VBS 2011

I have found it very hard to continue working on this blog when I am very busy with the Bible Bee. I said that I would post more often. That was... uh, three weeks ago? Anyway, here’s what’s happened since then...

Courtney will tell you later about the 2011 Bible Bee. I am here to tell you how our Vacation Bible School went. Our theme was “Hometown Nazareth: Where Jesus was a kid”. It was held at our church on June the sixth through the tenth. There were five main parts. I will tell you about each one.

The first element was Recreation. We started off each day at 9 AM with half-an-hour of outdoor games. One of the games was Red Rover; instead of holding hands, though, we used pieces of fabric to hold onto. That way the little ones could get through easier, and it was harder to get hurt.

After Recreation, we came into the building. In this particular VBS, there were not age groups; instead, we integrated all ages into six “Tribes”, each with about 10 children in them. Each tribe now gathers for a “Hometown Huddle”. This is where participants don their costumes and discuss the events of the rest of the day.

At about 9:50, all Tribes gather in the Celebration Room for 15 minutes of singing. Actually, this year I got to be the leader of Celebration. I had never done this before (I had been a student just last year!) Everyone said I did a great job, though. One of my friends, Arabell, was my assistant in teaching the kids the seven songs and the motions that go along with them. We are both a little young for the job (Arabell is 16 and I am 13 ½), but young doesn’t mean we are not qualified!

After Celebration, two-thirds of the Tribes head to the “Marketplace”. The Tribe Leaders gave each child two plastic coins, one for their crafts for the day, and one for their snacks. They got to choose whichever crafts they wanted to do each day. There were 5 shops in the Marketplace: the Bead Bazaar, where kids can make beaded jewelry and paper flowers; the Carpentry Shop, where they can build several wooden models; the Dye Shop, which has a colorable backpack and clay figurines; the Farmer’s Field, which boasts plant potting and sand art (the sand art was kind of a shop in its own); and the Synagogue School, where you can make a money box for your coins (except they didn’t quite fit in the hole). I usually helped over by the sand art. Counting the sand art, three of the shops were run entirely by youth ages 13-16!

There was also “Mary’s House”, where Mary, the mother of Jesus (played by the pastor’s wife) told the Bible story. Two tribes went there at a time, while the remaining tribes went to the Marketplace. After each Tribe had spent an hour in the marketplace and half-an-hour in Mary’s House, we wrapped up the day with another 15 minutes of Celebration. At the end of the week, the children sang all seven songs as a presentation for the church congregation. And... well, that’s about it! I should really go back now and work on Bible Bee! (More on that later!)

Matthew