VBS

It's over! Don't get me wrong, I enjoy VBS and I think it's a great program for a church to have. On the other hand, it is a lot of work. This year I spent the majority of my time in the kitchen, which was very different for me. I'm usually the director's assistant. Not that I'm especially qualified, but because I'm married to the director. This summer we had an evangelist's family running the program so our roles were somewhat different.

I had to refocus my thoughts as I lamented about my lack of interaction with the kids. A lesson I had to learn while on camp office staff at Northland came back to mind. It doen't matter where we are serving (or what we are doing to serve) as long as we are serving. Each part is important. Washing another dish and recycling the soda cans might seem mundane, but it is still necessary.

We had our normal average turn-out for the children's program. The majority of the young people who came are from our AWANA program. Although not many decisions were made in this age group, we know the continued listening to and learning of God's Word is vitally important. God's Word will not return void, so we know He will continue to work in their hearts and lives.

We saw 16 visitors from the immediate area come to the teen program and many of them asked Christ to be their Lord and Savior. We look forward to following up with them, particularly working to disciple them. Our main hope now is that the church will be able to continue having a weekly teen meeting to encourage and instruct these teens. At this point there is no one in the church who is willing and/or qualified to run the program. This is a definite area of prayer and consideration for Jason and the board.

Tonight we get to relax and enjoy some family time together at a baseball game. This is Jason's Father's Day present. Now before you think this is awfully late, the actual reason for the late date is that he wanted to see one team in particular - the Phillies!