We live out in the country. Their are several very small Baptist churches within a few minutes of our home. Picture small old church buildings with graveyards at their side, many off of dirt roads with only a handful of scattered homes around them and you have pictured what is around us.
So at the start of summer we had an older lady who lives down the road from us stop by our house one afternoon. Her church which is about a minute from our home was preparing to host their annual VBS. They had been doing so for the past 3 years and she knew we went to another church but wanted to invite us to come. She told us all about what they do each evening. Unlike most VBS's where the kids go into classes for their age groups, at their church the families are always together. It sounded like a great time and their church hosts it every summer as an outreach to the community here in our small town area. Normally our family doesn't really do things with churches that we are not a part of ourselves but Bryan and I talked about it and agreed that this sounded like something that we would love to attend and support. The church is primarily older people so even with the few children that come to their VBS from the community each year, the older people still out number the younger. All of our faith families through the years have been non-denominational churches but a couple of them have been closely affiliated or had connections with baptist/southern baptist and so we felt pretty confident going that we knew the beliefs that would be presented and given that our kids would be with us the entire evening, we felt comfortable attending.
I have to share that being that this is a very small country church, we were not expecting anything really elaborate compared to the VBS programs we have been a part of in the past. We were therefore surprised at how much the church had decorated and done things up when we got there. The VBS theme was the circus. The older lady that invited us told me on the first evening that their church prepares all year long for VBS. Their church goes in each year with several other small Baptist churches around Alabama to purchase the sets and props and they share them among the churches.
The church served dinner at 6pm each evening and activities were from 6:30-9pm. After eating the kids went into a room where their were carnival games set up that they could play to win tickets. They could cash in their tickets at a "store" for prizes. And not your cheesy plastic prizes like you get at Chuck E Cheese- but nice toys or candy. After game time everyone came together in the sanctuary for a puppet show, time of worship singing, and bible learning.
Their were games and prizes during this time too. The games were boys against girls with the adults joining in too. I was called up front the first night to participate in one of the relay games for the adult team. Several door prizes were drawn each evening. The pledge was done to the American flag, Christian flag, and bible each evening. A couple of the older people dressed up as clowns and were hilarious throughout the evening. And of course bible stories and scriptures and the gospel was presented during the time in the sanctuary.
Our own kids really enjoyed the week. We invited our neighbor Maria and her kids to come with us and they did and really enjoyed it too. Maria doesn't drive so Bryan drove one of their cars and I drove our suburban to get all of us to the church each evening. I enjoyed meeting some of the other people in our community.
Some pictures from the week.....
Ally with our friend and neighbor Julia.
Camden getting a prize from one of the clowns.
Natalie & Annie waiting in line to play a game.
Emmy & Fatima. Emmy helped her play the games and keep track of her tickets all week long.
Fatima's favorite game was the spinning wheel.
The "store" where the kids could get prizes for their tickets.
The girls in sanctuary on the first night.
Our neighbor Cruise- during one of the games on the first night. His partner had to race and dress him up and they won.
Natalie & Ally both won quiet seat prizes during the week. Each evening they chose one child that sat the most attentive and quiet during the bible lesson and that child got to go up and chose a prize from a table of goodies. Natalie chose an art set. Our family raked in the door prizes too! I won 2 nights in a row. On one evening 5 out of the 8 in our family won door prizes. Our neighbors won a couple of times too. The kids came home with a huge amount of new toys and candy from the week. Each evening they were able to cash in their tickets for treasures from the store. They could save their tickets each evening and get larger prizes at the end of the week or cash them in each evening. They were able to play the games as often as they wanted which meant a lot of tickets.
During the week the dinners served were corn dogs, chicken strips, with mac-n-cheese, burritos, taco salad, or nachos, barbecue pork sandwiches with pork and beans and salad, hamburgers and hot dogs with chips and pork and beans, chicken or regular spaghetti with salad and french bread. They served cookies and cupcakes for dessert each evening.
Houston, Cruise, & Emmy
Houston helped out on a couple of evenings by manning one of the games.
This picture cracks me up! It's so Ally & Julia. They are goofy and have so much fun together.
Each evening their were questions from the bible time the night before. If a child raised his hand and had the right answer they were able to chose a partner and participate in one of the game events in the sanctuary.
Ally had the right answer and was chosen to play in the game on the 2nd night. She and her partner had to move a balloon around the sanctuary using only a paper plate.
Annie made it up on stage for a game on the 3rd night.
The game was the same shaving cream Cheetos catch game that our family played on this past New Years Eve.
Natalie & Julia on stage on Thursday evening. Julia's hat had tape on it and Natalie had to collect certain items from the audience to put on Julia's hat. It was boys against girls as usual and the items the audience had to give for the game was a penny, a dollar bill, a belt, lipstick, a comb, and a necklace.
Emmy & Natalie on stage on the last night. They competed in a race where they had to hold a peanut in between their nose and upper lip and race to drop the peanut in a bucket.
Another game where the contestants had to pull skittles out of a plate of whipped topping and drop them on another plate.
A group picture on the last night. They averaged between 25-30 kids each evening. Most of the kids were grand kids of the members of the church.
The had a competition during the week for boys against girls for the offering. At the end of the week if the boys had more offering then the girl clown got a pie in her face. If the girls had more offering then the boy clowns got a pie in their faces.
The boys won!
On the last night they had water balloon fights, popcorn, mule rides, and shaved ice.
Yup- that's my sweet innocent little Ally girl about to water balloon bomb that boy! LOL! She is brutal when it comes to these things. She gives the boys a run for their money.
My soaked little competitor. She loves every minute of it!
Cam's a little more timid and didn't care for the water balloon that crashed over his head and got his face all wet. He was loving it up until that point. He got over it quick though when the shaved ice came out. *grin*
We had a great week. It all made for a very busy week for us this past week but I loved how open and accepting the church was to our family, knowing that we already had a church family elsewhere. They thanked us again and again for coming.
