the party.  It was fun, I didn't feel under too much
pressure at all.  I think it would be a great thing to do with a school or
church-way more could be done with it then we could do, and the valley of
the shadow of death would be great if you could really make it scary.  We
had to be careful as we had little ones, all the way down to 2 years old

It went well, though with a few challenges like most particularly the rain!
It rained like it rarely rains around here.  We had to dash out to do an
activity, then do an inside part, then out again, and so forth.

1. The Slough of Despond—we used our little wading pool with 3 bricks in it

that they had to walk across on.  No one fell in!

 

2. We had the Wicket Gate--we used a table on its side as our proper little

gate only leads to the trash bins.

 

3.  The Lions (though we used stuffed bears) on the side of the path, (we
had a balancing beam type piece of metal on the ground, each child just
walked over that, but we explained first that this was the entry-way to the
Interpreter's home)

4.  The hill of difficulty was just going up our steep steps with a cross in a
plant pot at the top (Johanneke asked if our dog had died :-) 
The kids got to wear their burdens up, then let them go.  For burdens we
used 2 back packs filled with cans wrapped in towels.  We used 2 sizes since

our kids were all sizes, and we just let them choose whether they wanted the

big one or the little one.

5.  At the cross, at the top of the stairs, they rolled the burden back
down, and then each one went into our kitchen to get "The Robe of
Righteousness" and a wooden sword.  The robe of righteousness was just

a white trash bag, but it came in handy in the rain.

           

6.  Our house was Interpreter's House.  Instead of little lessons like Interpreter

had, we did a puppet show which went over very well.

           

 

7. After Interpreter's House came a fight with Apollyon (a piñata) using
their wooden swords one at a time.

 

8. Then a trip through the valley of the shadow of death (it was our
garage), For this we just had it dark, and a red light glowing, and a few
creepy things hanging around and Patch the Pirate singing Ps. 23.  I am
super cautious about causing nightmares, and one mom later reported that

her 5 year old was talking a lot about the valley of the shadow of death in

a scared way.  For a teen group though, we could have gone wild on this.

9.  Then I locked the whole batch of them up in Giant Despair's castle which

is the front entryway to our house, and put a chain on it with 6 locks.  The

keys to the locks were hidden in the room so they had to find the keys and

match them to the right locks to escape.

10.  The Enchanted Ground was just a walk sprayed with bathroom spray.

11. Vanity Fair was a little obstacle course; they had to weave through
bricks on the ground while dodging balloons hanging from our clothes line.

     

One time we had an extra puppet show just to fill in until the rain died
down a bit.  The rain provided us with a little river that we needed to end
things with.

12. The cake was the Celestial City.  We tried to tell the story as we went
along, and to teach as much as possible.

     

I loved making the swords because I have been wanting to do wood working
with our kids, and this was a beginning!

Oh, I forgot the Delectable Mountains!  There we stopped and had fruit shish
kabobs.  Also I gave out yogurt popsicles as they were watching the puppet
show.

     

If I had had more people, I would like to assign the teaching parts to
different men or ladies who could come up and be Faithful or Great Heart or
whatever.  All we did in that line was to assign names to each of the kids,
like Mercy or Patience.  I didn't think that was a big deal, but some of the
kids really did.

I would definitely suggest a re-read of Pilgrim's Progress.  There's a
children's version that would hit all the highlights without taking too
long.  It is in the A Beka Book curriculum.  Our inspiration was the
dramatized Audio version.  It is great on long trips.  There are 2 sets
(Pilgrim's Progress and Christiana) available from Hark Audio, at
www.vozar.comor www.christianbook.com has a little discount if you buy

them both.

I intended to make elegant parchment invitations that began, You are invited
to go on Pilgrimage...." but I never got them done.

 

Have fun!