This week was Vacation Bible School at The Bridge Church! In past years I haven't been able to volunteer at VBSses because they were in the daytime, but we did an evening program this year (Tuesday/Thursday/Friday), so Cathy and I both signed on to help. And, of course, Mikey signed up to participate. (Hannah is still a couple years too young, sadly.) Boy, did we have a great time!
Initially, Cathy just signed up to bring some homemade snacks one day. We were going to work in the "food shop" where the kids were going to get their snacks. Children's Pastor Pete came over to me at the training session the Friday night before, though, and asked me if I would help out in the games room instead, and I said that would be fun. But then he had another idea.
This VBS was Egyptian-themed, and one part of it was going to be a nightly visit with "Joseph" who would tell a piece of his life story every night. They had someone ready to do it for Thursday and Friday, but on Tuesday he couldn't make it. Pete asked me if I would play Joseph on Tuesday, and then be understudy to the other Joseph the other two nights in case something happened to him. I said sure! I've done the tiniest bit of acting, and Cathy and I have actually taught children's classes once or twice before, so I'm not scared of a roomful of kids. It sounded like fun!
So on Friday night, I received a script for about a 10-12 minute monologue to deliver as Joseph in prison. I memorized a lot of it, using the script, some index cards, and listening to myself reading the whole thing into my MP3 player, and so I knew it well enough to muddle through. I was ready when day 1 of VBS came around!
I'd say we had in the neighborhood of 20-25 kids total at VBS every night. I wound up playing Joseph Tuesday, and then the main Joseph had car trouble on Thursday so I was Joseph again (2 days to memorize that script), then for the sake of continuity, I got to do it again Friday night (one day to memorize that part)! It's a really fun script; there are a lot of times when the kids get to comment on the story, or they get to get up and do something. It's very participatory. (Favorite kid-participation line: the kids are pretending to be the cows from Pharaoh's dream, and I say, "I don't know where YOU're from, but here in Egypt, the cows make these loud MOOing sounds!") One night I even got to wear a "bald cap" and surprise the kids when I whipped off my headdress and had a shaved head! (the skull cap was NOT very convincing... but it was funny!) The kids came through in three groups, and every group was different. Kids really keep you on your toes, too... you can't be too married to the script, because sure enough someone's going to say something and you'll have to respond to it! You have to think on your feet! I recorded myself several times on my MP3 player and I wish I could go back and erase some "um"s, but overall I felt happy with my work. I really believe God was working with me, because that was a LOT of material to memorize in a short period of time.
Cathy was able to come Thursday and Friday night; Tuesday she had other plans and couldn't make it, but after hearing me and Mikey talking so excitedly about it, I think she was pumped! On Thursday she wound up being a servant girl in the palace where Joseph was, keeping us cool with a palm frond. (Funny palm-frond moment: Cathy had started to get interested in the story, or was looking at the kids or something, and forgot to keep fanning. One of the kids said: "It's getting hot in here!" I could see Cathy not fanning from the corner of my eye, so without looking directly at her, I pointed at her over my shoulder and said, "My air conditioner is broken down!") On Friday she fanned for a little bit, but then one of the adult "family leaders" had an emergency and had to leave, so she went with that family group for the rest of the night. She had made a snack called "palace bread" for snack time on Friday, and I'm not sure she was happy with how it came out, but I did notice that there were zero leftovers at the end of the night, so it must have gone over well!
Every night there was some music at the beginning and end, with LOTS of hand motions and DANCING! Our final dance on the last night was particularly BIG and BOISTEROUS and LOUD! There's a part in the song where it says "Your [God's] love has brought us together..." and all the kids are holding hands in a circle, and they all come together in the middle. That night they RAN together! For a minute I thought they were going to bash heads! OUCH! (They didn't.) After that they had a brief lesson with their "family leaders" and then they got to go do activities... hieroglyphics, face painting, "shaving" (with olive oil), making an Egyptian collar, making an Egyptian head band, painting a canopic vessel (one of those "King Tut" coffin things), playing games, making bricks out of mud, having snacks, and visiting with Joseph. After that they had another brief lesson with their families, and then the closing music for the day. You could tell by the looks on their faces and they way they acted that the kids were having a blast!
Every day they were there the kids got coins with the memory verse and theme of the day on them to take home and keep. Mikey really enjoyed writing on the hieroglyphic wall (brown butcher paper on the wall in the hallway). He says they wrote an advertisement for the "barber shop" on the wall, and then he drew a triforce (from the Zelda video games on Nintendo!) He had a lot of fun making his Egyptian collar. But his favorite part was making the mud bricks. Boys like stuff that is MESSY!
When I asked Mikey his favorite part about VBS, though, he surprised me. His favorite part was actually the lesson times. Not only the Joseph story that I was acting out as a mini-drama, but also the little lessons the family groups talked over with each other at the beginning and end of the day. It's pretty high praise for the curriculum when a child thinks of mentioning the Bible lesson before he thinks to mention playing in the mud!
The final night after singing "Lord, You Are Mighty To Save" we had an altar call for anyone who wanted to receive Jesus into their hearts - nobody responded, but I'm pretty sure they were all kids from our church so I'd say that wasn't entirely unexpected. Pastor Pete did invite them to come up for prayer if they had something they wanted to ask God for, and several did come up. Pete had asked me and Cathy to be ready to come up and help pray for the children, so we did that. I think Cathy has a burden now for one of the kids who was in her family group - he came up for prayer and she prayed with him. I prayed for a little girl. We didn't actually ask them what they needed prayer for; Pastor Pete prayed a sort of blanket prayer, and we were led by the Holy Spirit as to what to pray for the kids individually while he was praying for all of them.
I think VBS was a SMASHING success. I don't think they even had a VBS program at The Bridge last year; the children's ministry wasn't fully organized yet at that time. For a first VBS at a small church, I'd say it was an amazing success. It would have been a great effort even at a much larger church. We had TONS of adult volunteers who all had wonderful attitudes (and who looked great dressed up as Egyptians!) the whole time, and there were almost as many volunteers from the youth group as from the adults. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I am so impressed with the teenagers from The Bridge Church. They always seem ready to jump in and help with things; they always have a good attitude; they are kind to the children (even when it's not VBS); and I'll tell ya... they're just a good-looking bunch! Over the three days I don't ever remember seeing any children who looked unhappy or bored, or who left and didn't come back the next day. It was great fun! We're pooped, though... last night I couldn't get wound down until after midnight, and I slept until nine this morning. I'm in the habit of getting up to get ready for work every morning at 6, and sleeping past 7 is amazing for me. I was worn out! But it was TOTALLY worth it!
I took some snapshots on Sunday afternoon as we were setting up; another church had loaned us some set pieces from their VBS using the same curriculum, and let me tell you... they were IMPRESSIVE. Take a look at the pictures at this link!
