The last one of the summer?

Paige and I learned, sang, and played with 17 wonderful kids at Tingley this week. I knew they would have good helpers, because Tingley has a cool afterschool program called "We Care" that helps with reading. They shared their stories with us as we were developing the Change A Child's Story initiative. We had at least 14 adult and youth helpers who helped at some point throughout the week, which helped things go very smoothly. We were blessed to have a music leader who had been on J-staff at Wesley Woods, and the kids adored being penguins, hippos, and sharks in all her camp songs. I wish I would have started here so I could have used all the actions she made up for the G-Force songs, as well!

The kids were a good group of listeners and thinkers. I wish I had written down the one girl's answers for questions like "What is justice?", "What is a disciple?", and "How could you share God's love with someone else?" She listed off all the colors on a bracelet she had given her friend and how they were all symbolic of something. There was red for Jesus' blood, white for how we were washed clean, and green for how we grow. I had heard of this before, but I didn't remember the green for growing and I think that is a very important piece. Another girl mentioned to our puppeteer, as we talked about disciples following Jesus, that we couldn't be disciples because Jesus wasn't here anymore to follow. She explained that He was still here, just not in the same way....but the girl definitely captured a difficult aspect of faith. We follow an example, we follow God's spirit- though it's comforting to think the disciples messed it up many times when they DID have a flesh-and-blood person to follow.

And of course there was the one four year old boy in the front row. He was a talkative kid, and he definitely wanted to be involved in whatever we were doing (until he got bored, which he would also announce to the group.) For the storytelling on the last day, I give out numbered phrases to kids so they can help me tell the story. His row had 5. UP and GONE!, which he said as soon as I handed it to them, and many times after that. I told him he'd know it was his turn when he saw my hand like this, with five fingers out. Well, if you know me at all you know how much I talk with my hands. Poor kid, I think I threw him off several times. I almost had to put my hands behind my back until we got to his turn. :)

Checkers was in good company here.

Taking our friend to see Jesus

I always feel a little bad for the folks I have right before JOY camp, because my pitch winds up sounding like "Hey, there's this awesome free week of camp I want you to come to- and if you can come you need to tell me, like, yesterday." Despite the short notice, I signed up four campers for next week!

Speaking of time, I can't believe that was our last VBS of the summer. I have no idea how it got to be JOY camp time already. I need to go pack! See you later!