VBS Crossover Week Recap

VBS has already been over for a WEEK and I'm just getting around to writing about it now... where does the summer go so quickly?!

From July 8-12 was Vacation Bible School for preschoolers and children up to grade 5. It was an awesome week - lots of great volunteers, fun stations, cute kids, and so on. My favourite part of VBS is Crossover though!

Crossover events are an annual tradition - after VBS is done each morning we host afternoon events for preteens and young teens to help them "cross over" into Student Ministries. I love it because the students are awesome and it's a great way to get to know some of the kids in our community. This year was great as always! Older students can come and participate too, but we ask them to help us lead games or organize the masses. Special thanks to Dale, Frank, and Riley for being there every day to help!!

On Monday, we made lunch for everyone and spent the afternoon playing icebreaker games. It was a great way to get to know new students a bit better and burn off all their sugar-rush energy too!

On Tuesday, the students had a choice between field games (lead by Daniel) or painting a mural (lead by me). I think I got the better deal because painting was nice and relaxing with my troop of preteen girls, but the rest of the crowd couldn't handle the heat past 2:30 and came back early to rest!

I drew the mural before the girls got into the paint... here's the "before" shot

Some of the girls hard at work!

Here is the "after" shot. I'm going to keep working on the grass, sky and mountains during the summer.

On Wednesday, we did something new... PAINT WARS!!! Daniel got the idea from Sunshine Ridge Baptist (thanks Pastor Tim for the kiddie pools!). Usually we do Water Wars, but for a fun twist we played games with paint this year. We filled kiddie pools with red and blue paint and instead of throwing water balloons in bathing suits, the students threw paint-filled sponges with white shirts! It was an awesome (and hilarious) afternoon... but I apologize to the parents who had to scrub out their bathtubs later! We all have coloured shirts now :)

The clean photo.... not for long though!

Dakota and Lowen are pretty coloured already!

Emily looks like a smurf!

The after shot! I can still see traces of paint in the parking lot where Bob hosed them down!

On Thursday we carted everyone off to Centennial Beach for an afternoon of fun in the sun. The kids had a great time laying on the beach, looking for seashells, playing in the water, or hanging out on the playground. It was a great way to end our week (we don't do an event on the Friday of VBS because we help clean up). Thanks to Daniel, Bob, Shawna and Cody for driving. The only glitch that day was when poor Lowen stepped on a sharp piece of wood, but he was super brave and now we have this gross photo to remember the day!

Ewww!! Thankfully Shawna had a first aid kit and two bandaids later Lowen was back in action.

Overall Crossover was awesome!! I definitely went home and had a nap after it was done, but it was worth it... Crossover is the highlight of my summer!