My How Time Flies

Imagination Station leaders 

   We've been thick into Vacation Bible School for the past 3 days and I can hardly believe day 3 already came and went.  VBS at our church is a BIG deal.  We stuff 400+ kids and staff into a pretty small space and through song, skit, games, crafts, experiments, story, and snack - tell these 400+ kids about how much Jesus loves them. It's a daunting, but quite satisfying task.  My job this week is to spend 12 minutes, 10 times a day in a class called Imagination Station with the preschoolers.  If I wasn't used to repeating rules and instructions over and over again to my own kids on a daily basis, I would probably be more worn out now, but as it is, saying the same thing over 10 times a day actually always surprises me.  It's the same spiel, but the result is always a little different. For example, my first group is a bunch of 3-year-olds, my daughter included, and they say NOTHING!  I play the obnoxious cheerleader role during their group.  But this vastly differs from a group of 5 year-olds we have later in the day that have an opinion about everything and my job there is mainly to say, "Shh, hold on, I'll get to that.  Hey there, let's not touch that." And then, bless their hearts, there is the last group of the day of little ones who are so tired, one is laying on the floor on his blankie he brought and another is crying in anticipation that her mother is picking her up.  Never a dull moment.
   Because we have so many kids this year and because it feels like 100 degrees outside, Imagination Station didn't score a classroom, so we used our imagination, so to speak, and created one in the entry way of one of our buildings using a curtain on a pole, a very small space that houses both the elevator and the janitors closet.  One child even came in the first day and said, "This is our room?!"  But it's dirty!" I had to chuckle at that.
   But despite the heat of the day seeping in from the front doors, lines of classes loudly switching rooms and peeking into our curtained door, and the need for the elevator throughout the day, we have somehow made it work.  In my 11 or 12 years helping with VBS at our church, I've learned that if you want to open the doors and let the community in to hear such an important message for free, then a little bit of uncomfortable has to happen.  In the big scheme of things, it's a small price to pay for spreading the Gospel message to so many little ears.
  And though the good absolutely outweighs the bad, it won't stop me from making jokes about our hot, curtained-off, janitor's non-room. In a few years you'll hear us say, "Remember that time . . . ." And then we'll smile at each other, have a good laugh, and agree it was a crazy idea.