Living

This week has been a great week, I actually had things to do that were not house cleaning and the temperatures dipped down to only 25, thus making is possible to be outside for longer than 10 minutes. I don't think we had even one day of smog warnings!

During my week away it seems that everyong and their dog got back on the blog train! I've been reading entries like crazy for about an hour. I'll catch up sometime. It seems like summer is in full swing for so many of you! (Except perhaps Anonymous who has nothing better to do than spew crap on my blog).

This week there was a bit of intensity for me, which I loved! I worked with another lady to prepare all the crafts for VBS this summer. Our VBS week is July 9-13 and we had to have all the crafts ready for this Sunday. At our church VBS works a little differently. Most places do it at the church where a few hundred kids come like a tornado for five mornings. At our church it is hosted in backyards throughout the city. The idea being it's more acessible to kids inviting friends from the neighborhood. We're running 9 backyards this year and hoping for 25-30 kids a backyard!! We chose to do 6 crafts, which doesn't seem like a lot but when it comes to the sorting and prep work, I thought I knew but I had no idea. Here's a few samples of the crafts we chose. The others didn't photograph very well.
A little easy one for the younger kids. Children get to start coming to VBS at Jr. Kindergarten age, (4). All the way up to Grade 5. I think the biggest challenge of the week was choosing crafts simple enough for young kids, as well as ones the older kids would do. Most of ours ended up really simple as they only have 15 minutes anyway.So we chose a slightly more complicated one for the older kids to work on during the week. This matchstick cross is so cool looking! Nick made this sample and I'm pretty sure it's going to end up framed in his office. One thing is for sure, I never want to count another matchstick in my life!

My favorite craft of the week is one we're calling the "Quiet Time Kit". We got each child one of those boxes that looks like a Take Out container. They're going to decorate it and personalize it. It's big enough for the Bibles they get during the week, a pen and some paper. I wrote up a little booklet about having devotional time and it will go inside. I'm really hoping it helps parents connect with their kids and share how they spend time with God. I know daily quiet time is a struggle for so many grown ups, (myself included), it will definitely be my prayer that these kids start the discipline early.

There's still a few loose ends to tie up but the majority of the projects are done. I sure hope the kids enjoy them and have a great week learning how much God loves them!