Treasure Found and Shared

This past week I was very busy with Vacation Bible School. So I apologize for not posting last week.

Crafts
Lindsay and I had prepared and purchased the craft projects and were ready. But we underestimated what God would do. The number of children we expected almost doubled in our preschool class. The kindergarten through 3rd grade expanded each night of the program and the 4th through 6th grade class doubled what was expected. Monday night we had more then enough crafts to go around, but Tuesday night we found that we had to switch around crafts to meet the number of children in the classes. I then had to go to the craft store on Tuesday and Wednesday to purchased more crafts for the additional children. The crafts for two classes would only be enough for one class. Since we had ordered the original crafts from catalogs this meant the crafts were different and we would need to prepare samples. Oh, to always have this problem of having more then expected walking into our churches.

Lots of donated items!

One night we had planned to do plaster hand prints and decorate with shells. We had experimented and planned. We made our sample wrote down how long the plaster would need to set and were ready. Only instead of taking the 45 minutes it had taken to set with the sample (or the 20-30 minutes listed on the side of the bucket) the plaster set within 5 minutes of us beginning the mixing process. We were able to finish the project for the first class, after much concern. But we had not been able to do the project with the two other classes as planned.

Kelly shows the thermometer
way over the goal

We scrapped the project since much of the plaster meant for these classes set before we were able to use it for the first class. But that meant another project was needed for the two classes. So we shuffled around the projects from later nights to get through the night. We won't be trying this project again since there are too many variables involved with the plaster.

Missions Project
Our goal for the missions projects was 200 items. If we met the goal, at the picnic Friday our Pastor would get soaked by the kids throwing water balloons at him. Tuesday night we passed our goal. So then our pastoral assistant offered to have his head shaved if we collected 250 items. We passed that goal. Everything from children's books and toys, personal hygiene items to food was brought in. The final count on the items was over 700 items to help others in need! It was really amazing how much was donated.

Donald losing his hair

A great time
Several visitors commented on the wonderful program we ran and how much the kids enjoyed it. The really wonderful part is that the gospel was clearly presented to each age group. We never lost sight that this was the real purpose we were all there for.

At the picnic on Friday we all had a great time getting to meet the visitors' families. Yes, Pastor Mike and Don got bombarded with balloons, then Don got his head shaved. It was a fun way to end the week.

Next week is tear down of all the props—some were removed Friday night but most were left up for our church members to see.