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.