Jr. High VBS...

Last week was VBS. And this year we decided to do something a little different. We decided to do a "special" VBS for our Jr. High group (6th-8th) grade.

While we still had singing, crafts, games, verses, and Bible lessons; they were a little more tailored to the Jr. High mind and a little bit olderish.

So we had a great week. Mr. Wick and Mr. DeVries did a great job leading us in songs every morning. We had a great opportunity to bring visitors to fill up our 3 gallon water pot in order to earn a pizza party on Friday (by the way, over half of it was full after Monday). We also raised just over $40 for the orphanage in Russia. And adding that to what the rest of the VBS groups brought in, we will be able to give a gift of close to $300 to them. Praise the Lord.

And we had more friends come than I expected (by the way, Becca won the prize for bringing the most friends). One day we had 20 Jr. Highers crammed into our youth room. It was great.

Each day we memorized verses focused on a different aspect of our lessons. Throughout the week we focused on God's love.

Monday - God's love is giving. - we saw this in the fact that He sent Jesus Christ into this world as a baby to pay the price for our sins.

Tuesday - God's love is kind. - we saw this in the way Jesus dealt with Jairus, whose daughter was very sick and then died, and the way He dealt with the lady with a bleeding problem she had for 12 years.

Wednesday - God's love is caring - we saw this in the way Jesus dealt with the Samaritan woman.

Thursday - God's love is forgiving - Jesus forgave Zacchaeus

Friday - God's love is forever - Jesus is alive today after being raised from the dead

We had some good Bible study time and some good questions throughout the time.

Thanks also to Mrs. Sadler and Mrs. Schmidt who cam up with some great crafts for us. And Mr. Rios and Jakob who had some good games for us (we won't mention anything about water balloons). We also had a couple of hunts. On Thursday we had a treasure hunt around the church property. There were 16 clues that had to be solved to find the treasure. Congrats to Kathleen, Elisa, Josh, and Alonte on finding the treasure. And then on Friday we had a photo scavenger hunt where we travelled around Aurora and had to take pictures of signs that had anything to do with our theme SonTreasure Island. The kids did a great job with that. Congrats to Alonte, Amonte, Brandon, Elisa, and Liz on barely winning that hunt.

So thanks to all who came and brought friends and thanks to all who helped (especially Mr. and Mrs. DeVries and Mr. Wick). Maybe we can do it again next year.