It’s already July! Can you believe it?! We wrapped up June with a week of Vacation Bible School at our church. The week before that, Rogers brother (Mark) came out for a visit.
Roger’s brother came out to visit the day after the kids were done with school. We did some hiking together, went bowling, visited together, and Mark went with Roger to work several of the days he was here. On Thursday of the week of Marks visit, Roger and all the boys went up to northern Maine to visit some friends and go fishing. Emma and I took a spur of the moment trip to Augusta with our friends, Allison and her girls. It was a fun day even if it was raining! Roger and the boys did not catch any fish, but they did have a good time together. Wyatt even came home telling me that he had seen a moose! (It was a dead one, but he had seen a moose!)
So much work for Vacation Bible School has to be done BEFORE the actual event takes place. There has not been very much rest for me until VBS was done. Roger and our pastor worked on the backdrop for our decorations for VBS. On Friday night, June 21, we were all at the church in the evening trying to finish up the backdrop. I ended up taking our kids home while Roger and Mark worked on it. It takes many hands, working on many aspects of VBS, for it to all come together.
We took Mark to Portland on Saturday, June 22. On the way down, we stopped at Fort Popham. We had never been there, but it is free! Although the weather was dreary, God held off the rain while we were looking around at the old fort. We took a walk down the beach, and just enjoyed our time together, God’s creation, and history.
Our Vacation Bible School started on Monday evening, June 24. It’s been a while since our church family has had VBS at night, but by doing it at night we were able to include a few extra volunteers. We spent a good chunk of the morning at the church building putting together the last minute details. I tend to be over-organized when it comes to these types of things, but I’d rather have too much to do, or too many people helping, than to be looking at the clock wondering if it is even moving! Roger and the kids helped me put up verse posters, create games, gather materials, etc. VBS is an event that requires many people to work together. I am so thankful for those who can help with technology, those who are willing to teach or prepare snack, plan and prepare crafts...it all takes so much effort and time! So why do it?! I can think of several reasons, but the main and primary purpose is to point children to Jesus. It is to reach out to our community with the heart cry that “Jesus Saves!” It is to encourage those children that have already made a profession of faith. VBS provides an opportunity to reach out to families in our community through events for their children. I think that VBS should both encourage children that are already saved as well as give a clear plan of salvation for those children who have never heard the “Good News” that Jesus died and rose again!
Roger had off on Monday and Tuesday, and we did not have a person to do games. Roger graciously did game time for us, which has to be one of the most challenging jobs. That person doesn’t get a break! There are four sessions of game time and they are back-to-back! We divided the kids into four different age groups, and on the first night we had about 58 kids in the four groups! God is so good!
An older lady in our church agreed to help me with the music time for the kids. Teaching four different age groups music was a bit daunting, but the kids were able to learn the VBS songs so much faster by having individual times. And I think that Mrs. Barbara and I did try to make it fun!
We also did a penny offering every night. We had some ladies come in every night just to help count pennies! We raised pennies for Parakaleo International, which is the mission group that I’ve been going with to Haiti. I could not believe how many pennies the kids brought in! We had a girls bucket and a boys bucket, and it was a weight offering. My friend, Allison, told me that when she brought the pennies to the bank this morning (7/1), there were over 18,000 pennies! The kids collected over $500.00 to give to Parakeleo International! Our boys each took some money out of their savings account to give to Haiti. Even a child can understand about another child having less food or clothes than they do. It was exciting to see the kids get involved in giving to this ministry!
On Wednesday the weather was a bit rainy, which God had a hand in that of course. Since it was a bit rainy and foggy, Roger was able to get off of work in time to do games for us! Hooray! On Thursday, God provided another young man from our church too help with game time as Roger was working.
Friday night was our finally night of VBS. All of our kids asked why VBS was so short and only for a week...um, these adults are tired! On Friday night, we invited the families to come for a closing program. The kids did the three songs that they had learned, they quoted the theme verse, and we took the final penny offering. We had a wonderful turn-out of Families. It was very encouraging to see the families stick around for hot dogs, root beer floats, and popcorn. God gave us beautiful weather, and the back lawn was full of kids and parents visiting together. We had also made up presentation boards of other ministries in our church. I think its sometimes easy for families to forget that we have other ministries. We had presentation boards representing our Christian School, our Sunday Childrens Ministries, our teen ministry, and other outreach ministries. While a lot off work and effort had to be made to have the closing program happen, I am so thankful for the opportunities it gave us to reach out to families.
It was a crazy, busy week! It was so crazy that I don’t even think I took more than a few pictures! Running a Vacation Bible School program seems to be much harder than it was ten or fifteen years ago. Nowadays kids are so entertainment driven, and they want everything to be “fun”. Most of the kids that we had come to VBS were not from our church, and most of the kids had the option of coming or not coming. Ten or fifteen years ago, parents told their kids to “get in the car, you’re going”. Now it seems that the kids makes many of his/her own decisions. And while I think VBS was “fun”, it was so much more than that. It was an opportunity to plant seeds for eternity. We will never know the impact of such events this side of Heaven, but I do know that God’s Word will not return void. These kids have cemented John 15;13 in their minds. They have learned God’s Word set to music, and they have been given the opportunity to make a personal decision to ask Jesus into their hearts. It was a good week.
And now.....SUMMER BREAK!!! We spent Saturday as a “down” day for our family. We went and had donuts together, and then went for a walk down to the beach and through the woods. The kids set up their tents in the backyard, and went “camping”. Roger set up a tent for Emma, Roger and I. I was about as excited about sleeping in the tent as a bear with his paw in a trap...but I did it anyways! The kids were so excited to have us all camping in the back yard, so I put on my “happy face” and went camping. Well, I made it until about midnight. Then it started raining, and I still hadn’t fallen asleep anyways. I went into the house to make sure the windows were closed...and I decided to climb into my own bed! (Don’t tell!)
The month of July will see Garett and Chandler and Travis off to camp. We are also planning a trip to Wisconsin, and then home in Maine for the entire month of August!
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