GROVE CITY - The children guess enthusiastically which song they will sing next.

"Arky, Arky?" One child guesses. Their leader shakes her head.

"Pharaoh, Pharaoh?" comes another. Once more, the leader shakes her head.

Then the music starts, and a rustle of excitement snaps through the gathering as the children recognize the song as "Father Abraham."

"If you don't know the motions, watch the person next to you," their leader, Fran Hockenberry, announces over the music as the singing begins.

The following minutes are full of loud singing and wild gesticulating as the children and their adult leaders enjoy the song and its accompanying motions.

It's all part of the weekly opening program for the Caravan club at the Grove City Church of the Nazarene, 520 N. Center St.

Caravan is a denomination-sponsored scouting program that invites children ages 4 to 12 to develop spiritual, mental, physical and health disciplines. The club meets from 7 to 8 p.m. every Wednesday during the school year.

"They love to sing. We could do those songs every week. They just love to do it," said Hockenberry, program director.

After the opening, the children are broken into groups according to age, in which they perform Bible memory exercises and participate in activities that develop the program's four disciplines.

Like other scouting programs, the children earn badges for the work they do at meetings and special functions.

The Adventurers group, composed of children in fifth and sixth grades, is currently working on a car care badge. At one meeting they learned how to change a flat tire, and at others they washed church members' cars and learned how to perform an oil change.

Other badges include the prayer badge, for which children learn about prayer requests and praying out loud, and a health badge, for which children are challenged to do push-ups and sit-ups.

In addition to weekly meetings, children also attend a special event each month that may be a sled riding party, a hayride or a luau. Hockenberry said one of the most creative monthly outings last year was a Fear Factor event in which the children were required to find meatballs in spaghetti sauce laced with gummy worms and other items.

There is also an annual weekend camping outing held each summer at the district camp in Butler.

This year, the Grove City club will attend Naz-Jam, an international Caravan event that occurs every four years, being held in Mount Pleasant, just south of Pittsburgh.

As a mission activity, club members this year are also collecting hygiene items for crisis care kits, a project of Nazarene Disaster Relief. The kits have been distributed to hurricane victims in the Gulf region.

Although the denomination's Caravan program began in the 1950s, the program has been offered in Grove City for only four years The Grove City church is one of 10 in the denomination's Pittsburgh district to offer the program.

"It's a very big outreach ministry in the church," said Sam Stebbins, who helped to start it in Grove City and has now become the district director for the program. He said that at least two-thirds of children who attend in Grove City are not directly connected to the church. An average of 15 children attend each week.

"Over the three years, I look at certain things we've accomplished," Stebbins said. "When I see kids come in here and we can make those kids laugh because we care about them, that's why I do it."

The church supports the club with materials and badges. Other costs are offset by selling candy bars.

The Caravan program is also offered at Butler Church of the Nazarene on Oakdale Road in Butler Township and at Christ Outreach Church on Walker Avenue in Butler.