All Aboard!!

Last week was VBS (f.k.a. vacation bible school) at our church. The theme this year was Bommerang Express - an Australian Outback Train type theme. I remember liking bible school as a child. I have vivid memories of gathering outside the sanctuary with the other kids in my grade behind a teacher with a flag, filing into the sanctuary to sit with my class and singing "Onward Christian Soldiers" and learning to pledge allegiance to the Christian flag (and the the Savior for whose kingdom it stands...) It was fun, but boy, I did not know what I would be missing if I had just been born 30 years later. Luckily, I can live it vicariously through my kids and the 1st graders that I taught.

VBS is now quite a production. The songs are way cooler than Onward Christian Soldiers, there are fun motions to all the songs, and for the grade-school kids, the worsip assembly was in the "backlot" building (which is our gym) and featured a train station, a train that had real smoke coming out of the smoke stack, and confetti cannons. There was a competition going on all week between the kids sitting on the two sides of the gym (spirit, participation, etc.). At the end of the week, the leader for the losing team had to drink an "Aussie smoothie" of stuff they'd been gathering all week (e.g., a big ole link of sausage they were calling an Outback snake). The kids got a huge kick out of the leaders drinking the smoothie and pouring the nasty stuff all over one another. (Since the stage was tarped and the microphone packs had been removed, it was clear to the adults that these shenanigans were planned in advance.) Anyway, big fun was had by all, and I'm very grateful for adults and teenagers in our church who were willing to give all of themselves to pour into these kids for a week.

My kids were in the preschool program, which is big fun for them, but the production value is not quite so high. They still get to learn fun songs and Pressley got VERY into it. She particularly loved the "Boomerang Express" song, which allowed her to shake her little booty for all she was worth (though the motions called more for simply bending the knees and not so much for the booty-shaking: that was her creative interpretation).

My sweet daddy got the whole thing on video on the last day and then was kind enough to load as much of it as blogger would accept. This is only a small clip (he's got about 24 minutes of video), but you get the idea.



Here are some other photos my dad took during the week:

Evan and me at the Family Night Cook-Out

Lil' P

The kids performing one of their songs at Family Night

The set and the grade-school worship team

Worship team in front of the train