Deer Park
August 6 – 10, 2007
9:00 am to noon
Great Bible Reef (by Augsburg Fortress)
Leader: Bethany Bitton
Report from Cheri Corder
There were two things in Deer Park that I had not seen at any other VBS so far:
· A missionarium. Don’t you love that term? (Especially with the aquatic theme!) The VBS kids are actually sponsoring a mission project--the goal being the building of a school on the island of Chuuk. The “missionarium” is a table-top display with a 3-D model of the island and photos of the kids of Chuuk on the wall. The display includes the beginnings of a Lego school, and for every 50 cents a child brings, they can add another Lego building block ($1 gets a larger Lego block).
· A store. The kids loved gathering around this glass-enclosed display case to talk over who was going to buy what the next day! Oh, don’t worry—the store does not run competition with the missionarium! Rather than money, they spend points at the store—points they earn by saying their memory verses, doing “The Daily Challenge” (specific assignments to do at home which apply the lesson of the day), bringing a friend, and so on.
On the first day of the program, 45 children were attending, with at least 15 of those kids being from the community. If the trend of other years continues, they expect 65 or 70 by the end of the week, with most of the additions being from the community.
Deer Park has traditionally held their VBS late in the summer and has found that to be very successful, especially since the other churches in the community have usually done theirs earlier. The others have gradually kept moving theirs back, however, and it turned out that this year there were three in town the same week.
The day I was there, at the “Science Station”, kids learned about sea horses with the help of colorful photos and through seeing a real one. (Please note that “dried” is the preferred term, not “dead”!) The Bible story was about Moses being hidden in the river by his sister. The snack, therefore, was blue Jello in a clear plastic cup with a tiny smiley-faced cookie on top!
Follow-up initiatives include mailed (and some hand-delivered) invitations to Adventure Club and to Pathfinders which, of course, include the phrase “If you liked VBS…” Every child who attends one year receives an invitation to attend again the next.
