Vacation Bible School - High Seas Adventure

Last week our church had VBS. It was my first year as a crew leader (all the groups must have an adult at our church) and I will do this job from now on. It is so great to see the entire program in action and to be involved with the same group of kids all morning. (it helped that I had a great group)

Matthew is going into 6th grade next year and that is the year when you can spend your last days as a participant or your first days as a volunteer. I guess I never asked Matthew what he would like to do, but I speculated he would do much better as a volunteer than with a group of crazy 5th and 6th graders. I guessed right. He did well being my assistant crew leader, and based on what he mentioned as "God sitings" during one of the lessons, he was proud to be a volunteer. We had 2 other assistant crew leaders in our group and 13 soon to be 2nd graders. One of the participants has autism and his parents provided an aide (who also happens to teach at the school my kids go to). She was so loving with this boy, while expecting him to participate to the fullest of his potential/age. When she left for a few minutes to help another child she knew (who didn't have such a capable aide), she received a big hug from the boy she was working with when she returned!


Carolyn will be our next volunteer in a few years! She loves reminiscing about VBS gone by!

Here is Joel, who loves jamming to the VBS songs. He made-up his own movements before the week began.


This is the ENTIRE VBS pre-school. To bring your child you have to be a volunteer. The head of VBS said they didn't get enough helpers to do a pre-school VBS the year they tried, but there were 160 volunteers this year, so I think they could. Most of the "sites" had much more help than they needed. Of course that is just between you and me, because I don't want to be in charge of pre-school VBS next year, and that is what would happen as a result of any suggestion I would give. Anna's pre-school class consisted of 5 three year olds - she LOVED it. The day after VBS was over, Anna informed me, "after breakfast I will go to preschool". I had to break the news that VBS was over for the summer. It did make me feel like she was ready for preschool (socially at least).