Vacation Bible School

This summer I was kinda sad, at the beginning, because I found out that Beverly Heights Presby, the church that I attend youth group at, was not doing VBS this year, they decided to take the year off. I loved working at their VBS, I like working with kids like that, its a lot of fun. So instead of doing my usual VBS I went in search of other Vacation Bible School's to help at.

The first one that I found was my Aunt Beverly's church. That was very last minute for me, both my sisters were going, but I didn't expect to be working there until a few days before. The theme of this Vacation Bible School was "Fiesta" and that was kinda fun, there were lots of decorations up and some maraca's to play with, I was a crew leader. I lead a group of about 5 kids. It was interesting, because at this church the groups were not divided by ages, they had once kid from every age in each group. That was completely different from the VBS's I'm used to, but it worked really well, and I had a great group.

The next VBS i did was at my friend Valerie's Church. The theme of this VBS was "An Archaeological Dig", this was fun, and interesting, I worked in the craft room, and since the groups were smaller at this church than what I am used to we got time to fool around and play with the kids after the class. We did things like the macarena. Also, to amuse the kids, and myself, I decorated my glasses, I added an accessory every day! The accessories were foam shapes and sequins.

The last VBS I worked at was my Aunt Marilyn's up in Erie, this was fun because I had never been to their church, their VBS leader was very energetic and friendly and I liked him a lot. My Aunt informed them that I had a lot of VBS experience, so I would be able to lead a group of kids no problem. I was glad of that, because I like leading groups, and my cousin Sarah was my helper, and also my cousin David helped. So I was the leader for a group of first and second grade kids, this church had it a little different from Beverly Heights, first of all the groups were bigger, on any given day I was in control of 12-20 kids. Also, at Beverly Heights we had other people teaching the lesson, we just asked questions to the kids adn other people taught the lesson and the bible verses. At this VBS I was in charge of teaching the lesson, and teaching the memory bible verse's and asking questions. This was a new experience for me, but I loved it. My favorite things at this VBS were that I had candy in my bag that I could give to the kids in my group when they were good, my kids liked this too, our bag of candy was replenished every day, so I was allowed to give out as much as I wanted, the bag was almost completely empty at the end of every day. Another cool thing was that we gave out points for things, and whichever group had the most points at the end of the week won a prize. My group ended in fourth place out of like 10 groups I think, but we were very close, and it was lots of fun, each kid got 5 pts for attendance, 20pts for bringing a friend, and either 10 or 15pts (i don't remember which) for bringing their bible, knowing their memory verse, and showing respect. Although we didn't win, this definitely motivated my group.

So I worked at 3 VBS's and they were awesome, I loved the kids, that is one of my favorite ways to serve God. Another bonus is that the 3 VBS's have gotten me all of my 35 hours of community service that I need by the end of this year for National Honors Society, so needless to say, I will have way more than the required amount by the end of the year!

Luv ya all!