What Might Happen When You Teach a Week of VBS

You become adept at juggling your summer schedule. When you3@home are at your nephew's wedding in Tennessee and the relatives are standing around afterward, comparing heading-back-home times, or the locals are asking how long you're sticking around, you overhear your husband explaining more than once that you're starting for home already the next morning and doing the trip all in one shot because his wife and daughter need to be home for teaching VBS on Monday morning.

The main VBS teacher that you are assisting in the Preschool Class has asked you to look after the crafts aspect of the daily lesson, and you consent because it is something you love, and not because you have all the time in the world these weeks to gather ideas and materials. So you snatch the moments that you can, for preparing five different crafts that coincide with the five Bible stories that the main teacher has selected from the ten-lesson book. This means that, while you ride in the van on the route to Tennessee, you cut out Days of Creation strips (to eventually feed through slots on paper plates like a film strip) and divide sheets of animal and flower stickers into smaller sections for kindergarteners to select with (hopefully) less reason to fight over.

You develop a special interest in Pinterest, and gratefully harvest from idea fields in which you have neither planted nor watered.

Sheets of construction paper, scissors, glue stick, markers, templates, cardstock, yarn, staples, craft demos, to-do lists, foamies (yeah, I didn't know that's what thin, rubbery sheets of craft foam are called, either), paper scraps, and metal paper fasteners accumulate on your dining toom table. You won't be able to see the entire wood of the tabletop for at least a week.

One day on the way home from Bible School you remember how barren of lunch items your fridge is becoming and you decide to swing in at Arby's for a beef-n-cheddar copout (otherwise known as combo) for yourself and one for your co-teacher daughter, who is as pleased with the decision as you are.

While traveling to and from the church, you play silly games that your five-year-old grandson instigates. "Let's tell jokes," he'll say. He'll opt to be the joker, so he can ask either his auntie or you a strange question, fully expecting a crazy response in return. Whoever answers correctly (according to him) gets to be the joker next. "Grandma," he might say, "What did the dump truck use to get rid of its load?" You guess something off the wall like "Curtains!" and he'll tell you whether you're right or wrong, or if your guess is close. (you'll probably be wrong; curtains are too far removed from pancake turners to count...forks would have been closer) The grandson's answers could end up being as entertaining as his joke questions. (Like the time he answered his auntie's question "Why did the farmer plant eggs in his field?" with "Because his chickens couldn't plant them!")

During snack time at Bible School, you look around the circle of preschoolers licking melty popsicles and you do the grandma thing of providing wet wipes and hope that no one catches on that the real reason you vounteer for Clean-up Duty is not having to participate in any recess activities. In other words, you don't need to creak your knobby knees up and down in Duck, Duck, Goose, sneak and dart around the building in Peek Around the Corner, or outrace runners in a dizzying circle of preschoolers in Too Late For Supper.

Watching the children experiencing VBS reminds you of your own student days at Summer Bible School. Lining up in rows according to age and grade outside the front doors of a little white church tucked among the pines and birches of Northwoods Beach. Filing inside (bare feet across the scratchy entry mat) while singing "Come to Bible School" and sitting on the wooden benches of the auditorium for assembly, hoping the leader has something in a brown paper bag he's going to use for an illustration. Listening with anticipation to the superintendent's announcement of the attendance number and offering amount and getting so excited when it's higher than the day before. Adoring your teacher, especially the one who remembered you and your twin's birthday that week and brought in a homemade treat to celebrate, each student in the class receiving a large cookie with his/her name written on top in blue frosting. Fifty children belting out favorite songs and memory verses during whole-school practice for the program given to parents and friends on the last Friday night of Bible School. 

You notice that the various personalities exhibited by the youngsters in craft class are not all that different from those you might find in a group of adults, really. There's the kindergartener who amasses ridges of glue on the page but then begs to go wash her hands because she can't stand the excess stickiness on her fingers. And the precise chap who takes longer than all the rest to write his name because he's putting curlicues on the tails of his initials. There's also the one who can multi-task already at five years old - humming a tune while coloring his baby basket for Moses a startling blue. (Do you know what song that is? he stops the humming to ask his teacher, and supplies the answer when she doesn't know: "What Shall We Do With a Drunken Sailor?")

During assembly, you get a certain lump in your throat at hearing a chorus of young voices earnestly singing "I am a Christian and my name is Pilgrim; I'm on a journey but I'm not alone..." and reciting the week's memory verse, "He looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God." (Hebrews 11:10) That certain feeling, probably brought on by wonder overload, comes also when you see a student allowing another classmate to go first or sharing a coveted marker, or when you watch staff members going out of their way to entertain a student with special needs. 

Throughout the whole week of VBS, you get reminders, both large and small, of how truly awesome our God is. 

What are your memories of attending (or teaching) VBS?