VBS

Vacation Bible School out at CCC was a real blessing. The theme was "Kingdom of the Son," and the kids loved it. We hung old palm branches all around the church, and I climbed this rickety old aluminum ladder to hang this paper-mache giraffe head off of the roof - it was money. The VBS program ran from Monday to Friday, from 9:00am to 12:00pm every day. Each day was divided up into six 30-minute blocks, the first and last of them being wake-up and wrap-up times, respectively. That left 4 blocks for me to work directly with the kids. My assigned task for the week was pretty easy - I had to organize the games for each half-hour block, and a different age group came for each block. The first group was the 5th and 6th graders, and we usually played whiffleball or crab soccer. Then we had the Pre-Ks, with which we usually just read stories and played with toy parachutes.

One of the relationships that really sums VBS for me is the one that I formed with a little (she'd probably resent that) girl named Kim. She's in 4th grade, and she has a little bit of a speech impediment. I've seen her in the church before, and on Monday I saw her playing on the play set so I went to her and said, "Hi, Kimberly." She looked at me with this kind of exasperated/cross expression that she's so good at and said, "My name is Kim, not Kim-buh-lee!" I looked down at her nametag and sure enough, it said "Kim," and so Kim it was.

Every day after our recreation time, she would turn to me and say, "Gee, my legs huwt... can I have a piggy-back wide?" And under that scorching noonday sun, I would hoist her up on my back and carry the two blocks from the park to the church (it's a small town.) She would sort of bounce around on my back as I carried her along, and a few times we broke into a sprint to beat all the other kids back to the church. A lot of the times, I wasn't wearing any kicks, and so walking around with 60 pounds on my back in bare feet didn't tickle. But I didn't care. Her smiles and staggered, breathy way of laughing warmed me up inside.

There were a lot of of awesome things that happened in this last week - forming relationships with some rad high school volunteers, having happy birthday sung to me 7 times on Wednesday (actually my birthday), loving on little kids, and eating otter pops in the blistering heat - but the most poignant memory of the week is Kim's angelic face, and the way she laughed as I ran across the burning blacktop with her on my back. Looking within, I think the realization that has begun to form in my heart is that I would rather tie a millstone around my neck than to lead her astray. That's what VBS is all about - the kids learned/experienced what it feels like to be loved by GOD, and I learned what it looks like to have a child-like faith. Nails. See you soon.

"Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe to stumble, it would be better for him if, with a heavy millstone hung around his neck, he had been cast into the sea." (Mark 9:42)

"Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all." (Luke 18:17)