It doesn't seem like that long ago, but we just realized that it was exactly one year ago this past weekend that we were visiting Albion Evangelical Free Church, outside of Minneapolis. It was our first stop of eleven churches that we visited while in the US last year. We have wonderful memories of that weekend and all the other weekends we spent at our supporting churches around the country during those months. This past weekend, however, we didn't visit anyone. We were too busy recovering from last week's exciting whirlwind that was Vacation Bible School (Holiday Bible Fun) :-)
VBS went very well! All 120 children thoroughly enjoyed it. They learned all about creation as recorded in Genesis, made fun crafts, played games, enthusiastically sang songs, and had healthy meals. Many of the children were familiar faces, but there were some new ones. The usual group attended from the local orphanage, minus the ones who started high school.
On the first day, one 8 year old was so excited that he woke his mom up at 4:30am, telling her that they needed to get going so that he wouldn't miss it! They really do look forward to this event each time. Our registration filled up in just one weekend.
VBS went very well! All 120 children thoroughly enjoyed it. They learned all about creation as recorded in Genesis, made fun crafts, played games, enthusiastically sang songs, and had healthy meals. Many of the children were familiar faces, but there were some new ones. The usual group attended from the local orphanage, minus the ones who started high school.
On the first day, one 8 year old was so excited that he woke his mom up at 4:30am, telling her that they needed to get going so that he wouldn't miss it! They really do look forward to this event each time. Our registration filled up in just one weekend.
Lunches
Usually, we only have lunch on the last day and snacks/drinks on the other days. Even with the added expense, we chose to provide lunch every day of this week, because we wanted to make sure that everyone had one good meal in a day. We had several children each day come up and thank us for the food and tell us how good it was. On the day that eggs were a part of the meal, there were extra eggs so we gave them to the volunteers to take home with them. One of the women told us that she took hers to share with her neighbor's family. The neighbor burst into tears because she said that her family didn't have any food for that night and what a blessing it was to have something to feed her children for the day. We continue to be amazed with the ripple effect that JM2Z is having within the community with people we haven't even met.
We also could not provide meals if it wasn't for all the amazing ladies who cooked all morning on open fires for 135. Cooking in these conditions is a labor of love. One of these volunteers was a young woman, Monica, who was only filling in for someone else who couldn't help out due to a family funeral. She came every day to help and 4 years ago when she was 13 years old, she attended our first ever VBS as a 7th grader. The wheels in her head and heart were obviously turning because midway through the week, she had separate conversations with both Yolanda and me. She asked several questions such as, "How do you know what you're supposed to say when you pray?" "Should you pray on your knees or sitting down?" "Is it better to read the Bible for an hour or to read it for 5 minutes and think about it for an hour?" We talked with her and ended up giving her a year-long devotional book to use and steer her in a direction to read through Scripture. We are thankful that ministry opportunities come up which we don't expect. Please pray for Monica as she studies the Bible and grows in her walk with the Lord.
We also could not provide meals if it wasn't for all the amazing ladies who cooked all morning on open fires for 135. Cooking in these conditions is a labor of love. One of these volunteers was a young woman, Monica, who was only filling in for someone else who couldn't help out due to a family funeral. She came every day to help and 4 years ago when she was 13 years old, she attended our first ever VBS as a 7th grader. The wheels in her head and heart were obviously turning because midway through the week, she had separate conversations with both Yolanda and me. She asked several questions such as, "How do you know what you're supposed to say when you pray?" "Should you pray on your knees or sitting down?" "Is it better to read the Bible for an hour or to read it for 5 minutes and think about it for an hour?" We talked with her and ended up giving her a year-long devotional book to use and steer her in a direction to read through Scripture. We are thankful that ministry opportunities come up which we don't expect. Please pray for Monica as she studies the Bible and grows in her walk with the Lord.
Memory Verses
We give the children a memory verse each day, which they recite to us the following day and receive a sticker if correct. In the US, stickers are sometimes overdone and children unimpressed. However, these children love stickers. They don't get stickers in school or anywhere else, because you can't find stickers in any store in Zimbabwe. We always buy them in South Africa. Most children usually know their memory verse and excitedly show the sticker they received to all the rest of the children, and everyone oohs and ahhs.
We heard from one of the women that one of the girls who attended was in tears over the weekend because she didn't have a new verse to memorize. She told the mother that all she needed to do was teach her a short verse and she could memorize it. The woman didn't have a Bible, so the lady from our group took time to write down several verses for the girl so that she could memorize them. How wonderful it is to hear about the ladies from our groups teaching others how to memorize God's Word.
We heard from one of the women that one of the girls who attended was in tears over the weekend because she didn't have a new verse to memorize. She told the mother that all she needed to do was teach her a short verse and she could memorize it. The woman didn't have a Bible, so the lady from our group took time to write down several verses for the girl so that she could memorize them. How wonderful it is to hear about the ladies from our groups teaching others how to memorize God's Word.
Crafts
They always love craft time because even though art is supposed to be taught in schools, there are never any supplies, so many of these children would have colored in a picture for the first time this week. They enjoyed all of the crafts, but their favorite was probably when the creation of man was highlighted, specifically that all of us were created in God's image. This was especially important, because the cultural myth that many people believe is that white people descended from Adam and Eve, and black people descended from monkeys. We wanted them to have no doubts that each of them were created in the image of God.
So this craft was a paper plate that they decorated and then had a polaroid photo taken of them that they glued in the center of the plate. It doesn't sound like a big deal, but even with the advent of cell phones when they would have seen a picture of themselves, none of them would have an actual photograph of themselves. This was quite a novelty. The 13 year olds are at an age where when they are around their friends, they act like they're too cool for some things. However, when one 13 year old girl was given her photograph and she glued it on, she had a huge smile toward Yolanda, sharing, "Look what I have!" A half second later, she realized her friends were looking at her and she quickly put on a "I don't care" face, so she wouldn't appear to be enjoying it. Haha, teenagers...but, it was too late and we saw her joy, so we know she and all the others were proud to show off their pictures!
There were parents who thanked us profusely for this photo craft because they said they have pictures of their children on their phones, but when their phones get full then they'll need to delete pictures. Now they said they are so excited to have an actual photograph of their child!
So this craft was a paper plate that they decorated and then had a polaroid photo taken of them that they glued in the center of the plate. It doesn't sound like a big deal, but even with the advent of cell phones when they would have seen a picture of themselves, none of them would have an actual photograph of themselves. This was quite a novelty. The 13 year olds are at an age where when they are around their friends, they act like they're too cool for some things. However, when one 13 year old girl was given her photograph and she glued it on, she had a huge smile toward Yolanda, sharing, "Look what I have!" A half second later, she realized her friends were looking at her and she quickly put on a "I don't care" face, so she wouldn't appear to be enjoying it. Haha, teenagers...but, it was too late and we saw her joy, so we know she and all the others were proud to show off their pictures!
There were parents who thanked us profusely for this photo craft because they said they have pictures of their children on their phones, but when their phones get full then they'll need to delete pictures. Now they said they are so excited to have an actual photograph of their child!
Ceremony
The last day is always fun. At the end, we have a ceremony where parents, grandparents, and other family members are invited. Each child received a certificate and a couple small gifts. The children sang two songs for the audience, including motions. We show a slideshow from the week and have refreshments for the family members who attended. We also had prizes for children who attended every day and also knew their memory verses every day.
On this day the children always wear their Sunday best, the nicest clothes that they own. The women who volunteered also brought nice clothes to change into for the ceremony. One of the children and his family were supposed to leave on Friday for holiday, but he convinced his parents to change the dates so he could be at the "graduation" as he called it.
There was one set of parents who thanked us for the week whose child came this year for the first time. When he was invited, the parents argued with each other about whether or not he should attend. One was for it, but the other didn't know what these white people wanted with their child. He thought this may be another one of the satanic groups. After hearing from other children what the first day was like, they let him attend the rest of the week and were so thankful that he did.
Please pray for all the children and their families as their hearts continued to be moved by the Lord.
On this day the children always wear their Sunday best, the nicest clothes that they own. The women who volunteered also brought nice clothes to change into for the ceremony. One of the children and his family were supposed to leave on Friday for holiday, but he convinced his parents to change the dates so he could be at the "graduation" as he called it.
There was one set of parents who thanked us for the week whose child came this year for the first time. When he was invited, the parents argued with each other about whether or not he should attend. One was for it, but the other didn't know what these white people wanted with their child. He thought this may be another one of the satanic groups. After hearing from other children what the first day was like, they let him attend the rest of the week and were so thankful that he did.
Please pray for all the children and their families as their hearts continued to be moved by the Lord.
Video of the Week
We could post more pictures on the blog, but we thought it would be more enjoyable to watch the video below, which contains MANY of our pictures from this year.
At the end of each day, we posted pictures, updates, and items of prayer throughout the VBS week on our Facebook page, which is called Jesu Ministries 2 Zim. If you haven't "Liked" us yet and missed out on those posts, go to Facebook now and "Like" us to look at past posts and receive all future ones (click on the Facebook icon at the top of this page)! We never post anything ministry related on our personal Facebook accounts for security reasons, so we ask that you don't either. Instead, our Jesu Ministries 2 Zim account is where you can find everything relating to ministry that isn't in the blog.
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