2nd and final VBS at Padureni

Today was the second and final day of VBS at Padureni. Because we were going to have a church service in the evening and there were not as many kids in Padureni as in Ciacova, the decision was made to start at 4:00pm and do the whole VBS program together instead of part in the morning and part in the afternoon. Then we would go right into the church program. This way the kids did not have to go home and come back two times. So we sleep late, which the girls loved especially since they were up most of the night at Ciacova church playing games with some of the Ciacova teens. We meet for “lunch” at 2:00pm at Padureni.

The actual events of the VBS program did not change, we had some songs but this was a little different because Tabita was not felling well and stayed home. Lavinia stayed at home also to care for her mom, she was felling better when we returned but please pray for her health. Flavius and Dorian lead the singing and hand motions to the songs. Amy and Michele did the little man skit, which is always funny to watch. Next was the memory verse, 1 John 3:9. The kids did well in reciting and memorizing the verses. Then it was outside to play the memory verse game. This is the one were they were in two teams, ran to a pile of zip lock bags with a card which had a word of the verse on it and candy. They had to take this bag to a teammate who would assemble the cards in order of the verse. It was fun to watch them do this game, and even funnier when Marius and his brother Stephen raced each other. They are pretty similar size wise, it was fun to have them participate.

Next was game time. The games today were a little different because it was good weather, and we had not done this yet although we brought a lot of them, we had water balloon/water games. The first game divided the kids up into a hold age and younger age. The younger age group used the parachute to throw water balloons in the air. The older group, which I went with, played Baby in the air. For those who don't know what this game is, as I did not prior to today, is were the group stands in a circle and are assigned a number. One person, which was me, stands in the middle and throws a water balloon in the air. Another person, Flavius, called out a number and that person attempts to catch the water balloon without it breaking. Well needless to say there were very few times the balloon did not break. Ultimately, you want the person to catch the balloon over their head and it break to shower them with water, this is just what happened to one girl. The kids, include the girl, laughed for about five minutes. They next played the standard water balloon throw. When we got down to the winners, I held up their hands in victory and popped their water balloon to splash them. We then had a relay race were the kids filled plastic drinking cups full of cold water, ran down to Ed and myself to fill a 2 liter bottle of water sitting on our chests. We both got extremely wet and man was this water cold, it did feel good because it was sunny and hot. Again when the game was finished we got up and sprayed the water from the bottles at the kids. A couple of the kids picked up the buckets with the remaining water and chased Ed and through the water at him. He was so wet he had to change before continuing VBS.

Next was crafts. They made the little man. They all did a good job at it. When they were done their crafts they went and sat in the pews.

Next was story time. Ed did his story of the paralyzed man. At the end of the story, he did a prayer for confessing their sins with the kids. He had games that related to the story after this. Again they did well with this. The kids then recited their memory verse to get prizes.

We did not have much turn around time after the story games and went right into the closing program. Not a lot of parents or church members showed up, but some did. The kids sang their songs and recited their verses as a group. One girl did both verses from memory by herself. We then sang a song as a group. Ed & Cheri did a wordless skit about giving your heart to God. Ruth did her testimony. We sang another song, which we had not really practiced so it did not sound terrific. Cheri gave her testimony, then we ended with a third song. Again, it was one we had not really practiced. We were then instructed to go to the back of the church and greet parents, church members and kids as they left. At this time, we handed out the gift bags for the kids which we did at most of the churches we visited. This bag included a beany baby, a pencil, pencil sharpener and candy.

We finally had dinner, I will not go in to detail about it but it was good. We all seemed tired and let down because it was our last VBS for the the trip. We have one more church to visit, Sag on Saturday, and then we fly home. This will be tough for some of us as good friendships and renewed friendships have been formed. But even though we will not be physically close after Sunday, our hearts will always be close.

It tomorrow,
Doug