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.)