As the summer is winding down, one of the things that I am missing most from my childhood is Vacation Bible School. It was always a week of fun and of learning. I looked forward to it every year as a child. Learning Bible stories, doing crafts, getting snacks. It was just fun. Grandmother would pick us up in the morning and drop us off at church. She'd give us a quarter each to put in the collection plate during our morning service. We were always divided up by grade. Sometimes the grades were combined depending on how many kids were there.
A lot of the neighborhood kids who went to a different church would come to our VBS. And, in turn, we would go to theirs. Ours was always in the morning, theirs at night, though never on the same week. And it was always a time when kids who were members of our church but never came would show up for this. Probably because it was summer and something to do. Something to get them out of their parents' hair LOL Still, it was a great time. I remember one year when Sue Spiegel and Opal Faulk were the teachers of my class. We did the best crafts that year.
I don't remember there being any kind of theme to VBS like I see these days. Maybe there was, but I don't remember. And we didn't really do any kind of big program at the end of the week....there was no play or pageant. We just got certificates during the Friday morning service. It seems like nowadays there's a big show at the end of the week. Times change....VBS might as well change with them.
As I aged out of going, I started helping. For a few years, I helped out in the kitchen, preparing snacks. And we had great cookies. It seemed like all of the women in the church baked cookies for VBS. Diane Corts made the best peanut butter cookies. You know, the ones with the Hershey's kisses in the middle of them. I ate so many of those when no one was looking, I'm not sure the Bible schoolers ever actually got to try them. The cookies were such a long way from the butter cookies we'd get during regular Sunday school. Remember? The ones with the holes in the middle that you could wear like rings? Great they were, but they were no VBS cookies!
One year, Blair Davis and I helped teach the 4th & 5th grade class. All of our active youth group was helping out that year. Judy Jewell and Carmel Cheek were the teachers and we got paired up with them. I loved it. I haven't been able to help out any at a VBS at any of the churches that I have since attended. Usually, it's due to time constraints with work, but I would love to do that again one day. Actually, I wish someone would do an adult version of VBS. I could really go for some homemade peanut butter cookies and making some Christmas ornaments out of popsicle sticks and pipe cleaners! Who knows. Maybe one day!
