| AWANA Games, questionable
My wife and I just started volunteering with a local chapter of AWANA children's ministry as teachers within our church. All was going fairly well for us until this past week's games activity. The game volunteers had the children (Grades K-5,) playing a game that made us uncomfortable. The object of this game was for the children to pair off and then work together as a team to open the wrapper of a piece of bubble gum and then chew the piece of gum for 5 seconds. The challenge was that they had to accomplish this task without using their hands. As a result, many children were accidentally dropping their gum onto the floor and in order to complete the game were encouraged by the games volunteers (who are adults,) to pick the gum up from the floor and then chew it for the 5 allotted seconds. Many children were also encouraged by the games volunteers to use each other's mouths to help open the gum from the wrapper, with each child holding one end of the wrapper with their teeth and pulling. (No other method was really available or encouraged for opening the gum from the wrapper.) My wife and I were very uncomfortable with all of this, and we basically cringed and became as non-participatory as possible. At one point I asked one of the games volunteers somewhat sarcastically if this was a "sanctioned", legitimate AWANA game, which caught him off-guard, and he did not really respond with much other than a shrug and a mumble.
Anyone here, especially if your are familiar with AWANA or children's ministry, please supply your opinions regarding this event. Were myself and my wife just wrong for seeing anything questionable in this?  | 
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