Vacation Bible School has been taking up my time the last few weeks. It's over and I'm pooped. But I must say I absolutely loved being part of it.
This year, I again had the help of my trusted grandsons as we ran the "
Bible Bayou" bible story station.
The first day grandson AJ was Moses and God talked to him in the burning bush.
You can't tell from the picture but the burning bush turned out to be pretty cool once I got it assembled.
Remember the patio furniture I bought. Well let me tell you -the big boxes it came in - came in very handy. I draped a brown tarp over one of the boxes and set a fan blowing upward on top. Sitting in the middle of the fan was a red flashing light like you'd see on a police car.
I stuck wooden dowels into a round stryfoam ring and stuck each leg down into the box so that the styrofoam ring was about 6 or 7 inches above the light on top of the fan. Next I taped long strips of red and yellow tissue paper to the styrofoam ring (thanks for your suggestion Wendy) then I arranged Boston ferns all around the fan to hide it and make it look like a giant bush. Behind the boston ferns was a red spot light. The fan, and both lights were plugged into an extension cord.
When I said the words:
"Moses was all alone up on the mountain ATLEAST THAT'S WHAT HE THOUGHT"
That was the cue for my stage hand to plug in the extension cord.
The fan blew the tissue paper streamers to look like flames coming from the bush and the two red lights gave the ferns an inner glow. When the kids finished oohing and ahhing the cd player was turned on, and a loud voice came out so it sounded like God was talking in the bush.
....Okay it didn't turn out as good as I'm making it sound. My mind percieves things that my body is not not capable of accomplishing, so in my mind this was going to be fantastic. Mediocore is a much better word for how it turned out....but hey, it was believeable enough for little kids, and they loved it so I'm happy.
Day two was the story of 9 of the 10 plagues. Duke, the oldest grandson was Pharaoh. The first plague was turning water into blood.
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In the picture notice the glass of water sitting on the little table.
When the kids call out to Pharaoh "Let My People Go", Pharaoh gets up from his royal throne which is made of 2 sheets of mylar draped over our priests chair. As Pharaoh walks away and pretends to be thinking over the request to let God's people go, I pour part of a packet of strawberry koolaid into the glass to make it appear like it's turned to blood.
Zach the third grandson (the one too shy to act), was our wonderful stage hand....
On cue he took off the blue vinyl table covering made to look like a river and exposed the red vinyl underneath - so it looked like the river turned to blood.
After Pharaoh sits back down and takes a drink of his water that has turned to blood and spits it out....it was Z's job to take the glass of water away fill it up with clear water to be ready for when the second crew arrived.
Bless his heart. I hadn't given very good directions and he thought he was supposed to bring it right back out. So while Pharaoh is still complaining about the bloody water, Z crawls back on stage (the alter) and tries to put the glass back on the little table. The glass tips and the water goes all over the floor. So Z crawls back off the alter and runs and gets some paper towels dries the alter floor then takes the glass back to fill it again. He comes crawling back out the second time and sets the water carefully on the table and it dumps over again. The table has a slot on top that can't be seen because of the table covering, and he keeps setting it over the slot.
I'm trying to go on with the performance and ignore what is happening at my feet just as Pharaoh is finishing up his lines, but I'm having to give direction for the clean up at the same time. The kids were oblivious because Pharaoh had captured their attention, but the adults were rolling on the floor laughing. Luckily it was clear water and not koolaid that spilled.
We finally moved on from the water fiasco to the boil plague. Each child was given a bright pink circle sticker to represent a boil and when Pharaoh falls asleep on the ground the kids came foreward and placed their sticker on Pharaoh.
Another time they stuck a clothespin representing the locust plague on him. I wish I would have had a video for you to hear their mischiveous squeals of delight. It was precious. And they loved the interaction.
The 10th plague was the "Angel of Death". This plague came the following day.
The kids painted the door frames of thier houses with sprigs of hysop dipped in the blood of perfect lambs...... Okay so they actually painted with bingo markers with plastic leaves scotch taped to the container. They ate their passover meal which was flat bread crackers. Then they crawled into their house and waited for the Angel of Death to pass over.
This set was made with tarps and grocery bags stuffed with newspaper and put inside each other. They resembled large stone blocks. I ran out of time to make the blocks because each house needs 8 blocks. We had 4 groups and each group had 3 crews. That means I would have needed almost 100 blocks for the day. Plus there wasn't enough time in between to set up new door frames so we covered them in 4 layers of paper and ripped off the top layer when each group was done.
This was a picture from the third crew and the houses were a little worse for wear already.
On the final day Moses led the people out of Egypt. It was a hot humid day and Moses didn't feel like being in full costume. The blue curtain behind Moses is the Red sea that he will part and the kids will walk thru. But first he leads them out to the desert.
AJ led the kids outside and around to the front of the church and then made a figure 8 up and down the aisles once back inside. It was a long hot walk and as they came back into the church one little girl named Jamie called out to me: "
How much longer do we have to do this. I hot and I'm tired and all we are
doing is walking around in circles.
I told Jamie that she couldn't have sounded more like the Isrealites if she would have tried and that that is exactly what they were saying to Moses.
When they finally got to the Red Sea they thought they could rest. But hiding behind the door were crew leaders with stones in their hands. They hit the stones together making it sound like galloping horses. We had to hurry I told them because Pharaoh had changed his mind and was coming for them. We started to walk fast and they started to giggle. Moses raised his staff and the fans started to blow and the water parted and the kids crossed safely thru to the other side.
And that dear friends is why I haven't had time to blog. The numbness in my feet is wearing off but not the smile on my face.
I pray that the next time one of these precious children feel all alone and think God doesn't care about them that God will bring this week to thier mind. I hope as they remember, they will take comfort in the fact that thousands of years later God is still in the business of caring about his people and doesn't plan to stop.
I love what the bracelet symbolizes. The "friends" is supported on either side by two leather cords. 
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