The month of November ended with a bang! It has been five years since I got involved to help out the Vacation Bible School at my church. The Hawaiian themed `Outrigger Island' was activities-packed and a blast - for kids and adults! Although I was a teacher, I somehow felt like a kid again - being surrounded by so many of them! I taught the Standard 5&6 - many of them especially the girls are pretty grown-up in a way. So it wasn't too difficult to deal with them. We were also lucky to have no problem kids in our class!
I chose the afternoon session - cos it's just too much a nightmare to drag myself up early in the morning to be at church by 8am! So I still got to wake up late as the aft. session started at 2pm.
The main audi was beautifully decorated with huge flowers, oars and then on the stage, a tall vocalno complete with lights and lavas! I marvelled at the brains and hands behind these. The church was like a big themepark in a way.. only that there's a purpose to it.
There was a concise timetable to follow. Everyday started with assembly and songs followed by 40 minutes of class, and then it is the rotational sites which included music, recreation (ie some fun games), snack time and mission class. Then the kids were back to the classroom for 20 minutes of teaching and wrapping up, before they went back to the main hall for the closing assembly.
We class teachers were to follow them to where ever they went! Just after day 1, I was already feeling pretty exhausted to keep up with the kids. It didn't help that my church building had lots of staircases! There were four teachers in our class - ya, we needed team work, and we had already had a meeting a month ago to plan the lessons. I was allocated to teach on Day 3 - and it turned out to be the most important day because on that day, we were to teach them about the Cross and the Gospel, and then to invite them to receive Jesus as Lord and Saviour. About half the class came from Christian homes but we couldn't presume they really have accepted Jesus themselves.
We were pretty amazed at their response. Praise God - by the end of Day 3, we have a 100 per cent harvest for our class of 18 kids! Those who had yet to believe indicated they wanted to become a Christian. I led three boys to say the sinners prayers while my co-teachers spoke to them in groups. We believe that at the age of 11-12, they are mature enough to make decisions. But of course, this was only the starting point for them.. the seeds were sown but there must be follow-up at this our church will be doing.
Five day flew by and then on Saturday afternoon, there was a Family Day Concert where all the kids performed songs with actions. All kids, parents as well as teachers and helpers enjoyed ourselves! And by then, I had already made some new young friends - yup, I exchanged phone nos and emails with some of my class students..
And it was all a bit sad to say bye-bye but I know I will still see many of them around.
I took quite a lot of photos throughout the week.. have selected a few here.
For more (professionally taken) photos and posts on VBS, check out this blog
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