My Juvenile Week

Children amuse and amaze me (as I have mentioned this before). In one of the last weeks of my stay in Germany, I volunteered to help out at a children's camp, called the Vacation Bible School.

Vacation Bible School, or VBS for short, is the term for a special type of religious education which caters toward children, usually during the summer. For more information on this, read here. It gives an overview of the program.

This year's theme was the wild west and the camp was called Avalanche Ranch. Children were given bandanas and were encouraged to come dressed in their boots and western hats (if they owned any). Some of them were so cute, they looked like little cowboys and cowgirls.

Anyway, I was put in charge of crafts and missions station. I figured, at least on my part, there would be less teaching and more fun playing with the kids (still a child at heart). The daily lesson was introduced at the start of each new day and the children were reminded of the daily message at every station.

Stringing beads to their Buddy Bags on the first day.

Making personal prayer journals on the second day.

Stuffing felt bears, called Prayer Bears, on the third day. This was the day, they also learned about giving away something to the less fortunate. They made two cuddly bears - one to give to a child in Africa and one to keep for themselves.

At this point, I have to mention that when I went around the table to ask them individually if they were ready to give up a bear, most of them readily said "OK". A couple of them said that the bears were too cute to part with but they understood why they were giving it away. They were instructed to write their names on a tag and insert it in a pocket at the back of the bear. The older children wrote personal messages. The ones that stood out for me were "To God's child with love" and "God loves you".

Decorating boot-shaped bird feeders. Notice by the fourth day, the table had too many scribbles. Put coloured markers and children ... and we get "works of art" everywhere!

Unfortunately, I did not get to take any pictures on the fifth day. It was sand art day. My team and I spent most of the time, dusting off sand from the table to get it ready before the next group walked in. We had five groups per day. They were grouped according to their ages.

This pre-school kid refused to leave his daddy when he was dropped off on the last day. His group leader tried to coax him but he kept hanging on. After I took their picture, I moved away (hoping that might help). A few minutes later, I saw his daddy leave. Yay!

It was a tiring but fun week. I love working with children. I will do this again next summer if the local church offers it.