Last Day of VBS

I am sad. Today was our last day of VBS with the kids. We have had such a great time and the children were such a blessing to all of us. We started out with all the kids playing with the large parachute and foam balls. They absolutely love that parachute!! Travis told the story of Jesus' birth and Sara did a puppet skit about Scooter the raccoon was happy that his baby brother was born and that he was happy about Jesus' birth too, so he had a birthday party. We then had two more stories from Travis and Linda and then our craft. I finally feel like the craft went well. They really seemed to like coloring the ornaments of baby Jesus. But what they were really excited about was game time. We split them into two groups, younger and older, with Stacey in charge of the little ones and Kate and Courtney with the youth. The younger kids really seemed to like the bean bag games, but when we got to the last game they were very excited. We had them take balloons, pass them to the back of the line and then the last person had to sit on it and pop it. Stacey, Travis and I demonstrated it, and let me just tell you, the ground was a bit farther down than I thought.

At lunch time we were so tired but pretty hungry. The translators ate with us, which was nice. We started with soup and then they brought out the sarmalis (ok, I know that I still spelled this wrong, but I think I might be closer?) and I was so excited. Apparently so excited that Tom, Travis and I had a little contest to see who could eat the most. Guess who won?? ME!! The men ate 10 and I ate 11. Sara and Anna made me a lovely balloon crown and dubbed me queen of the sarmalis. Travis then figured out that in total the three of us ate 31 sarmalis....that is a lot!!

After lunch we headed back to the park. The kids were waiting for us, which was great. We started out with the Resurrection story, a puppet show and another craft. These children really seemed to be interested in what we were telling them. After we split into game groups again. The youth played snake tag, red rover and dodgeball. They really seemed to like the games Courtney and Kate had for them. The younger kids played bean bag games again. Toward the end we had a party for them with cookies and water because of the heat and sticky factor of any other kind of drink. Once they were done, Sara and Anna started making balloon animals. All of a sudden they were bombarded with children asking for different animals, but in Romanian, which made it a little difficult. But the translators did their best to help them. Travis finally had to tell the kids no more so we could pack up.

I really do believe that the children (& some of the parents too) had a great time. I know we did.

Good night and we miss you all!!

- Megan