VBS Week!

Hello world.  It's good to see you again!  Please pardon the dust on my furniture and the crumbs on my floor and the crayon wrappers in my hair as I climb out from under elephants, cheetahs, jungle vines, and all things African back into civilization again.  

In other words, we had a great VBS this past week!  God really blessed our time with community children at "Camp Kilimanjaro."  We had a fantastic team of volunteers from our own church family as well as First Baptist Church of Childress, Texas that made this whole week possible.  We also had a fantastic curriculum from Answers in Genesis (complete with music from Patch the Pirate) that made the book of Proverbs come alive for the children!  The African theme was a lot of fun to work with too.

I must admit though, I am ready to hang up my hat as VBS director and get back to normal life!  It's been a huge undertaking and all-consuming job for the past many weeks...which would explain the lack of posts on the blog lately.  But don't worry - I really am alive and well and rejoicing in the Lord's work in our midst!  One of these days, I'll get back to sharing about the rest of our Israel trip and life with our little boys...but for now, enjoy pictures from Camp Kilimanjaro!

The sanctuary ready to go for opening and closing assemblies.

 

A close-up of the set where our daily lessons took place as well as the daily drama.  There really is a "Mount Kilimanjaro" in the background; you just can't see it too well in this picture due to the light's reflection.

 Meet Tembo, the elephant. 

 

And Duma, the cheetah.  These were two of our five "animal pals" for the week that helped emphasize each day's main lesson.

Our very cool looking cave entrance, thanks to the creativity and hard work of our friends, Stephanie and Dillon!

 The savannah hallway in the fellowship building.

(Mount Kilimanjaro has five different climate zones/eco-systems, and we tried to re-create three of them for our room decorations.)

 The arctic zone where we had missions and music.

 The rainforest room where crafts took place.

 The waterfall in the rainforest.

 

 And registration begins!

 Children, children everywhere!

 

Opening with our theme song.

 

Nathan and I taught the daily lesson during each opening assembly.

 Puppets greatly enhanced the lesson and made it practical for the children!  

(Now you can see the mountain a little better!)

 

 Our enthusiastic puppeteers!

Games at the park.

 

 Snack time!

Isaac enjoyed getting in on this part! :)

 

 In addition to assemblies, I also led the missions and music segments for each age group rotation.

 The children did so well learning all our songs for the week!

 Crafts were a lot of fun for the kids!

  

 The drama team from Childress did an amazing job each day!

 

 They were such a wonderful addition to our VBS that we've never had before!

 More crafts!

 

 More games!

  

More skits!

 

 Our 5-6 year old group - the "lions" and the "zebras."

 Josiah found a friend!

 It was exciting to see the kids be so generous with their pennies, nickles, and dimes as they contributed to the missions offering of the week.  This little girl brought her entire piggy bank - over 1,000 pennies worth!

 

 My handsome husband teaching about hard-working ants.

  

The drama team finally made it to the summit of the mountain!