Our Last Day of VBS

Today was our last day of our VBS Kids Camp.  It’s been an incredibly amazing and full week and so it’s naturally a little sad to think that today would be the last day that we’d see our church full of 140ish little smiling faces.

I’m not sure how we do it.  But we always manage to get the nicest kids to come to our weeklong camp.

It could be that they come, because we also find the nicest leaders and helpers to hang out with them and let them know that they are loved and special.

Whatever the reason, they come we could not be happier to see them.

One of my favorite parts of VBS is watching the kids interact with our staff in the mornings.  As the week goes on, it’s so great to see the kids build relationships with the leaders and helpers.

They also have a pretty fun time with each other too.

We started our morning with songs and then skit time.  Cindy and Steven did an outstanding job keeping the kids entertained as they learned more about God and His great love for them.  And afterwards, they went on their way to enjoy their lesson time and their game time and their craft time.  Paired with today’s healthy snack of watermelon, it all came together for a pretty amazing last day of VBS.

And when noon rolled around, we opened our doors to the parents and grandparents and family members and friends who came to enjoy our closing ceremony.  To make room for the parents, we opened up our overflow room to accommodate about 70 of our 3rd through 6th graders.  Thankfully everything worked out and we were able to hold a very full audience.

For the closing, each class prepared a special verse or video to show.

We were all delighted to see how hard the teachers, helpers and kids worked on their short presentations.

Throughout the program, we also sang some of our favorite VBS songs.  My personal favorite was watching the kids sing “This Little Light of Mine.”  It was by far our most enthusiastic song of the week, and the kids sang and clapped and stomped with such joy that it brought tears to my eyes.

The parents were pretty delighted too.

I really believe that every child needs to know that Jesus wants to be a light in their life.  And that this is the light that can shine in every part of who they are and in every little and big thing that they do.  If you can’t tell, these kids know it and it was just so precious to see.

Another one of our highlights of the week was watching how excited the kids were to bring in change for Kaya’s Kids, an organization that supports the Paradise Orphanage in Burkina Faso.  We encouraged the kids to bring in their pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters.  They learned that this money would go to help feed, clothe and educate the children living in the orphanage and most importantly it would help them to learn about Jesus too.  We also threw a slime either Steven or Kyle (based on which side brought in the most change) as an incentive.

And do you know that by the end of the week, our amazing kids brought in over a thousand dollars!!!  It’s amazing what a little change can do to change the lives of others.

And if you were wondering, Steven’s side brought in the most change.  So he was the recipient of the blue-green cave slime that Ellee and I whipped up last night.  It was a pretty glorious sight to see.

And that sums up our week!  We are so thankful to all of the children who joined us for VBS and to the parents who brought them each day.  We are also incredibly thankful for Ms. Esther Heine, our VBS director as well as our extensive staff of leaders and helpers.  We ended our celebration today with a picnic lunch all together and it was the perfect way to end our exciting week.

And just a reminder.  If you’re a VBS family we would love to invite you to join us this Sunday as we share a bit more about our week during the 9:30am Worship Service at Eastport Bible Church.  We will show our VBS video as well as have the children help to sing one of our VBS songs with Ms. Priscilla Tuttle.  Every Sunday we also have Kids Church for kids K-6th and they enjoy that while parents are able to stay and be encouraged with the lesson upstairs.