Thursday, August 21, 2014

GISHWHES-aka a week of chaos

In the beginning of August, my friends and I participated in an online scavenger hunt.  It was called GISHWHES which stands for the Greatest International Scavenger Hunt the World Has Ever Seen.  I signed up to do GISHWHES because it sounded like a lot of fun.

Basically, the hunt is a week of chaos.  You are put into teams of 15, my 5 other friends that joined with me were combined with 9 people from California and our two team names were combined.  Then the hunt starts when the item list is posted on the website.  The items ranged from semi-normal things to weird things you could never picture yourself doing.  

During the week I covered my little cousin in popcorn, was covered in melted ice cream, wore a boa and crazy glasses while picking up trash at a park, was dressed as a unicorn so that i could fart rainbows, put together a 100 piece puzzle with gloves on, I made Jared Padaleki's face out of clay and paper-mache, convinced a published sci-fi author to write us a short story, and helped a kitten to get adopted.  
here is Jared's face made of clay and paper-mache
This is our trickle-down-ice-cream-enomics.  We were COVERED in ice cream!!!

But wait there's more!  One of our male California teammates made a bikini out of candy and he wore it.  Another was dressed as a storm trooper and had a "spa day."  We also treated another team to cupcakes and dressed as a werewolf baseball player, riding a horse, while holding up a sign that read "we are all Orlando." We staged a mini-newspaper boat regatta in a public fountain. We got an Elopus (Elephant-Octopus [it was our GISHWHES mascot this year]) recreated in the foam of a cafĂ©'s hot drink.  We got batman to play bingo in a crowded recreation center. We sucked blood from a doughnut. And So many other things.  And we didn't even come close to completing the whole list.

As I've said multiple times on this blog, I am shy.  Extremely shy!  I'm not big on breaking out of my shell.  During GISHWHES it was either break out of my shell or let our team down.  It wasn't easy, but with the help of my friends I was able to do it.  GISHWHES did not only help me that week, but it gave me a little more confidence in my everyday life.  

Somehow, during this week of chaos which had no religiousness to it whatsoever, God found a way to give me strength.  You don't have to go to a religious conference or on a mission trip for God to strengthen you.  Maybe He wants you to step out of your comfort zone and that is how you will gain strength.  Always be open for little messages!

God Bless!