Let me beginn by saying that I have had one of the best, most hectic, crazy, challenging,fun, exhausting, awesome weeks ever. I only wish I had pictures to share some the excitment! The past 5 days, Monday through Friday was vacation Bible school at my church. Our theme was Things Hidden taking from the parables that jesus told about the treasure, the seeds, the prodigle son, and the lost sheep/coin. I was a small group leader for kids ages 3-6 but I ended up with 5 girls and 1 boy on Monday, 3 girls on Tuesday, 6 girls on Wednesday, 6 girls and 1 boy on Thursday, and 8 girls on Friday. These girls ranged in ages of about 4-5 years old. and it was an energizing blast!!!!!!! Most nights they had more energy than could be contained, and yet I still smile. :-)
Generally our night went something like this.... worship time for about 10 minutes, which i had one girl want more of...split up of older and younger kids with the younger kids being taught by Danny, and one girl loved to inject the funniest yet sometimes quite truthful things...small group time led by yours truly,more later here...craft time, it was crazy but in the end they have little treasure chests filled with the greatest treasure, Gods word...game time, playtime, orchastrated games didn't really happen here for this age group, it became more of a free for all type of thing...snack time, with things like cookies, icecream, goldfish,popcorn, and lemonade...and finally wrap up, talking about what we learned and saying the nights memory verse several times together... and then I got to go home...
Being a small group leader was an amazing opportunity and every night i truly felt the weight of the responsibility I was carrying and every night I had to give it back to God, because the only thing He wanted me to do was to point the girls to the Cross and let Him do the rest. Most nights we would talk about what Danny had talked about and at times I was amazed at what the girls would remember and what they would pull out. One of my greatest struggles though was the short attention spans they had, and finally by the last night I figured out a way to sort of capture their attention at least for 2 minutes. :-) Each night we would have questions to ask the kids, although for my age group we had to rephrase a lot of them to help them understand. Some of what I remember their conclusions being.... they likened the treasure first to Jesus which turned into a disscussion about heaven. the parable of the seeds turned into a talk about hearts, when asked what kind of heart they had one girl said red! which i guess is true, another said hers was black, at least when she gets angry. so we talked about having red soft hearts like the soft soil. On Tuesday night I decided to let the girls pray for whatever if they wanted to, to my surprise(who knows why?) one or two of them did and every night after that when we had barely gotten started one of them always wanted to know if it was time to pray, because she wanted to. And they had very sweet prayers that at times even incorporated parts of the message.
Still even through all of this i felt inadequate to lead these kids. Some of them I don't think even attended church which made the burden that much greater to show them the way to the cross. But I pray that I did, I pray that I made an impression that planted seeds in their young hearts that will lead them to the next person in their lives who will also point them to the cross.
Who am I but a sinner saved by grace and I pray that these girls could see Jesus through my attitudes and my actions. The rest is up to their heavenly Father.
We had a great time jumping up and down in worship, chasing balls and kids across the field, painting and decorating treasure chests, pulling a rope for tug-of-war, saying memory verses,trying to get Nicole to stand up by pulling her legs and arms up in the air, and worst/best of all piling on top of Nicole and tickling her to the point of rolling on the floor.:-)
I love you girls, I will never forget....
Jesus I give you these children, Erin, Kayden, Harley, Phoebe, Lilly, Kaily, Caiden, Cheyenne, Jonathan, Priscilla, and Bailey...show them the True Treasure of You...