VBS Week

Vanessa is in charge of VBS. Before she left for the month of July she planned, arranged and delegated, and delegated, and delegated... She learned a few things being in charge of VBS last year and the number one lesson she learned was to delegate! The day after we arrived home VBS started. We have a great tent in the park. The twins love it. Missy did pull herself together and she was pleased as punch to go last night. The night before the kids had made tie-dye shirts during craft time. Missy was surprised to learn that sweet sister Bri tie-dyed a shirt for her, too.  Big sisters sure are good to have!

Sometimes I wonder just what they get out of these kids programs. How much do they absorb? Do they listen to the stories? Do they get the punch line? Do they get the message? Or are they just having fun because it's a social event? I know it's about exposure, exposure, exposure, but for Missy I don't know what she learns. James on the other hand, showed us  he does  learn. My sister had done the mission segment on India and I asked him what it was about. With a little prompting from Julie - because some words are hard to remember - he outlined the story. I was surprised at his recall of small details. Next I asked him to tell me about the night before. That was a little harder since Ellie wasn't there to prompt him with the words he couldn't remember, but I happened to know she had done a story on Ethiopia and he filled me in on a few things.  I then asked if he knew who was going to speak the next night. No one had announced it, but he decided that it had to be Mr. "BonBergen"  since he just came home from China. Actually, I think Natalie is sharing her story from the Philippines, but it shows he is thinking and he is connecting the dots.

We've been canning. Yesterday we were all standing around the table outside peeling and cutting peaches and James says, "Mmmmmm..... peaches on your porridge tastes so yummy!"  We laughed. He's thinking beyond the here and the now to what will be on those winter mornings when he eats canned peaches on his oatmeal. A year ago he was totally clueless as to what we were doing let alone helping and thinking ahead to his enjoyment of the end product. The kids all helped with the peaches and we were done lickity split. We gave Missy the non-messy job of sorting and handing Christina the right sized lids. Do you even wonder why?  Julie went and picked up some boxes of last year's apples from the warehouse, so today is applesauce day. Her van will be loaded down with canned fruit for the winter on her trip back to the Yukon.

I'm in the park  tent sitting. Steve slept here all night, but I had to replace him at 6 am so he could go to work. Delores should replace me at 8 am. Everyone is pulling together to make this community event happen.