VBS - Thursday - God Rules

The final night of VBS! What a week of coming together (Harambe!) to study the Lord's Prayer and the wonder of God's love for us. In the opening session, we talked about the kingdom, the power and the glory that comes at the end of the Lord's Prayer. We got to sing together, and then we were entertained by some animal charades.

In craft time, the young kids learned about the power of God's spirit, how it's like the wind: you can't see the wind, but you can feel it, and you can see the effects of its power. They made craft stick windmills to remind them. The older kids made God's Eyes, a symbol for God looking with love on people everywhere.

Recreation time found everyone dealing with an obstacle course, an anology of the obstacles we face in living our lives staying true to God's Word. The kids had to run through a slalom course, up and down the play structures, through a pool of "quicksand" and then into a cave where they found the message "God Rules" which helped them finish the course through the desert and finally reaching the Nile River.

In the closing session, the skit characters took to the stage one last time and wrapped up the story with a confession by Bakari, and an offering of forgiveness by Terry, Jerry and Dr. Doolots. In the end, their working together, and not simply for themselves, demonstrated that God will provide the things that they really need. And so it is for us.

The combined classes sang "Harambe", "The Kingdom of God" and "The Father Loves Me", which really made a lot of noise in the sanctuary with clapping hands, stomping feet, pounding drums and swinging in a tree (whee!). They closed with the Lord's Prayer sung to a beautiful tune. We found out that the donations the kids brought in totaled enough to provide scholarships to ten Liberian elementary school children next year. What a blessing to be able to provide some of what we have that can be of such benefit to people in Africa. Since we had so many children registered for all or part of the week, the two kids who brought the most visitors were able to apply some very strange hair coloring to both co-directors' hair. But everyone left with a sense of friendship as well as excitement about the power of God's love.

For those who are counting, we had 84 kids in attendance for the last night of VBS, with an average attendance of 77 for the five nights, and a total of 113 registered who attended all or some nights. There were fifty adults and youth who volunteered their time and talents to make this VBS a success. As much as those staff members gave, they received in turn, and they offer thanks to the family members who encouraged their kids to take part in this week-long adventure of teaching, learning and love.