Vacation Bible School
A few posts ago, I mentioned that we were all sick in June. It started with Keith VBS week. My mom was here to help hold down the fort, and Lydia and I were so busy going to VBS (plus we had to get new tires on the car that week), that his illness didn’t slow us down that much. The next week, the rest of us started having symptoms. I wrote this post, making it sound like we just wished away our illness by having fun in the sun. Lest I leave you with the impression that we conquered bacterial infections with a few fun outings, let me give you an update. I had no voice for about five days. I finally went to urgent care on a Sunday morning, where the doctor barely looked at me, but prescribed antibiotics and prednizone (the latter of which I decided not to use). Then I tried going to church after that. Big mistake. I was miserable. Lydia went to the doctor Monday, where we discovered she had a double ear infection. Enter one bottle of pink liquid into our fridge. Luke went on Wednesday. He had a mild ear infection. Enter second bottle of pink liquid. This illness was awful, and it affected our family for an entire month.
It makes me think about what daily life was like before the discovery of penicillin. I guess if you got an infection you just had to hope you got over it. If not, it turned into pnuemonia and you just died. I am so thankful to live in an era when daily survival is not my main concern.
So, back to VBS week. Lydia did great during that week. I can rarely get her to wear anything but a dress, but I did convince her to wear her VBS T-shirt with a skirt a couple of times.
My job was to organize the mission project and mission interviews. Each evening, the kids in grades K-6 would begin by going to the worship rally. I had about 5-10 minutes during each rally to promote the project and to interview different people involved with missions. The interviews were with a group who has ministered to the Huichol Indians of Mexico, the pastor of a local Cowboy Church, a group from our church who traveled the Zambia last summer, and a representative from Convoy of Hope, a local ministry.
There were two missions projects for the week. The VBS students collected items to make Personal Hygiene Kits for Convoy of Hope. Many of these packets go to Haiti, but Convoy of Hope uses them in other disaster areas as well, even here in the United States. The students surpassed their goal of 150 completed kits.
The adults involved with VBS (teachers, parents, church staff) collected reading glasses to send to missionaries Wes and Laurie Wilcox in Zambia. Laurie shared with me that many Zambians cannot see well enough to read their Bibles, and these glasses will help them do that. VBS adults collected almost 300 pairs of reading glasses to send to Zambia.
Each grade level was in charge of bringing a different item for the hygiene kits.
I had some awesome volunteers that week who helped to assemble hygiene packets each evening.
Our children’s minister Shayla agreed that she would kiss a pig for each goal that was met. The students met their goal for Convoy of Hope, and the adults met their goal for Zambia, so Shayla had to kiss this pig twice!
The pig’s name was J.R. Poor thing was pretty scared.
Shayla had to work up some nerve.
The missions theme verse for the week was Matthew 28:19-20. Jesus told his disciples to GO to where people need to hear about Jesus. That’s what missions is all about, after all.
