Well my first VBS is officially completed as a DCE! We had a great turnout all week long and it really was a huge opportunity for us to reach out to the community around us. We averaged anywhere from fifty to fifty five kids every day through the week which was awesome! When you consider that we have about seventy to eighty people at church through the summer it becomes evident how much of an outreach opportunity this really is to bring in new families into the church.
Our theme for VBS this year was Amazing Wonders in Aviation, it was a program by Lifeway. It was essentially supposed to be an airplane hanger in the church sanctuary and we were traveling around the world to different sights and learning about God's power over everything. The kids seemed to really get everything that we were teaching them which was really encouraging to see. We had an AMC (Alaska Mission for Christ) group with us to help us with VBS from Illinois which was extremely helpful. One of the men in the group was actually the dad of another DCE intern in my program who is half a class ahead of me so it was another Lutheran small world connection, but still very interesting. The group was only eight people but they really helped out a lot in addition to the volunteers that Kristi (the former intern) had put together.
The week concluded on Friday with a huge carnival that all our kids and their families were invited to. We grilled out hot dog's, and brat's (not beer brats) and had a bunch of other food. We also had a group come in and do face painting and made cotton candy for the kid's. Essentially we got the kid's all sugered up right in front of their parents and then sent them home to go crazy.
The old intern left this past Monday morning and she will be greatly missed. She helped me so much in figuring out just what I had to do on a day-to-day basis but i suppose it was going to be my turn to take over at some point so now is as good of a time as any.
On July 3rd at midnight (technically July 4th) I went to fireworks at a local park. They wait til that late so you can actually still see them. It was still light out, but there was cloud cover so there wasnt any direct sunlight to ruin the show.
For the 4th of July we had a big BBQ out in front of the church for the church members and for anyone who happened to be in the area for the parade. The parade goes literally right in front of our church so we were able to attract quite a few people. I was responsible for putting together crafts for all the kids to do in the time waiting for the parade to get out in front of the church. We also had to set up our BBQ which consisted of massive coolers, I certainly got my workout for the day carrying those things.
After the parade we had an attempt at a softball game, which basically turned into batting practice and shagging balls between our secretary and a couple of other guys a few years older then me for a couple hours. It was the closest thing that I have had to an athletic opportunity with other people since I got here so it felt pretty good.
After the game I was invited over to dinner at one of our members house for a fish fry. The food was good, and the company was awesome. The couple, Jason and Lauren are extremely cool, fairly close to my age and have three kids who were at VBS last week so I knew them a little bit.
Animal sightings since my last post:
- Moose as I was turning into the mall in anchorage five feet in front of my car
- Another moose sighting during our softball game, He came right to the edge of theforest and was watching us play softball for about five minutes and then continued eating afterwords (IT WAS AWESOME)
Alaskan snow princess update: None
Volunteers for VBS
Our Moose friend watching us play softball
Install Service
