Back to School 2013!!

Though I've been neglecting my blog this summer, I have been doing the opposite with my family. We've had a whirlwind of a time that included having visits from friends, going to multiple VBS's, learning to slack line, playing in the rain (a lot), being in a wedding, tending the garden, playing with chickens, swimming in Monticello and next door, going bowling, riding the go-kart, picking blackberries, making jam, building a chicken coop in South Florida, going to Music Camp, having tea parties, doing a bake sale/auction to raise money for Timothy's adoption, and slip-n-sliding in the backyard with soap and trash bags. Whew!

And now, it is time for school.

Amen.

I always take a photo of my kiddos on the first day of school.

Noodle. Starting middle school!



Hopers. 2nd Grade sweetie.

Love these two cuties with all my heart!

VBS Super Stars

I ashamedly had to admit to a friend today that I hadn't written a blog post since last month.  Argghhh!  Didn't I promise my loyal readers that I could handle the pressure of remodeling my new house and blogging at the same time??  I hang my head.  My promises are apparently empty.  So, out of bloggy guilt mixed in with a healthy dose of mommy guilt, I now present you with today's post.

This week has been VBS week at our church!  It has been fantastic.  Several children were asked to help lead worship for the Wednesday night adult service, by singing and doing the motions to two of the VBS songs they learned this week.

My AMAZING children were part of this.

Here they are, ready to do a sound check, with some friends.




Noodle (far left) and Hopers (center, right)

 

And here they are singing their songs and doing some AMAZING motions.
Aren't they amazing?  Did I already say that?

Hopers (far left) and Noodle (2nd from right)



Born to be stars, I tell ya.


Noodle (center)



 They have natural stage presence. (Mommy pride swelling up....)

Hopers



But to be honest, it was a bit of a struggle to reach this AMAZING-NESS.  The real story goes like this:

Paula, the children's director calls me up to ask if my kids would like to sing some VBS songs with a few other kids the next night.
I say: Sure, hold on and let me ask Noodle.
I ask Noodle: would you like to sing some VBS songs with some other kids in the service tomorrow night?
Noodle: YEAH!!
Me: Okay Paula, I'm sure Hopers will be just as excited. We'll be there.
I get off the phone and say: Cool, Noodle! You're going to lead worship just like I do, tomorrow night!
Noodle: Wait, you mean for the grown-ups?
Me: Uh-huh.
Noodle: Nooooooooooooooooo!!!!

Here's where Noodle began to spiral down into a nervous mess, telling me she was no longer interested in doing any singing.  Hopers, who was thrilled, tried to console her.  Apparently, Noodle thought she was going to be doing songs at VBS for the kids, not for the evening adult bible study.

Like any good parent, I bribed my child.

Tomorrow we will be going to Chic-fil-a.

Back To (Vacation Bible) School: Part IV

I know it's been a while since VBS ended, (And yes, I did need a long recovery period!) but the real reason I didn't blog about the last two days was because I didn't have pictures! On day four (Thursday) I completely forgot my camera. However, I noticed that someone came in the room and took a picture during one of the sessions. It took me a little while to track that photo down, but here it is (courtesy of Eve):

We set the room up very simply for that day because we wanted all the focus to be on the cross. That was the message on Thursday. Jesus died on the cross to forgive your sins. Will you accept Him? The children were given sad-face stickers and asked to think about whether they would take the punishment for someone else's sin. Then, they were asked to think about a sin they have committed while placing the sad-face sticker on the two outside crosses (not Jesus'). The story was told of how the one man hanging beside Jesus asked if he could be with Him in Paradise. The sad-face stickers from one cross were all moved on to Jesus' cross: a picture of how He took our sin and put it on Himself. The kids were given an opportunity to raise their hands during prayer if they wanted to accept Jesus as their savior.

At this point, I have to tell you about a little girl who was in one of the groups. She couldn't sit down because of a boo-boo, so she stood in the back of the room with me. After the prayer and everything was over her leader came up and asked me if the little girl had raised her hand. I could only shake my head, because I had watched her carefully, just in case. Tears welled up in the woman's eyes. With disappointment in her voice she said, "Of course. She's my daughter." I hugged her, trying to fight back my own tears, wanting to explain to her that I, too, struggle with the uncertainty of my daughters' path to heaven.

The moment has stuck with me. Some parents are sending their children to vacation bible school because it's a place for the kids to be entertained for part of the summer. But other parents are sending (or bringing) their children to vacation bible school in hopes that this time will be the time. And perhaps it is. It is such a privilege to be a part of that, no matter the parental motives.

Back To (Vacation Bible) School: Part III

Well, today has been the day I was most excited and anxious about this week as far as the set was concerned. Can I just say it was totally awesome? No really. It was cool. And, you had to have been there because the pictures just don't do it justice. But I will do my best to describe it to you.

The story was about Peter walking on the water to Jesus (Matthew 14:22-33), so our setting was in a boat on the Sea of Galilee. And how do you construct a boat without constructing a boat? Paper, of course!

We lined chairs up in the shape of a boat. I painted miles of brown paper to look like wood (Which, by the way, doesn't show up hardly at all in a dark room. LOL!) and covered the chairs with it. Then we used blue paper and thin plastic tarps to create the flowing water look around the boat and out across the floor. We used a borrowed smoke machine to fill the room with a mysterious fog. We hung a glow-in-the-dark moon from the ceiling with fishing line and had a black cloud cover it at just the right moment when the storm began (with more fishing line and Sara behind the scenes).

The children enter the dark room. The water looks somewhat like this (only less blurry):The fog around them is glowing from the dim blue lights above. They hear the sounds of waves as they file straight into the boat. The city on the coast (from days 1 and 2) is barely visible to the left. As Logan begins describing the story (Jesus Give Us the Power to be Brave), she has the children pretend to hoist sails, row oars, and rock with the boat. The storm begins with a crash of thunder and flashes of lightning over the city--courtesy of Paul behind the scenes in the sound booth. We mist the kids with spray bottles and "Jesus" appears as a tiny light coming from the direction of the "shore."

The storm is calmed...we've saved the best for last....walking on water!

What?

You heard me right. The children got to step out of the front of the boat and walk across "water." Amy explains to them that if they walk quickly, they will be able to step across easily. But if they are hesitant and slow, they will sink. The children don't realize that what we have in the plastic underbed bin is actually a Non-Newtonian Fluid made from cornstarch and water. This is some crazy stuff! If you've never tried it, go in the kitchen and make some. You just dump cornstarch in a bowl and add some water until it is completely mixed. You'll know when you have the right consistency because it'll drip through your fingers like water, but when you poke it, it will feel hard like a solid! Check out how Mythbusters does it.

Here's Amy standing in it at the end of the day after the kids and some of the fog had cleared.

It had begun to harden, and she wasn't sinking very much. Still, you couldn't have paid me to put my feet in there after all those funky little feet had passed through it. (Shudder...)

Logan thought it would be funny to take a picture of Amy and me trying to dump the cornstarch into the woods. Our book told us specifically not to pour this giant batch down a drain (go figure!) so we had to do something with it. By the time we had gotten around to dumping it, however, it was late afternoon and the stuff and become quite firm. Chunks were flying everywhere as we dug it out with sticks, but it was rather creepy to watch the stiff chunks settle into the ground as puddles like some alien movie monster.

But, Jesus gave me the power to be brave, and I was able to get through it. :)

Back To (Vacation Bible) School: Part II

If it weren't for the fact that everyone was blind and in the dark on Tuesday, I would have had a lot more pictures to show for the day. The children were learning the story of the blind man whom Jesus healed by applying mud to his eyes (John 9:1-41). So here's how the VBS Bible Blast day went: First, Logan and Amy met them outside, gave everyone blindfolds to put on. The kids were allowed to wander into the dark room without their leaders. The rest of the team (Bethany, Sara, Michael, and I) stayed in the room to act as bouncers--keeping the kids off of the black paper "walls." Paul had become too sick to even speak, so Amy bravely took over all of the speaking parts. After bumping around in the dark for a few minutes, the boys and girls sat down to have "mud" applied to their foreheads. The shocking part was--while still blindfolded--multiple kids in different rotations said, "Hey! What is this?" and proceeded to grab a clump of the goop off of their foreheads and eat it! Yes, it was only plain, cooked oatmeal. But, would you have eaten a mysterious sticky glob (that a stranger had just applied to your face with his or her fingers) without a second thought? I think not!

Well, then we had the crew leaders "heal" the childrens' blindness by washing their faces with wipes. Everyone got to whip off the blindfolds together on the count of 3 at the exact moment I flipped on the lights. Surprise! The room was different! Yesterday's leper's cave had disappeared. We used the brown paper from it to create our Pool of Siloam. Originally, we had a plastic kiddie pool that we spray-painted to look like stone. We were going to fill it with actual water (instead of paper, plastic and blue glitter like this one). However, our friends over in the Games department had a leaky pool (uh-oh...) and were searching all over the Big Bend for another one. Apparently, there weren't any. So, we decided to give ours to them. Good thing I'm getting pretty handy at paper crafting.

But anyway, the kids could now see, and Amy talked to them about how Jesus gives us the power to help others. They prayed about being on the lookout for ways to reach out to help others this week.

Here's my team. Jesus gave them the power to help others this week! "Others," meaning "me" because I couldn't do it without them. Although I'm pretty sure I've heard the phrase "Craft Nazi" whispered a few times behind my back.
Left to right: Amy, Me, Paul, Sara, Logan and Bethany.


I also had to post a picture of Noodle and her friend. Her friend actually has the same name as her, so for blogger purposes I'll call her Noodle also. It's been kind of funny throughout the week to hear their crew leader call out, "Noodle and Noodle! Come over here!"

Back To (Vacation Bible) School: Part I

It's baa-aaaaaack! Yes, VBS is here, and I am once again up to my elbows in colorful paper, bible-times robes, and paint fumes. If you're looking for me, check in the leper's cave, the Pool of Siloam, the boat on the Sea of Galilee, the cross at Calvary, or the upper-room, because that's where I'll be this week.

This is my third year as a volunteer--and I'm sure I've found my niche, because I've been doing the same room every year. This year it's called Bible Blast, last year it was the Bible Expedition (see the July 2007 archives), but it's always the same: bible stories being taught through an interactive skit complete with scenery.

Well, to be honest, the scenery part is mostly my invention. The guidebook we are given usually has a few ideas like, "stack some cardboard boxes and draw black squares on them to look like a bible-times city." I read it (smile) and then toss it aside before leaning in to my team and saying, "Okay, here's what we're really going to do!"

Today, instead of stacked boxes and plastic palm fronds stuck in cardboard tubes, we created this:

We found discarded foamboards, wrapped them in paper, and painted them to look like buildings. They are hung from the ceiling with fishing line! (And let me tell you, dangling from the top of a ladder, trying to get a bunch of giant buildings to hang "just right" is NOT fun.) Then we used spray-painted canvases draped over stacks of chairs to look like the outside wall of the city. Brown paper wraps the front of the stage...Green paper taped on top of that and trimmed to look like grass...Blue paper for the sky. Spread a few fake palms around, and voilá! You've got a place for the story of the 10 lepers being healed by Jesus to take place. Of course, we (I) couldn't leave it at that. We also added a cave at the doorway for everyone to walk through into the room (aka. the place where the lepers were living). It was constructed from a tent wrapped in crumpled brown paper. We have the Taylor family to thank for assisting us with that project. It was "Taylor Made!" Ha ha.... okay, moving on.The kids really seemed to have fun today. We gave them "leprosy" by sticking red dots on them and placing them in quarantine (wrapping in them in caution tape). Then, we healed them.
The lesson for the day was about being thankful. In the story, one man came back to Jesus to thank Him for healing him from leprosy. We talked with the kids about how to pray and thank God for the good things in our lives.
Everything went really great! I'm THANKFUL that things went smoothly and I got to come home earlier than usual (2:45 pm) because the set-up for tomorrow was super easy!
Of course, now I've got to get off the computer and paint wood-grain texture on miles of brown paper... But that's another story to be told on Wednesday!

The Chronicles of a VBS Volunteer: Part V

Friday: The Leprosy Clinic

To tell the story of Namaan following God's instructions (by washing in the Jordan river seven times to get rid of his leprosy), we set up the Samaritan Leprosy Clinic. We hung plain canvas and white paper all around to create a room within the room and to completely change the look from "outside" to "inside." I decided to utilize the stage in the room as place to decorate without having to worry about kids touching things. I set up two cots using communion tables with white sheets draped over and pillows on top. I also set up a bookshelf on either side of the cots and placed jars and boxes on them that were full of medical looking items. (Note: while setting this up, I should have known that Hopers would sneek over and grab a jar. Moments later we all jumped at the sound of glass shattering in the center of the room and Hopers looking wide-eyed, but unharmed!) In the center of the stage, I used a cardboard box with a lightbox inside it to make an x-ray viewer. I then taped one of Seth's x-rays of his spine to the front of it.

Amy and I had fun dressing up as leptrascoptomologistarians (say that 3 times fast...I can do it now!).

The Chronicles of a VBS Volunteer: Part IV

Thursday: The Garden Tomb

We invite the kids to come into the garden near the tomb where Jesus was buried. We explain that behind the wall, is the tomb and we are sad to tell them the bad news about his death. This was a really powerful day, as our actors lead the kids through a pantomime of how Jesus was beaten and hung on the cross. Lori, one of the two speakers, honestly cried each time she recounted the story for the kids. But then, after listening to the women behind the wall discover that Jesus came back to life, everyone rejoices! Balloons pop up from behind the wall as a spotlight comes on and music fills the room with "Awesome God."

The fire looked pretty cool with the lights out because there were several strands of twinkle lights flickering under the tissue paper.

My gates that I painted at midnight last night ended up being more work than I intended. But hey, I brought it on myself, right?

The Chronicles of a VBS Volunteer: Part III

Wednesday: The Jericho Walls

Today's drama was based on the story of the Israelite army marching around the walls of Jericho seven times to make them fall down. We talked to the kids as if they had just volunteered to join the army as soldiers. I designed the set so that as they came marching in, there was plenty of stomping ground to wind around while keeping the next turn a secret. We
placed a canvas "rock" wall to the left side of the door so that once the kids had marched to the back of the room an around the other side, the wall could pivot over to the right side of the door. This made exiting easy, so they wouldn't have to wind back out through the maze of paper bag "bricks" and plants. I tucked grass into the brick walls for added interest. We also scattered shredded raffia all over the floor to make it look more authentic.

This is at the back of the room where our marchers are traveling through on their way to the final section of the drama.

The last section of the room. This is where we had the kids pretend to be walls by forming into pyramids themselves while we marched around them seven times. The floor in our room was solid concrete. So, in the interest of safety, we decided to put a bunch of blankets down and cover them with a tarp to help prevent bruises and teeth getting knocked out as the children collapsed from their pyramids.

I may look calm listening to Liz, but this was the most wild day out of the whole week. I had to shout at the top of my lungs most of the time. The whistle hanging around my neck was indispensible!

Is anyone else exhausted? And it's only Wednesday!

The Chronicles of a VBS Volunteer: Part II

Tuesday: The Crossing of the Jordan River

This was a complicated day and it took me a bit of planning and thinking to come up with something interesting! If I had gone by the book, it would have been a pitiful looking sheet hanging between two ladders with a tarp on the floor behind it. We can do better than that, folks! Yesterday, I hid in supply closet with my notebook and some colored pencils until I came up with a sketch of the layout. Hey, it was a big closet! And, there was food in there.

The kids enter this area barefoot because the towels on the floor are sopping wet. Lots of "ewws" erupt from the crowd as it squishes between their toes. It's explained that they are standing along the flooded banks of the Jordan and the water is really deep (indicated by the height of the blue sheets hanging). Hiding behind the banks are volunteers with spray bottles that mist the kids on cue.

I was hiding under this "rock" to release the rope that held up the water to reveal...

A dry river bed for the kids to cross over and get to the camp on the other side. It wowed the kids because we stopped the rushing water cd and flipped on the spotlight at the same time the water dropped. Oooohh, ahhhhh....




The other side with the river parting back. (The water was very glittery, but you can't tell in the picture!)

Kids making their memorials out of the rocks they picked up from the river bed. Paul, dressed as a Bible-times river guide.

The Chronicles of a VBS Volunteer: Part I

Our church chose to do Vacation Bible School this year and I, of course, chose to get involved again. I was really excited about it because, 1. I was familiar with what was expected of me since I had done something similar two years ago and am no longer among the uninitiated, and 2. I get to use paper, glue, canvas, paint and my imagination to MAKE stuff!! If you know me, you know how I get into crafty stuff. Well, the area I am in charge of is called the Bible Expedition. We basically teach the kids a different bible story each day by creating a scene for them to experience. We act out imaginary or historical characters and involve the kids in the drama also. It's a lot of fun, but it's also a lot of work. Once the day of VBS ends at noon, we grab a quick lunch and then head back into the room to tear down that day's scene and construct a completely new one for the next day.

Monday: Rahab's Roof

Along the back is the wall of the city of Jericho. Rahab's roof was situated against it, so we used paper bags stuffed with newspaper to make bricks to define the "roof" area. She explains that her roof is where she does laundry and keeps her garden. On the left are the "bundles" where the Israelite spies are hiding. The kids had to hide under sheets when soldiers came knocking and then they got poked with swords (actually pool noodles). I asked Noodle if she liked it as she was walking out and she said, "NO!" It was a little on the scary side for the youngest kids, but the wide-eyed look on Noodle's face when she popped out from under the sheet and stood up looking for those soldiers was priceless!

Amy, our volunteer who played Rahab, with the Red Rope.