Either way, WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE!!!! I'm so glad you're reading this! If you could take a quick moment to leave a nice "liked it" rating down below, I'd really appreciate the support! Or not, that's fine. It only speaks about how horrible of a person you are. :)
This week, I helped out a lot in story time in VBS at my church. We had a lot of fun making sets for the kids and leading them into some pretty cool stories. My favorite night by far was Jonah and the whale, when we actually made a giant whale out of black plastic and inflated it with fans and let the kids crawl inside of it.
Basically, we put the kids in a giant trash bag. We also gave them plastic bags to put over their heads and called them jellyfish. I'm kidding, of course, but let's just keep that a secret between us, okay? wink wink
Anyway, that was really the best night of them all as far as skits went. But that's getting a bit off subject--let's get back to my reason for making this blog, which is to elaborate on the five points that were taught in VBS this year. For those of you who don't do Vacation Bible School, or just don't remember it all that well from when you were kids, there are usually five biblical truths taught during VBS, one for each day. They're usually kept very simple, so all ages of kids can understand them, and part of our job at the Bible Story station is to emphasize those points through Bible Stories. Obviously.
So, without further ado, let's get started!
Day 1's theme was God made you, which we illustrated by making a "Creation" room and letting the kids experience the days of Creation by putting on costumes and doing little crafts that illustrated some of the days of Creation. We had the whole place lined with black tarp to symbolize that, in the beginning, there was nothing. Just thinking about that gives me chills down my spine--to think that there was absolutely nothing, only God. And then to think that He created everything--He spoke, and the world came into being. That's how fast it was--that's how powerful God is! Just a few words, and life in all its complexities comes into being.
Day 2 was God Listens to You. This was emphasized by the story of Elijah confronting the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel. Remember that story, when God sent fire down from Heaven and it burned up the soaked offering? Yeah, we got to do that, except we didn't burn any offerings. A fireman (yours truly) stopped anybody from setting any fires, although one of the leaders said that one time, at his old church, when they had done this story at VBS, the last thing they poured on the offering was alcohol, so that it actually did light up. Now that's pretty smart.
Anyway, if you think about it, Elijah must have been pretty faithful in God that day. I mean, if nothing had happened, he would have been the laughingstock of the entire nation! But he trusted in God, and God answered his prayers. It just makes you think of how awesome God is, doesn't it? To think that after all those years of His people turning away from Him, He just comes right back at 'em and says, "Oh, hey there. Remember me? The really powerful guy who defeated the Egyptians for you? The guy who knocked down the walls of Jericho for you? Yeah...I'm still here." Only, instead of saying that, he sends down a giant pillar of flame and scorches an offering. Yeah. Power. Loads of the stuff.
Day 3 was God watches over you. By far one of my favorite nights, on Day 3 we created the aforementioned giant whale and Jonah (again, yours truly) got sucked into the whale and then "urped" out.
No, I'm not trying to be funny. The script actually says, "The whale 'urped' Jonah out onto the beach."
I'm sure that removing the "b" from the word "burped" is going to please the soccer moms who no doubt were outraged years ago that a previous Jonah retelling had such a rude word as "burped" in it. God forbid we should let our kids use such foul and brazen vocabulary.**
Oh, before I forget...for those of you who are bored, I'm sorry. Here's a funny picture.
Anywhoosles, I think the kids really enjoyed Day 3, mostly because of the crawling into the whale and the whole hands-on-ness of it. Again, it just makes you think about how awesome God is--He told Jonah, one of His prophets, to go somewhere, and Jonah ran away. God could have easily let Jonah die and found someone else, but He didn't! He sent a storm to wash Jonah overboard so Jonah could get swallowed by the whale (big fish, I know, but since the kids already think it's a whale, we just thought we'd humor them) so Jonah could realize that God was watching over him and he could be thankful and go to Ninevah! God watches over us, but He's doing more than just watching! He's protecting us, too! That's rad!
Day 4 was probably the best night of them all. The theme was God loves you, no matter what. We illustrated this by going down into the basement area of our church and pretending it was a secret place where we were hiding from the Roman soldiers. Then Peter (I've had so many parts over this week, I don't even know who I am anymore) came out from another entrance and told the story of how he betrayed Christ, and the kids tried to tell him that God loved him no matter what. After that, the kids had some pretty good group discussion on the subject of letting God down and how He forgives us even after all that. I've gotta tell you, it effected even me that night, just from thinking about it.
Day 5 was God gives good gifts, and our story was about Hannah giving baby Samuel back to God. This was a lot of fun to do, because we actually had a "baby Samuel", which was the three-year-old son of one of the ladies helping us, Amy Stouffer. I had a lot of fun playing with "Samuel" during the breaks; it was kind of refreshing to see the pure, unbridled joy in a kid's face again. It reminded me of a simpler time, when all of my worries were about the now, and they were gone in a fleeting moment; when all my troubles could be solved by a kiss from Mommy or a pat on the shoulder from Daddy; when, in an instant, my boredom could be solved with a ball of Playdoh and a balloon. I kind of miss those days.
*sniff
...uh, I wasn't being sentimental! *hides tissues* I was just...um...I had...I had something in my eye. Yeah, that's it. Just...something in my eye...
Moving on!
We were talking in the "break room" (aka the-room-right-next-to-the-story-room-where-we-hang-out-between-breaks-and-it's-kind-of-like-back-stage-except-not-really) about how Hannah must have been a really faithful and righteous woman to give her child back to God. I'm no father (thank goodness), but I can hazard a guess as to how hard it would be to give my only son back to God, especially when I went through such hardships as Hannah to get it.
Speaking of which, did you know that Elkanah (Hannah's husband) had two wives, and his other wife, Peninah, had many more children than Hannah? It's true! And Elkanah gave Peninah more food than Hannah because she had more children to feed. Which makes sense from a practical standpoint, but from an emotional perspective, the pressure of favorites must have been so hard on Hannah.
Of course, this whole problem could have been solved if Elkanah was actually a God-fearing man and didn't practice polygamy.
So many problems could be solved if certain people were just never allowed to breed, ya know?
Anyway, that's all of the stuff we did and all the points we tried to make to the kids. Hope you enjoyed this blog! Please comment and tell me what you think about this blog--I really do appreciate any feedback available! It doesn't have to be a whole paragraph or anything--just little suggestions if you want! :D
For those of you who just wanted to see something cute or funny, here's a panda:
I guess you could say he's causing....PANDAMONIUM!
Told you there'd be bad puns!
Until next time,
--CommanderSnowball
*Helicopters and ponies are, sadly, not included in this package; however, keep your hopes up!
**I'm not actually saying that such a thing happened. I'm just making a point--some parents are a bit overprotective of their kids when it comes to this kind of stuff. I'm no parent (thank God) but as a kid I know that there's nothing more embarrassing than, say, being the only kid in his class who hasn't seen Harry Potter because his parents are overprotective nuts who think that just because it has magic in it that automatically makes it satanic of origin. Heck, The Chronicles of Narnia had magic in it, and blatantly so--it even called it the Deep Magic, or whatever the heck it was, and the Chronicles of Narnia is literally an allegory of Christianity.
Pretty awesome Kyle. The VBS you described in this blog was so much more rad than any VBS I ever got to go to! Not fair! I'm glad you got to pour into the kids all week long. It's kind of like....teaching!
ReplyDeleteSee you in a couple weeks. *tear (not because I'm seeing you but because my summer is over!)