And all the rest.

Wow, these last weeks of summer have gone fast! I'll try to catch up...

Beacon: I found this sign above the sanctuary, and my first thought was, "oh dear, they are certainly not going to want to have kids in here," but it turned out fine, and in my head, I added "joyful" to the list.

This evening Bible school was really easy for me because of the great number of volunteers. And even though it was the week before JOY camp, I found 4 new campers here. The first night of Bible school, we had around a dozen kids and as many volunteers. The second night, we doubled the number of kids.

JOY camp: What a fun week! This was the second year I got to help as a coordinator, which involved getting to hang out with all the groups of JOY campers and help their counselors with anything they needed. It was great to see all the kids grow- for many of them it was their first time away from home. Watching counselors share their faith with the campers was a pretty cool experience. I'm so thankful to be a part of getting these kids to camp, kids who would not be going were it not for these scholarships.

Donnellson: I got to stay with Karen, a wonderful hostess, again this week. I had stayed with her a few days previously when I went to Bonaparte. This was a VBS where three of the churches in town went together, which turned out to be a great deal. We had some 17 volunteers to help with the 48 kids that came the first day. Yep, that deserves repeating: forty. eight. kids. They just kept coming and coming. Fantastic! These volunteers really had it under control.

And now it's time for summer to end. No more living out of a suitcase. We have board meeting on Thursday, which will be a pretty important meeting to get some things figured out for the upcoming year.

Down by the riverside...

Bonaparte looks like it ought to be River City, Iowa, where the Music Man is somehow going to teach the kids to be a band. What a beautiful little historic town.

These pictures are from the town's website, which also offers a virtual tour: http://www.bonaparte-iowa.com/

As a providential sign peeks out of the trees to tell you (as you happen to be driving and driving and driving and wondering if you are really going the right way anymore): "Slow down. Relax. You're in Van Buren county now."

Out of the town's 433 people, 30 kids and roughly 10 adults came to Bible school, plus some families for the program on Friday.

These were some fantastic kids. One little boy who came mid-week had trouble with my name- throughout the course of the week I was called simply "Mrs.," "Miss Teacher," "Alice," and I am quite certain one time he tugged on my arm he called me "The teacher," as in "The teacher? That boy is squishing my brother..." (Sometimes I think pews should come with individual carpet squares for those learning boundaries of space.)

This week, a lady from the church volunteered to teach both age groups, so I was stationed in crafts. Next year, we (or they, depending on how confident they're feeling!) will split them up into more class groups. It worked ok the way we had it, but usually the smaller the group, the better the discussion gets, especially with older kids. But those older kids managed to impress me even in craft time. We made "God loves a cheerful giver" churchy banks (as opposed to piggy banks.) They brought offering to put in them, and at the end of the week we compiled it all together and the kids decided to donate it to kids with cancer at U of I children's hospital.

It was neat to see the older kids' leadership. Some places, once you hit 5th grade, there is a terrible magic curse that makes you "too cool" to sing and do the actions. But these older kids, boys even, were in there singing "My God is so great, so strong and so mighty, there's nothing my God cannot do, hoo hoo!" with the best of them. Also this week, I discovered that the karate song works perfectly with the daily theme that neighbors are BOLD. While there are some fairly decent songs that came with the curriculum this year, we've been doing a lot of other songs with good actions like that. (If you do not know this song, picture it with me....I (karate chop)will call upon the Lord, who (karate chop) is worthy to be praised...) Singing Scripture was never so fun. :-)

Bible school in the park, I think it was the 4th of July..... (Do you hear the Chicago song yet?)

This week of VBS was very near and dear to my heart. Most of the locations I go to are churches. But there's something special about going to a different location- a community center, or in this case, a park.

We were right next to apartments and a mobile home park, and we got nine different kids throughout the course of the week. Despite the small turnout, we had a great time. Some fantastic volunteers (a combination of my church family and my related-to-me family) made things go very smoothly and gave each and every child individual attention.

On Monday, I nearly had a heart attack because there were 15 kids walking down the sidewalk as we were setting up at 8:30 (not scheduled to start til 9:30.) But, they were a daycare on their way to the good playground a block further, and while we invited them to come back, they did not.

This was an electricity-free site, and even the battery technology I had decided to taunt me, or teach me that it too was unnecessary. You don't need a CD player when you know all kinds of camp songs. And if the laptop decides it's not going to make any sound because it thinks it needs the speakers on the projector you can't use, you just skip the video clip. God is always reminding us that "only one thing is needed."

A little girl, six years old, prayed for us at lunch time. "Dear God, thank you for the food and for the lovely time we are having at Bible school." Adorable.

On Tuesday, some of the kids walked over more than half an hour early, concerned they were going to be late. One of them had walked there barefoot. This was also the day it decided to rain. It didn't faze the kids, who were still happily playing on the playground as the drops got bigger and bigger. However, it made the rest of us slightly nervous. My original rain plan was: It won't. So after that one fell through, we settled for rain plan B: Put some materials back in the van, put all of us underneath the canopy tent, and say many thank-you prayers for Hal and Sharoll who loaned us said canopy tent. It sprinkled on and off throughout the morning, but it didn't keep anybody away. There was a piece of me that was slightly miffed about the rain, though. I had already thanked God a great deal for the gorgeous forecast, a nice contrast from super-hot the week before. I knew he would take care of our every need, as this was His project and not mine. But again, He's teaching me to trust even when things aren't perfect. And I think we all felt pretty cozy there on the blankets on the wet grass, singing and acting out the story of the good Samaritan.

On Wednesday, a little girl's mom came and taught us a song from their church, which was cool. We ended out the day with presents, too. On Monday, we had told a little girl that it was time to switch to crafts, maybe she could finish the paper she'd been coloring at home. She said she didn't have any crayons at home, or pencils either. My inner teacher voice went on red-alert: How are you practicing writing when you have nothing to write with?!? We had lots of school supplies donated to MUMMs from Annual Conference, and with Peg's ok, my helpers and I passed some of them out. I also had lots of books from a very sweet retired teacher who was cleaning out her basement- more books than could fit in my classroom (I know there's no such thing as too many books...but I may actually be coming close.) So I sorted them out according to ages, and they got to pick a few books to keep also. Karen brought some ag activity books and cute erasers, and Pastor Tom brought some tickets to the Piercing the Darkness concert (and candy) so everybody left with lots of goodies.

I'm so grateful for all the volunteers who came and showed God's love to these kids, and these kids who came and showed God's love to us.

Next week's commute is quite a bit longer than this week's....and I'm thankful for my host family in Van Buren county, so I can stay there a little bit and save myself 6 hours of driving. (Though I've gotten smart and am now listening to audiobooks on long drives, it's better yet if I can just be closer.)

Week two

Last week was Kirkman. We had about 16 kids, mostly grandkids of helpers. But of the 64 residents of Kirkman, very few are kids (the church folks told me this, and I did a bike/swingset check...nothing.) But it was a great step for the church to show the community they're still active, and we were glad to have kids willing to travel from nearby towns to come to Bible school. We definitely had fun. I was especially impressed with the kids on the day we learned "Neighbors are bold!" Our verse for the day was from Matthew 25, and during craft time, we paraphrased a bit from "I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink," to include "I was lonely, and you sent me a card." As we made cards for homebound members, the older kids especially really showed their best artwork and encouraging words. Many parents and neighbors came for the program Thursday evening, where they heard us sing and remember Bible stories and verses. They even joined in on the very catchy "Neighbor Welcome," a song that reviewed the theme of each day through actions like high-fiving your neighbor and jumping in the air (ok, so some of the grown-ups might have cheated on that part.) Also it's very reminiscent of the song that asks you to slide to the right and cha-cha real smooth, so it goes over very well. What a sight to see families and neighbors sharing in this all together.

I got to stay with a wonderful host family. Within a few minutes at their century farm house, I'd been shown the location of the ice cream, piano, organ, and a cupboard full of sheet music. It's like they knew me already. :-) VBS was in the evenings, so I had the day to relax, read (rediscovered the beauty of the book Gilead- check it out), and work out some details for this week's VBS in the park. More to come on that!

It's an Everywhere Fun Fair

Last summer, I gave VBS updates via the MUMMs facebook page. I'll still do that, but I realized that each week of vacation Bible school gives me way more stories than I can condense into two sentences. So I opted to return to the blog I kept for a few summers.

After Annual Conference, it was time for a crash course in this year's VBS- Everywhere Fun Fair. A few days later, with the classwork all photocopied, the crafts figured out, and the songs more or less already stuck in my head, Peg helped me pack up the van.

Elliott was the first stop of the summer. I had spoken here earlier this spring to talk about VBS and was very impressed with the closeness and friendliness of the community in the church. The two churches in town went together to make this a community Bible school. The other church has had VBS in the past, but the Methodist church had not for some time- and 7 used to be a good turnout. Thanks to some great publicity on their part, including borrowing an inflatable obstacle course (Thanks, Atlantic YMCA!), we had 27 kids on the first day. 33 came the second day, and while I stopped counting after that, a volunteer said we had 39 kids who had come for at least some of the week.

The pastor (who, I have to add, rescheduled his hip replacement surgery so he could be at VBS...there's dedication) told me how thrilled he was to have so many kids here. He said it had been his dream to reach out to kids and have them hear "Jesus" without it being used as a cuss word. Wow. I had never thought about it like that, but it's so true.

I also got to teach the big kids the last two days. The 5th grade and up was always Peg's favorite age range, and I can definitely see why. We talked about so many good questions! If I don't have to be good for Jesus to love me, can't I just do whatever I want? Peter and Cornelius saw visions from God- why doesn't that happen today?

So with that good discussion echoing in my head, we did our closing program for parents and friends, and packed up the van between raindrops. Thankful God sent such fantastic volunteers this week- a puppeteer who ad libbed right along with me, a PowerPoint guy who was a natural at running the technology, pastors who donned Biblical apparel to tell stories, and more smiling teachers and cooks than I could keep straight. Soon I'll be off for another week!