Vacation Bible School (VBS)
Revealing the truth of Scripture through songs, games, and crafts
Goals
This section will talk about the planning and experiences behind teaching the children of Kensington about God.
VBS was an aspect of Philly the team was excited for. CMU students don’t have many opportunities to interact with kids. This was one part of the trip that was planned ahead of time, with the VBS sub-team developing an agenda of songs, games, crafts, Bible verses, and more to introduce who God is. We spent large chunks of our weekly meetings preparing 2-hours-for-5-days worth of material for the kids. Equally as important, we prepared to be good role models for the kids and for each other in serving.
We didn’t plan for painting two rooms of UWC to take an entire week. We didn’t plan for our team members to outmatch the number of kids. Instead, we received a reminder of Proverbs 19:21 (NIV) — “Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.” Our goals for our time with the kids included exposing them to good role models, teaching them about the Bible, engaging them with our presentation materials like skits and dances, and praying for them.
In this section I’ll be discussing “Who Was There” during VBS and “What We Did.”
Who Was There
The kids of Kensington usually show up to VBS with Takis and Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. They’re shy at first but warm up after some small talk. From what the kids have talked about, it’s normal to have an unstable home; drug-addicted and/or otherwise absent parents are common, so the kids look up to famous music artists, celebrities, and athletes. That being said, a few children have supportive parents/grandparents/aunts and uncles who strive to raise and love their family well. And, like most 5–12 year olds, they enjoy the chaos of freeze tag.
Many of the families in Kensington have moved away due to rising housing costs, taking their children with them. UWC used to have VBS on a street called Franklin Street, about a mile away. Franklin Street is located near a place called The Bar, which was an actual bar converted into a space for kids to hang out and do homework. Every year, a few team members headed over to Franklin St. to give willing kids rides to come to VBS at UWC. Some team members felt strange recruiting kids to come to UWC from their vehicles but the kids remembered team members’ faces and got permission from their parents to attend.
We split our missions team to accommodate the unexpected painting jobs, which meant 6–8 members of our team never interacted with the kids. Each day of VBS had a different, smaller team of CMU students who led the kids through the materials we prepared, from memory verses to songs to crafts.
What We Did
The team wasn’t sure what to expect when we began VBS for the week. Returning to Kensington is exciting for experienced team members, as they get the chance to catch up with the kids they’ve been thinking about for a year. New missionaries were confident in their abilities to lead and mentor. Regardless of experience level with children, we made sure to go over ground rules before starting our lessons: Zip up, Look up, Listen up, Hands up, and Sit up.
We had a basic understanding of the programming for each day. The kids would arrive, fresh out of school, and we would be waiting in the main room of UWC to greet them and ask how school was. The kids would spend time drawing or playing pencil and paper games until our team arrived from picking up the Franklin Street kids.
Some of the kids were loud. Others chose to clam up. Some people on our team connected with certain kids because of shared experiences, ranging from feeling scared to discovering what it is like to pray. Other children decided to stop attending after their first time. Those who stopped coming to VBS were 12 or older. One way to improve how we reach children in Kensington would be to include programming specifically for preteens and teenagers.
The songs we chose were used to describe our theme for the week: “Who is Jesus?” Each day portrayed a different aspect of Christ and the songs and activities changed based on the daily theme. For example, on Friday we taught that “Jesus is the Good Shepherd.” We danced to kid’s worship songs using choreography we came up with,
read John 10:11–18,
watched a fun skit,
and did a craft where we made sheep out of water bottles!
Our team had a lot of fun making the pillowy soft sheep.(Maybe more fun than the kids?)
The kids would resist dancing to the songs out of fear of not looking cool — especially the older ones. The younger ones would opt to do the Floss or Shoot instead, which would distract the other kids from the choreography the team had spent a few hours learning. We asked the children to explain the Bible verses to us after we read the verses together. The kids would often raise their hands before forming thoughts, as kids do. Kids would also interject during the passage teachings and during presentations. These were far from the orderly discussions and questions asked during our classes at CMU.
The majority of the children of Kensington are a loud and expressive bunch. However, they are as eager to learn and hungry for attention as every other child I’ve ever worked with. Their interjections during Bible reading would at least give us an understanding of where the kids’ minds are. Seeing them hit the Floss so vigorously was entertaining not just for the kids but for our team members as well. The Kenzo kids brought their own to VBS, which is what made our time together special.
Some days, we broke out into smaller groups and asked the kids questions on what they had learned. Some of the questions we asked on Friday were, “What do you think it means to be a shepherd? What about a sheep?” and “What do you think Jesus means when He says He lays down His life for the sheep?” These discussions led to times of prayer based on what we talked about with the kids.
Interestingly, the kids seemed to retain the information we were giving them. Brandon, the team member who portrayed the wolf, mentioned during Friday’s debrief that the kids stayed away from him after the skit. He was glad the kids remembered that he played a bad guy. It showed they were learning.
On Wednesday, I asked a young (around 8 years old) girl what she would like prayer for. She said she was good without prayer. I told her that was fine and began asking her about her family. She was the oldest of her siblings and her grandma takes care of her. She’s separated from her parents for unclear reasons. We talked about how she felt about her living situation for about fifteen minutes until the kids were dismissed from VBS for the day. I promised her I would pray for her the next day if she came back, and she did!
However, I was not able to keep my promise because I didn’t have time to help during VBS (I was running around behind the scenes). We met eyes across the room. It was so hard to look away from her: shy but eager, waiting to have another conversation. I scribbled a note to her saying that I was sorry but that I would pray for her the next day. I caught her as she was leaving and she thanked me for the “card”.
Here’s me (finally!) praying for that girl on Friday.
One smaller detail of the trip was the Philly Dance team. One of the returning team members, Alina Yu, offered to choreograph a dance to perform for the people of Kensington. We had hosted a coffeehouse the year before that included a dance, also choreographed by Alina. The Philly Dance team spent their short break times rehearsing. One team member was even badly injured after falling on his knee. I intended to have them perform a few times throughout the week especially because they had worked so hard. However, things fell into place so they only performed the dance once at VBS. I would be remiss to not include the video, so here it is:
Conclusion
Our goals for VBS are subjective. It’s not easy to gauge our success. How can we tell who we’ve been good role models to? How can we measure what the kids have learned? Can we quantify how engaged they were during our presentations? Have our prayers for the kids been heard?
We have the stories of kids and their reactions to tell whether we’ve been good role models. Their expectations of us are telling. As we return to Philly, I expect the same kids who were reserved before will start to open up. Some of the kids I saw my first time, in 2017, are far more comfortable around our team members now, in 2019. We can ascertain what the kids have learned by asking them questions on the topics we presented, especially in the following years. General consensus seems to indicate the kids were engaged, as they responded to the questions during presentations and told us what they thought of our questions. In terms of prayers, the team has been praying the children since we left. Answers to prayers are another thing the team is looking forward to seeing after we return to Kensington.
