Day 7: It's Friday!
We can't believe it's Friday! Today we had our last full day of VBS. We sang songs, reviewed verses, had craft time, did a lot of running around outside, and Jeff taught on the last C-Consummation. We are so thankful for the time we've had with these young kids. Even at this young age, you can see the joy that community brings and the need for it. Most of these children don't have friends on the mission field. They are isolated and spend most of their time around adults. Seeing them together and watching them interact with one another is really sweet. They also love the attention. Every time we sat down, there would be one of our VBS kids sitting down right next to us to talk. Our desire this week was to be as faithful as we could to love and encourage these young people and by the Lord's kindness, He's given us many opportunities to do just that. I shared about Mia in a previous post. She has been willing to stay in VBS as long as her mom stayed for the first 30-40 minutes or until she felt comfortable. Today, she let her mom drop her off without staying!
Today was a special treat as we got to take the youth on an outing for the afternoon. After voting, it had been decided to go mini-golfing. We hopped in our vans and drove about 30 mins to mini-golf. We were surprised to find out that in Germany mini-golf is very different. Each hole is given different point systems. The goal is to earn the most points at each hole with the least amount of strokes because at the end you would divide your total points by the number of strokes to find your final score. It was fun! Our team split up into groups with all the youth and enjoyed time and conversation as they played. Afterwards, we went back to the conference center and enjoyed pizza.
Before we left for Germany, our youth wanted to bring candy and gifts for all the youth. We played a white elephant game with all the gifts wrapped up. The youth all seemed to enjoy their gifts. The rest of the evening included eating candy and playing games until bedtime.
As with the younger kids, the youth just flock to one another. After talking with many of them, they have shared how they don't really have many friends. This conference means the world to them. There is one other time in the year that they get to gather together and that's at a teen conference held in the winter months. I'm reminded of how blessed we are at our church that we have the privilege to live life with other believers regularly and how much I take that for granted. Please continue to pray for these young people as they try to navigate their faith without community, many of them in cultures that are very difficult to live in. During the teen time, they had an encouraging discussion about relationships, dating, and God's gift of singleness and marriage with the young adults. As they talked about the cultural differences, one young 14-year-old boy talked about how romance and physical attraction are very strong in his country. It was helpful to discuss how to have a biblical focus on God's design for men and women.
Being here has really given us perspective on the hardships these missionary families face, and yet they remain faithful. Why? Because Christ is worthy to be worshipped and there are so many who do not know Him. The joy we have in knowing and serving Christ far outweighs the world's definitions of happiness. This is their passion and they are willing to lay down the ease and comfort of life for the sake of His name! What a testimony these missionaries have and what a joy it has been to sit and hear their stories.
Tomorrow we wrap up our VBS time and get to present to the families all that the students learned this week. We also get to do a team excursion before coming back here in the evening for a "talent show" fun night! Looking forward to a great day...but right now I'm looking forward to a great night's sleep!!
Enjoy the pics.
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