An Ode To VBS Teachers

I always loved Vacation Bible School when I growing up. Seeing my church building decorated with all the props and posters and displays always got me PUMPED for our nights of classes, crafts, and lessons. I always loved and appreciated VBS, but it wasn't until I became an adult with children of my own who are students that I really, truly appreciated what Vacation Bible School is. 

You see, it's easy, as a kid, to take all of the hard work and planning and preparation that goes into making a VBS possible for granted. It's easy to see the fake clouds suspended from the ceiling and the huge painted cardboard rainbow or the super sized airplane/puppet stage combo and think "Awesome! VBS decorations!" without thinking about the actual work that went into painting a 20 foot rainbow or dinosaur or airplane or hot air balloon or castle or palm tree or whatever else you could think of that is on display in the church building. 

*(By the way, have you ever knelt on a hard, linoleum floor for any length of time while wielding a foam paintbrush tracing outlines on bulletin board paper while trying desperately not to stray from the pencil lines that were drawn on it? Because adult knees can only take so much pressure before their kneecaps begin to protest and their joints seize up. When they finally straighten up from their hunched over position, they don't really straighten up from their hunched over position. They stand up and sort of hobble around for a bit, limping like a blind chicken looking for a feed bucket while they wait for the blood to begin circulate through their aching and abused joints. Then, after a few minutes of the 'blind, hungry chicken' dance, they can begin to walk normally again. This exercise has given them just enough time to refill the paint on their paper plate before they need to get down again onto their greatly protesting knees for yet another 12 minute round in the "Follow-The-Faintest-Pencil-Line-Ever-Drawn" game.) 

Being an adult, I can see now that VBS is a marathon filled with glitter and stapled butcher paper decorations and lessons and snacks and costumes and silly songs and prayers. It's a grueling race and sometimes it seems like you'll never see the finish line. But you KEEP GOING. Every night. Because it's an event that children will remember always and an opportunity to teach them Christ in ways that only a week of VBS can offer.

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 So, to anyone who has ever completed this marathon-like event called Vacation Bible School and lived to tell the tale: THANK YOU.

• To anyone who has ever dressed up in a VBS themed costume despite the sweltering summer heat: THANK YOU.
• To anyone who has ever stood outside in the afore mentioned heat while little children make vain attempts at playing yard games: THANK YOU.
• To anyone who has ever stayed up late into the night painting wall decorations: THANK YOU.
• To anyone who has ever taken a frightened (and often times screaming) child who is new to your church, to your class, to VBS, under their wing so they aren't scared: THANK YOU.
• To anyone who has ever scarred their retinas by staring into a projector while trying to trace Bible character outlines: THANK YOU.
• To anyone else who has volunteered to be the song leader, thereby forcing them to participate in all of the action songs, and thereby having to sing all 319 verses to Father Abraham: THANK YOU.
• To anyone who has ever cleaned out a WalMart shelf of black acrylic paint at 10pm: THANK YOU.
• To anyone who has ever driven two towns over in search of chocolate gold coins (or any other lesson manipulative that you absolutely had to have): THANK YOU.
• To anyone who has violated the rules of time and space to calculate individual class/snack/craft rotations for 5 different 35 minute rotations between 7 individual locations: THANK YOU.
• To anyone who has ever made a palm tree out of a pool noodle, some butcher paper, a few fake fern fronds and some fishing twine: THANK YOU.
• To anyone who has ever written 3,481 different children's names on sticky backed name tags at a registration table: THANK YOU.
• To anyone who has ever taken the 17.2 hours required to make that layered rainbow Jello snack to go along with a Noah's Ark Rainbow lesson: THANK YOU.
• To anyone who has ever walked a neighborhood in the thick summer heat to pass out flyers and invite your neighbors to VBS: THANK YOU.
• To anyone who has used one of those staple-remover claws to pull out 291 staples out of classroom walls after the VBS decorations have come down: THANK YOU.
• To anyone who has swept, vacuumed or mopped a floor after a night of crafts and glitter and sand and sticker paper and glue dots: THANK YOU.
• To anyone who has ever taken somebody else's child on a bathroom break: THANK YOU. (You just wiped a hiney for Jesus.)
• To anyone who has ever stepped outside their comfort zone and invited their neighborhood children to ride along with them to VBS: THANK YOU.  
• To anyone who has laminated and cut out little, tiny, itty bitty, individual versions of memory verses or book marks or crafts to hand out to the students: THANK YOU.
• To anyone who has ever burned their fingers on a hot glue gun: THANK YOU.
• To anyone who has ever glittered every scrap of construction paper in the building (and themselves in the process): THANK YOU.
• To anyone who has ever watched the VBS teacher's small children so that they can teach classes: THANK YOU. 
• To anyone who has ever prayed, in advance, for the work that will be done and the souls that will be reached at VBS: THANK YOU.
• To anyone who has ever done anything that could touch any soul for Jesus through Vacation Bible School: THANK YOU. Your effort has not been done in vain. 

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"...Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for the harvest." {Jesus, speaking to his disciples about the spiritual harvest.} 

James 4:35