Boomwhacker Life Lessons

In a host family first for me, Bonnie and I had our own apartment as guests of a member of the congregation who lives in a senior living facility. Quiet neighbors, breakfast buffet, free wi-fi, ice cream machine downstairs.... how old exactly do you have to be to move to a place like this? Asking for a friend...

Someone was an artist- we came to a decorated church, including a waterfall in the sanctuary!

Davenport Faith is a church that clearly wants to reach out to the families around them. They had knocked on doors to invite kids to Bible school. While they didn't get quite the turnout they were hoping for, we did average twelve kids a night- and not always the same kids, so we reached more than that. Plans were in the works for their Back to School night reaching out event with crafts and activities in the church yard. The energy and willingness to help in this congregation was amazing- which helped things go smoothly when our twelve kids had about twenty-four kids' worth of energy :) We decided to rotate between three activity stations instead of the two we had planned on- and it went swimmingly.

Bonnie and I were in charge of the science station. I'm coming to enjoy the science portion of VBS. We did three lessons from the curriculum and then we made one up involving boomwhackers and sound waves. I wish I had taken pictures I could show you, but that's hard to do while conducting. Essentially, they're different-sized, different-pitched, colored plastic tubes. We lined them up lowest to highest pitch, observed that the sizes correspond to the pitches, and then played songs. Because we had eight boomwhackers and four kids in a group, the adult helpers got to join us in music-making. You are never too old for boomwhackers! The helpers really gave good tips to the kiddos- "You've got to watch her for when she points at you! Don't take your eyes off her!" I was delighted, because A) when they watched, they knew when to play, B) I got to see even young children build attention span through the allure of making music and C) their faces lit up when it was their turn- kids and adults alike. We messed up on occasion, but we had all kinds of fun. I can't help but think of this in terms of our life of faith. We should always be reminding each other to keep our eyes on God, who is delighted to make music with us. We get distracted and we may miss a note- even when we're adults- but God still loves to see our faces light up when we're right there with Him paying attention. And then the song sounds right.

Fun kid moments:
Disclaimer: I could never be a kindergarten teacher. It takes a very special person to do that all day, and I am not it. However, I do really love the littles during VBS. At one point in the script, Romper the purple river otter talked about a time when he didn't have any friends. One of the littles objected quietly and sincerely: "But I'm his friend!" "Me too!" another chimed in.

On the last night, one of them asked very solemnly in the middle of closing time on the last day- "Are we graduating?"

Martha, Martha, Martha

While Mary sat and listened to Jesus, Martha stirred the soup.
While Mary sat and listened to Jesus, Martha swept the floor.
While Mary sat and listened to Jesus, Martha fretted about the million and one details that go with the first week of Bible school.

Ok, so maybe that last one was me.

Mary and Martha- this was the story that resonated the most with me this week. It's so easy to get caught up in things that are trivial. Case in point: my wonderful hostess was making blueberry pancakes for breakfast. They looked great, and still were a hundred-fold improvement over my typical breakfast of Poptarts, but they got browner than she wanted. "Oh no," she exclaimed as she started to fret, apologize, and make some more. While they were cooking, she asked me what Bible story I was teaching that day. I got to tell her it was Mary and Martha, and we both got a good laugh out of the timeliness of that story that morning. 

Nature print paper is magic.

Week one of Rolling River Rampage VBS happened directly after school finished, and the end of the school year for me this year was filled with upheaval and change. There were so many details to get worked out. I was thrilled to be surrounded by a familiar community of amazing, friendly people- and get to spend a little porch time in the afternoons relaxing and letting my soul settle a little bit.

Farmington was full of teachers and grandmas for volunteers, which made things run very smoothly. The first day we had 12 kids and grew to 19 by the last day. Six of our new friends were all from one family! The only trouble we had was technology that first day, as we tried umpteen combinations of cords and devices to make the DVD play on their system. Finally we settled on an old smaller TV from downstairs and someone's DVD player from home. And you know what? It worked beautifully. With a younger bunch of kids and three days instead of five, I also decided not to use the music from the curriculum and just do easy, familiar songs instead. And you know what? That worked beautifully too. Even the older kids whole-heartedly belted out Zaccheus Was a Wee Little Man. Their favorite craft that week? One of the simplest- the paper chain snake. And that is how I became Mary instead of Martha this week, and I never looked back.

Fun kid moments:
A few of the kids came early with their grandma to help set up. "Are we way early? Nobody else is here!" they asked her. Then they saw the MUMM van. "Oh- at least the captain's here!" :)

While we were cleaning up after craft time, I asked one little kindergartener who was spinning around on the stairs if he would please pick up the paper templates for me and put them in this envelope. Excited to have something useful to do, he found every single one- and I glanced over to see him proudly lick and seal the envelope to return to me.

As we did our Rapid Reminder of the day, Find Acceptance on the River, we were supposed to lean left and then lean right- I thought this was supposed to be like steering our kayak. Then one little girl in the front row made reference to the thing where "we lean on each other." I hope those words find your ear just right like they did mine. It's perhaps an unexpected picture of what church should be, watching rows of kids giggle as they topple over into each other, but yes, friends, don't worry- we are here to lean on each other. Leaning on each other helps us to focus on Jesus- that's the one thing that is needed, Martha.