It's still August, so it's still summer, right?

School has started. Temperatures have cooled off. And still I can hear vacation Bible school songs resonating in my head. Most of the summer, I've pulled from my repertoire of easy/action-filled/call and repeat camp songs. Especially for sites that are less than five days, I'm kind of over trying to teach super wordy songs to kids who can't read yet. But for a full week at Eldridge, I had borrowed the music video, and that's a different story. Kids can pick up on the actions and catch on at least to the chorus pretty quickly, and they can just listen to the lyrics during the verses. The overwhelming favorite song here was Even When the Lions Roar. They loved singing it, and I loved watching watching young humans announce "I will not be shaken; I will not be moved" with strong, unselfconscious eyes. The lions can roar pretty loud sometimes. We talked at length that the lions in our lives show up in a lot of ways- arguments, doubt, sadness, fear. They reared their heads even at VBS-
"Leave me alone!" she shrieked at me and several others, troubled by whatever inner lions growled at her. Then after another round of that at recess, with a friend going to talk to her and her sister yelling not to go near her when she's like that, the girl went running- not into the street- but straight into my arms. I gave her a hug for a long time. Her sister tried to come over and do the same, and for a while we were a hugging mess. The sister left; the girl calmed down. We blew bubbles. She helped me with mine because my bubble wand was all shook up and wasn't very bubbly. Afterward, I praised her for calming herself down, and suggested that next time she try using a calm voice to say I want to be alone right now instead of screaming, because when you scream, people think something's wrong and they want to help even more. "Ok," she smiled, very receptive. "Can we practice?" Oh, someone has walked down this road with her before. Fantastic. We did a quick role play. Later, the pastor told me she came up to her and said she should have said "I want to be alone" instead of screaming. Oh, my heart. Full disclosure? This wasn't a permanent fix. Learning to deal with your emotions takes time.

The same day when it was time to go, one preschooler came back to give hugs to all the helpers. every single one, including the kitchen lady whom she trailed a little while before the woman noticed she was there, as we all looked on grinning.

We will not be shaken; we will not be moved. All our hope is in You.

The last week of summer brought JOY camp at Wesley Woods. I was excited to return to my original role as a counselor. For the past several years, I've helped oversee all the groups, so I did miss getting to know what was going on with everyone. But I traded breadth for depth. My co-counselor was absolutely amazing, and our group of girls bonded pretty quickly. They contributed in Bible study, they sang a great memory verse to the tune of Senorita, and they worked on lifting each other up. Many of my older campers realized they were aging out of JOY camp and wanted to know about junior staff. So lions and all, the season ended on a peaceful, hopeful note.

EP3-20 Meets His Hero

"If you were traveling in space, who would you trust enough to take with you?"

When the teacher posed this question in Bible study time, there were many answers of parents or siblings. Then one very astute little girl answered Peggy Whitson. And that's how I knew for sure I was in Mt. Ayr.

In case you don't know, astronaut Peggy Whitson was born in nearby Beaconsfield and went to school in Mt. Ayr. Every Iowan should be very proud!

EP3-20 met his hero. 

We had about 23 VBS voyagers with us that week in Mt. Ayr. They loved the great meals served by friendly helpers; our puppet friend; science time led by a real-life science teacher; craft time led by a mom-daughter duo; and Bible reflection time led by a resident musician and teacher, who also played Dr. Speck this week. Turns out I left the DVD with our urgent transmissions from the Starship Galaxion in the DVD player in Batavia, so Sally and Pastor Emily stepped up to act out those segments with me. This often proves to be way more fun than watching a video, especially as I handed Dr. Speck her prop ukulele and saw pure joy on her face. :)

While we somehow managed to put a hula hoop on the roof and leave a fine trail of moon sand on the carpet, we also had some great faith discussions throughout the week. A few younger kids were asking questions as they tried to figure out just who this Jesus fellow is, anyway.
"Is He an angel?"
"No, He's higher up than angels. He's God's son."
*several moments of quiet*
"Did God have a wife or a girlfriend?"
"No..."
"Then how did He have a son?"
A very valid question. May we all have kids (and adults) in our churches that think through things this much. That's how you grow your own faith, by rejecting the easy answers and struggling through ideas like this. What a joy to struggle together.

Batavia

Whenever I say the name, my mom thinks it sounds like a medieval kingdom with a castle- Bataaaviaaa. We may be getting ahead of ourselves- it's next year that the theme of VBS is Knights of North Castle.

This town of 499 people (I guess I made 500 for the week?) sees about 25 people come to the United Methodist church on a Sunday. So it was pretty neat then to have 21 kids on the first night, with a few more along the way. I told the kids the first day that their "homework" was to bring a friend, and I had at least one kid introduce their homework to me. :)

One of our young friends came bounding in the second night, and I about fell over when he said his name. I had just seen it on the page of one of our solar system books- he shares a name with a constellation. Another boy, a mythology fan, was excited to tell him the story behind it.

We had some great help here, and they were flexible enough to try new things. In years past, they had not served a meal with their VBS- but it came very naturally to them, and throughout the week they were willing to take on all sorts of leadership roles. The pastor has a penchant for science, and the kids really enjoyed that part of the evening!




The last night, we invited families to come for a short program, and they saw how the kids, in 4 days, had memorized Ephesians 3:20: "Glory to God who is able to do far beyond all that we could ask or imagine by His power at work within us." Amen.

Neighbor VBS

"What is Bible school FOR, anyway?" inquired a curious little girl while chatting with me at the summer lunch program where the Bible school kids had come to eat.

I told her things like learning about God, hearing Bible stories, making crafts, and playing games. But what struck me was how her question "what is it FOR?" and the answer "to learn about God" is the same no matter how old you are.

We had a very intergenerational VBS at Vanderwilt Park this year. In fact, you could argue we didn't have many kids. There were three who fell in the "normal" VBS age. But we had a mom who brought her itty bitty boys, and we had my grandma and her sister, and we had a crew of other amazing helpers, and everybody there from 2 weeks old to 4,264 weeks old learned something about God through this encounter.

I, for example, learned for the umpteenth time about God's goodness- during a week with such divided ages,  He sent us an early childhood specialist and a speech language pathologist to play with these little boys while the older ones did Bible study.

Kids of all ages enjoy VBS :) 

We learned about flexibility. They've been doing some work on the park, and so we avoided vast open spaces of dirt, and then moved a few times through the time to account for construction folks noisily building dugouts nearby. No matter where we were, we found shade and simplicity.  We decided to forgo the canopy again this year, and it worked just fine (no rain!)

My grandma brought crafts. Here kids are making toys that can be donated to the animal shelter. Notice the dramatic sky that did not rain on us! 

We learned that pizza ministry is powerful ministry. A wonderful woman from church has volunteered each year to bring us pizza on the last day. Boy, do we all feel loved when there's a tradition like this!

The most important thing is we were together. We had no question about "who is my neighbor" when we got to the Good Samaritan story- it was us. It was each other. We had snacks together, and sang drowsy music together Wednesday morning when everyone was on the sleepy side, and enjoyed cuddles and caretaking together with the littles. Having a foundation like this enables us to go out and share that sense of being a neighbor, of feeling God's love and the community of others, with everybody.

Relatedly, this week, we got an amazing donation from Osky's Central United Methodist Church (my home church.) Their VBS had been the week before, and they graciously chose MUMM to be the mission they supported. They invited me to come speak about what we do, and it was so powerful to watch this future group of world-changers care about those in their own community so other kids could have VBS just like they do and could go to camp just like they do. Many, many thanks to this community of faith for all the love and support of MUMMs (and me)!

Looking at the world through rose (hill) colored glasses

Rose Hill, Iowa. Population 168. Driving into town, you're greeted by the remnants of a burnt trailer. The town does not seem, at first glance, to have much to offer. But God lives here.

Earlier this summer, if you pulled up to the White Oak Venue around lunch time, you'd see some of God's family there serving lunch. These volunteers brought the (wholly secular) summer lunch program to their community. But many of them are also involved in other ways to serve here in this community hub- Bible study, an addiction recovery support group, and a weekly after school program for youth. This is an outreach of New Hope in neighboring Oskaloosa (which deserves to have its story told as well- check them out here, this is another amazing place where God works.) Since it was summer and the after school program was no longer in session, they wanted a way to continue to connect with the kids. Spencer had helped me out with VBS in years past, so he asked MUMM to come help out. This is exactly what we do. They'd never done VBS here before, and Spencer asked if we had to have a minimum number of kids. Recalling lots of small beginnings, I said if we had one kid we'd do Bible school.

Bonnie and I want this band to come with us everywhere we do VBS. 

Well, we had two kids the first day, another day we found the "one kid" statement a reality, one day we were joined by a family of three, another day we invited in two from outside where they were patronizing the only pop machine in town. So seven kids, never all at once. But if there's one thing I've learned in my years in this ministry, it's that it isn't about the numbers. When you have two kids, you can spend the first half hour playing and talking before jumping in to programming. You can all have an instrument during a musical jam session. You can get to know each other much better, and kids will share things with you. For example, one day we did a worry prayer. I asked them if they wanted to share worries they were scared about before we prayed about them.

Answers I was expecting: The dark. Grades. Bees. Fitting in at school.
Answers I got: Custody. Jail. My soul and demons.

These kids are thinkers. And this is how God works- through conversations, through small moments spent on big ideas. There is a fantastic group of kingdom people planting seeds in Rose Hill. Pray for the gardeners. Pray for the garden.

We took our crayon resist art to the great outdoors. 

Just behind the concrete slab were some lilies to consider. Beautiful blooms take time.