By This week I am volunteering at my church’s Vacation Bible School (VBS),which is how I landed on the subject of this week’s gratitude challenge. This week long fun is 100% volunteer led and, I might add, superbly organized. I’m so grateful for the adult and teenage volunteers giving up part of their day to provide a fun safe environment for youngsters. We have about 300 kids from pre-K to 6th grade at my church’s VBS. I don’t know how many volunteers. I have three adorable teen helpers, Macaroni, Caro and Emer (their nicknames), who are so adorable that I want to take them home with me every day. We are responsible for crafts for the Front Yard Friends (1st – 5th grade). Our crafts this week – to build string necklaces with beads and charms, tic-tac-toe pieces made from fingerprints, pipe-cleaner butterflies (tomorrow) and door hangers (last day). The best way to describe the 1/2 hour with each group is controlled chaos.
I’ve taught at adult conferences for at least 2 decades which I thought was tiring. Let me tell you VBS is more exhausting because the energy level is SO MUCH HIGHER. As an example, we had boys running in circles for no reason except to run. I’ve never had a client do that in one of my sessions at my work conference! We start and end each day singing songs and learning choreography (you know I love that). I wonder if I can create an Adult Vacation Bible School?
I’m grateful to all the churches (as well as synagogues and mosques – I presume they put on similar faith-based week long events) who organize these activities; all the volunteers and of course all the little and big kids who attend and have fun and learn a little bit.
When I asked google “what is VBS?”, it gave me a definition for Vacation Bible School AND Virtualization-based Security. Pretty Funny.
Today was crazy hair day, so I threw on my tiara and tried to make some Princess Leia buns on the top of my head. Tomorrow is crazy sock day! (future challenge – I’m grateful for crazy socks!)
