Vacation Bible School

We're right in the middle of our VBS week at Grace.  Our Bible school curriculum is set up as a rotation.  Each night the kids go to a different room to hear a Bible story.  Everything in that room is themed around their particular story. Geron and I are teaching the story of Paul and Silas being freed from prison when God allows an earthquake to cause the jail to crumble around them (Acts 16).  We have a miniature jail cell in our room, nothing elaborate, just a few cardboard cinder block walls and three sets of prison bars.

Monday night's group fit right into our cell--a group of 2nd thru 4th grade boys.  I thought we were in for a rough night with that bunch--one of them had gotten in a fist fight over an egg at our Easter Egg hunt earlier this spring--but overall these guys were awesome.  Sure we had a few episodes of namecalling at the beginning of the night, but once we got into things, we had a blast.

Last night was our easiest group, I'd say.  I was right at home with our kindergarten/first grade bunch.  They listened well, memorized their verse, played games with no complaints and did a fabulous job on their craft.  Tonight, I found out why God let us have such a good bunch last night.

Tonight we had Cora.  Need I say more?  Not just Cora, but 9 other Coras!  Yes, we had ten 3 and 4 years olds (some were actually almost-3 year olds.)  And were they ever rowdy!  Cora was tickled pink to be in Mommy and Daddy's class.  Geron pulled out some candy at some point before the lesson and Cora thought she was in Heaven.  She didn't understand why we wouldn't give her more and not let everybody else have more, too.  She listened pretty well during story while some of her friends stood up and wondered around right in the middle of the group.  We attempted a game of "Paul Paul Silas" AKA "Duck Duck Goose".  That one was hard for a 2 year old.  Cora wanted to get up and run every time.  She never did get to be the actual "ducker", for lack of the right word.  After that game, we learned the memory verse.  Cora already learned it earlier this week...I've been practicing with her at home.  She says it flawlessly, pretty much.  Following memory, we went to the gym.  The past two nights we've played "Free the prisoners", a game of tag modified to reemphasize our lesson.  Tonight there was no tag.  It was strictly CHASE with a hint of "Ring around the Rosies" and "London Bridge Is Falling Down."  Next was snack, the best part of the night.  And I must say, we picked the perfect snack for this age.  They were already full of 3 year old energy, didn't need cookies to enhance it.  So, we had pretzel sticks and cheese cubes.  we stuck the pretzels in the cubes and made prison bars.  Most of the kids loved it.  ( We did this snack last night, too, and one little girl said "I don't like this. Pretzels and cheese aren't a healthy snack."  So I asked her what kind of snack she liked.  "I like chocolate chip cookies." )  Finally, we attempted craft with these teeny tinies.  We were making a simple paper chain with our memory verse on it.   we let the kids play with the glue sticks and put glue on their paper, but as for putting it together, the teachers and helpers mainly did it.  Then we gave them a coloring sheet and let them scribble to kingdom come.  After the second or third potty break of the evening, we headed back to the sanctuary for closing assembly.  Tomorrow night we have a group of fifth and sixth grade girls plus one boy, unless we have a few more boys show up.  I think it will be a nice break.

We've set a goal for a certain number of kids to show up this week.  If we reach our goal, Pastor Matt is going to dye his hair green.  Pray we reach our goal!  Pray we go over it!  And in the line of serious prayer requests, please pray for kids to be won to the Lord this week.  VBS is one of the best ways to reach kids for Christ and we want more than anything else for that to be what happens this week.