This week our church is holding our VBS, called "Concrete and Cranes," which is from Lifeway. When we heard about this theme 2 years ago, my first thought was, "What about the girls?" I read a blog post at Lifeway about that, and they said that with all of the STEM teaching happening these days that they thought that girls would really enjoy it too. And surprisingly, the girls have loved it as much as the boys!
With a year of COVID behind us, we initially began planning in late February to have VBS all outdoors. We planned to rent some large tents and discussed how we could make it work. Our restrictions relaxed in our county in March, and we decided to do a few more things inside. It is a good thing because this week has been part of our hottest June yet! It usually doesn't reach 100+* here until mid-July, but this year we got those temperatures in mid-June! Our snack and games have still been outside, though.
As the director again this year, I looked online for a way to calm kids down, especially since we usually have over 150 kids in our worship rallies. It is tough to get them all quiet at once! So our tagline this year has been, "Who is our strong foundation?" and the kids answer "JESUS!" and then they all need to be quiet. It has been working pretty well. I've held a stop sign (cardboard) in my hand a few times too.
I'm so thankful for our great crafts crew, who found great ideas to make concrete magnets with rocks and jewels and crosses inside. The kids also loved decorating soup cans today (all cleaned out) with nuts and bolts, pom poms, googly eyes, rick-rack, yarn, and more. The kids have had fun making and creating different things, and I'm sure they'll enjoy what we have in store the next two days too.
Our games crew has been working hard to get kids playing different things, such as fun kinds of tag, dressing up in construction hats, gloves, vests, and more. My son has been leading games most of this week and has done a great job! The kids like him too and have climbed all over him since he is tall and strong.
The Bible leaders have been creative, doing things like having the kids act out the different stories, discussing the WHOLE Bible, and encouraging kids in their faith. Just today we had THREE girls accept Christ-- HOORAY!!!
I'm so thankful for our volunteers, this year we have over 80 people from our church and community helping us. We have several kids that have grown up in our VBS that are first-time helpers now. It is so fun to see! Everyone has been great, getting on their knees and keeping kids involved.
After missing VBS in 2020 (I cried at home on the day we were supposed to start), it is even sweeter to be all together this year. I LOVE hearing nearly 200 kids praising God in our sanctuary. I get goosebumps hearing them singing, "JESUS is everything you need!" There are wonderful truths put forth in our songs, and I thoroughly adore hearing God's name be praised!
I will leave you with our verse of the week, and other verses we have used...
"I am sure of this that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion, until the day of Christ Jesus." Philippians 1:6
John 15:13Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
Matthew 7:24
“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock."
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