Today we kicked off our five-day Summer Bible Camp (aka VBS). Here I talked about how we were getting ready.
Yesterday was our set-up day and it was refreshing to see so many volunteers (of all ages) pitching in to transform our church into the wilderness. When the majority of the set-up was complete, I left the church in a very reflective mood. In fact, I was in a reflective mood for much of the day, thinking about the extravagant grace that God has extended to me time and time again.
You see, some Sundays I walk in to church more confident than others – yesterday was a day where I felt pretty good but I just couldn’t shake the feeling of being so thankful for God’s graciousness toward me and the ministry I lead…for the many, many ways that He has provided for our needs, for the awesome privilege it is to be able to share His love with children and seeing it ‘click’ in their eyes and the list goes on. And as only God could orchestrate, one of our SBC volunteers came up to me yesterday, thanking me for being gracious to her (she felt that she was ‘out of the loop’ because of a family issue) but the fact that she still wanted to give us a smidgen of her time, we were thankful to her!
As I stood before the campers and volunteers this morning, my heart was again filled to overflowing. All of our months of planning and preparing had brought us to this point. At that very moment, I was thankful to God for His grace for all of the details that have consumed my thoughts and time for the past few months. I was truly thankful for each and every child, teen, and adult in the room. They were my very first God sighting for the day!
As I walked through the building for the duration of the morning, children were engaged and learning, volunteers were teaching and engaged with the children (I heard, “That was soooo cool!” countless times), team leaders were leading, and everyone was owning their piece of the VBS pie. It was truly a beautiful sight.
Verse for the day:
“God answered, ‘I will be with you.’ “
Exodus 3:12
Here are a few pictures from Day 1:
Hi Kathie. So happy to be working with you again this year. I enjoyed reading your reflection. And, yes, God has been with us! Also, Chris had a God sighting. He was very thirsty and the folks at McDonald’s gave him two milks instead of one. 🙂 I wonder if he will share it!
Jennie, you are a blessing to me! Thanks for all of your hard work in making this year’s SBC so much fun for our preschoolers!