Vacation Bible School: Day 4

We finished our VBS week last night. These last couple years, we have ended on Thursday night because of the drop in attendance on Friday nights. 

After my opening time with songs, Miss Bessie taught the kids their last verse. It was II Timothy 4:7b which says, "I have kept the faith." She played a review game where she moved around three cups on a desk and the kids had to guess where the package of fruit snacks was. They could only guess if they said the verse correctly. The memory verse reviews all week came from resource cards from Child Evangelism Fellowship. They were such a big help in adding to the "Cross Training" program for preschoolers.

Mrs. Richardson finished her lesson series on the Bible story of Paul, the missionary. She talked to them about the time he was thrown into prison for telling others about the Lord.

For our game time, we did a "mini olympics." The program ran an extra half hour last night, so we decided to fill some of that extra time with games. This crab walk soccer game was hilarious as they had to kick the ball walking on their hands and feet! We also did relays and had a shot put competition.

Our missionary story was on the life of Darlene Diebler Rose, missionary to New Guinea. What stood out to me in the story was the fact that she began memorizing Scripture verses as a child. When she was thrown into prison, God's Word was an encouragement to her because she had hidden God's Word in her heart. I made these small memory verse booklets to go along with this story. On the front cover I wrote, "I will hide God's Word in my heart." I printed each verse on a different page in this booklet. I drew pictures next to each verse for them to color.

Mrs. Richardson gave them an animal farm picture to color. Then, they put foam animal stickers on the picture. They enjoyed having two crafts to do on this extra special night!

After craft time, I placed the "mini racers" on the FINISH line on the wall mural. We sang a couple songs, then Sir Teddy came out. He had on a gold medal and asked the kids if they wanted one. With the help of our assistant pastor, we were able to down load the Olympic theme music for our awards ceremony. I had the kids go up to the front and we gave them gold medals as the music played. We bought these from Oriental Trading Company, if you're interested. It was so much fun and they loved this treat we had planned for them. It was an awesome way to end an exciting week!