Well, after 4 years, it might actually be our last VBS, which is sad. We have no clue what the next year will hold since we started the adoption process. But, none the less, it was a good time to serve with the rest of the body and watch kids grow in their understanding of Jesus!
Another special part was that we were asked to share about our future ministry in Asia Pacific for a few minutes each day. Payton is really good at getting creative with illustrations, so he found all sorts of things to make the presentations tactile–it’s hard to keep their attention when your audience is as young as 4 also includes adults. With the help of a matching donor, they raised over $1000 for our plane tickets to Asia Pacific!! But, I’ll tell you what really made those daily 5 minutes worth it…at least one of those little ones was really thinking about missions. Her mom says she’s always listening and asking questions about it! How cool! As I looked out at their faces, I was praying for the next generation of laborers to be ready for the harvest. 
Being with the 5 and 6 year olds made for quite the exhausting week since it’s quite hard work to keep up (the 4-K group had upwards of 70 kids some days!!!). There were multiple times that they left me mystified and laughing to myself. Here are two memorable quotes:
As we were taking about Noah and the Ark one little girl chimed in, “Well, when Noah called all the animals, the unicorns didn’t listen, so they died in the flood!”
After we talked about Cain and Abel, there was a picture kind of like this one, except with a bigger watermelon in Cain’s hand. When the teacher asked about what happened, all of the kids yelled, “Cain killed Abel!” and then they all wanted to know how he did it. Then one kid piped up and said, “He did it with those fruits!!!” I imagined Cain busting the giant watermelon over Abel’s head and could barely stop from laughing out loud. Below is my small group of little ones!
Payton did games again as well as take part in the daily skits. His robot skills were put to the test! He’s the red one in case you wanted to know. 🙂
We were so thankful for the chance to serve alongside everyone, even if it might be our last one!
Haha! I love what those kids said! Reminds me of a VBS where the teacher asked, “What do you need to do to go to heaven?” and a little boy said, “Die!” 🙂 Looks like a really awesome VBS!
Very neat to see how the week went. Payton, great outfit.And I loved the kid quotes. Kids are unvarnished. who knows how many more have been lit with the spark of the gospel going forth, or at least into their own hearts, but unable to speak of it yet, since the Spirit’s work and timing is so mysterious. Payton, I am wondering exactly what object lessons you used, knowing how resourceful you both are!
Since the kids were helping us get to Asia Pacific, we looked into our luggage so they can see what items we’ll be bringing with us. We have only so much room, so whatever we were unpacking were essentials and important. Much of the stuff was illustrative, like a little white board that we pulled out helped explain how we will teach literacy. We pulled out a miniature working solar power system to help explain that we will be living in the bush where there is no “grid” we can connect to for power. Things like that.