Today, July 8th, we opened VBS at Padureni. Padureni is the newest of Marius' churches and is about a year old, at least the building is. Padureni is the village were Marius' parent and a lot of his family live. It is not a huge church about 15-20 members, but it is just starting out. They will be ordaining a minister on Sunday the 18th. This gentleman will be the main pastor and Marius will be his adviser, mentor & guest speaker on occasion. This will give the people of Padureni a pastoral presents on a daily basis and not be to taxing on Marius have to drive back and forth to all the churches.
OK, back to VBS. The schedule was the same as when we were in Ciacova; play time, songs, memory verse, memory verse games, crafts. Play time we taught the older kids four square. As usual with four square the rules of the game or picked up easily and the participates have fun. Even the pastor got into the game. Tabita sang a few songs with them, I think they were I am in Abraham's Army and This little light of Mine, but I can't be positive. We were using lesson two from Ciacova, the 10 Leapers, so the memory verse was 1 John 3:18. The kids did extremely well with the memorizing the verse. The memory verse game was a little different. If you remember reading, in Ciacova there were two teams and they raced to a clothing line and hung the hearts with the word of the verse on the line with clothing pins. Well we did not have clothing line, but there was a fence that worked just as well. Lavinia and Tabita were the designated people to but the words in order. The craft was the wrapped pen with the wordless beads. They left for the morning and were instructed to return at 3:00.
The was a small number of kids compared to Ciacova, but we know that going in, we ended up with about 20. It was interesting because there was not much space to work with for games and play time. There is a concrete slab that will eventually become the Fellowship Hall for the church, this is were we set up four square. You had to be careful not to chase a ball to far or you fall off the slab, about a foot drop. And our relays during any of the game time had to be in only two groups, first because the smaller number of kids and second because there was just the alley way to run in.
We broke for lunch, and just hung out at the church. Some napped, some just laid down and few played Jungle Jam. After a while, Marius and Tabita returned after a visit to the dentist for Tabita and asked a group of us to help assemble song books for the children/teens in the church. Tabita will be working with them on songs through the year.
The kids started to return around 2:45 and we got out some balls and balloons. A group of about 5-6 boys started playing four square on their on. I ended up blowing up several balloons for the rest, and it was interesting in the ally way because being a smaller alley it made a wind tunnel and the kids had to chase down the balloons. I then started to bounce a playground ball back and forth with a few of the kids. After about 20 minutes, all the kids had returned and we moved them into the church to start the program. We reviewed the verse a time or two, then Tabita lead them in songs. After the songs, Cheri was on with her monolog. She changed it up a bit by mixing the memory verse into the story and having a few of the kids come up front to hold the hearts. She then asked if any of them could recite the verse from memory, there were 5 or 6 of them who did and did a great job. They were divided into three groups so that they could recite the verse individually to one of the three teens helping us. If they could recite it, they received a ticket for a prize. Ruth of course had her apron full at the start and basically empty by the end of this time.
Then it was game time. Again there was not much space but we made due. The ran quite a few relays. First was the Dizzy Izzy (I called it Dizzy Lizzy before because that is how I know it, but I was corrected today) and pick up a balloon. Next was the relay were they had to blow up their balloon, tie it off, run to the end with the balloon between their knees and then sit on the balloon till it popped. A lot of laughter and fun. Then they did the Dizzy Izzy again, but this time they had to run backwards to the bat/stick and then run backwards to their teammates. I proved to be pretty funny watching someone who was dizzy and running backwards. No one was injured. The final relay was a three legged race. We moved out to the stone driveway for this one. It was your basic three legged relay, but not all the kids got the concept that the two of them had to work together to be able to more well as one. Again, laughter abounded..
We then went back into the church to do another craft. This was a new one (we did not get to do this craft at Ciacova) and related to tomorrows story. The craft was a foam house with a slid screen of the Paralyzed man story. The kids had to color the story slid then drawl or color the house. Some of the kids were very detailed in their coloring others were not. But the group was very quite as they concentrated on the coloring. It was funny, because this group spans quite a few ages yet they all were very into the project. I guess coloring, balloons and bubbles transcend age differences. When they were done with the project they were free to leave, although it did not seem like they were real eager to leave, and return tomorrow at 4:00.
We cleaned up and then got ready to go to the church in Petroman. This is a very small church in a town near Ciacova. The building is not quite as modern as Ciacova or Padureni in that they still had a Water closet outside (an outhouse). This did not go over well with a few of the girls, just ask Amy and Melissa. I thought we were suppose to start around 7:30, but it was not till 8 before we started and at first it seemed that our team (the 7 of us, the 3 Iancs and two teens that came with us) out numbered the church members. But more folks showed up. We did two songs, Michele gave her testimony, we preformed the Heart skit, Melissa gave her testimony, then Michele and Melissa did the little man skit and Ed gave his testimony. We ended by singing Amazing Grace. It was a small crowd but I thought was a good night. We had taken the remaining clothes to give out so we laid them out for the church people to go through, but we left before they did because they would not take them with us there. I am not sure way this was but we did not bring the extra clothes to watch them be given out, they were brought so that they could help families.
On the way back, the teens and girls (Michele, Melissa, Amy and Lavinia) were dropped off at the Ciacova church to play games. Other teens from Ciacova were called to come to the church also. The rest of us went back to our host homes. I don't know what Ed & Cheri did but at the Ianc's were were up for a few hours talking about many different things and had some good fellowship.
Well tomorrow we end the shortened VBS program, then visit the church in Sag on Saturday and believe it or not we fly home Sunday.
See you tomorrow,
Doug
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment