VBS - Wilderness Escape

This past week was VBS at our church. The theme was Wilderness Escape - how God led the Israelites out of slavery (and into the wilderness). We have some very creative people at our church and they did a great job transforming the church into an Israelite marketplace.

The kids were divided into "tribes" (the 12 tribes of Israel) and each tribe had a leader. I was leader of the Gad tribe. Sydney was in Asher and Kayleigh was in Issachar.

Each night we gather together for celebration - songs and a brief overview of what will happen that night.  Then the tribes split up and alternate between visiting tents (bakery, musician, potter, weaver and scribe), fun and games and their Bible lesson (in Moses' tent).

Earlier in the day, Sydney had gotten her bottom brackets for her braces so she couldn't stop playing with them. 

The first night they walked through the Red Sea on dry land...

For the third year in a row, I was asked to head up the missions part of VBS. To go with the theme of slavery, I chose to use International Justice Mission's "Loose Change to Loosen Chains" campaign.

Each night at VBS we talked about modern day slavery (at a VERY basic level, leaving out the forced prostitution part). We would put red Xs on our hands to help us remember to bring loose change the next night.

As the money came in, we would cut chains off this child slave. Each chain represented $5. I was thrilled on Friday to learn that all the loose change added up to $303! Pretty good for a group of 45 kids at our VBS.

I'm thankful the week is over. Our VBS meets in the evening, so it makes for a crazy, tiring week. Now we have 2 weeks of nothing (well...Syd gets her expander and braces, I teach violin, we celebrate an anniversary... not exactly nothing).