Hardy Street Baptist Church VBS.

This past weekend was Vacation Bible School at Hardy Street Baptist Church.  I loved VBS as a child, and it is so much fun for us to experience VBS through the eyes of our children now that they are old enough to participate.  The theme for the weekend was "The Lord lights up my darkness," from 2 Samuel 22:29.  I love that verse, and I loved all the lessons we learned this week about how Jesus is light and because He lives in us, we are also light.  

I love love love the beach, so it was fun to see our church transformed into a beach for the weekend.  I loved seeing all the lighthouses, sea gulls, ships, etc.  

I was a crew leader for the weekend, and my job was to lead my crew around to the various activities.  Our group name was the sea turtles, and I don't believe I could have had a sweeter group of children.  

One of my favorite things we did was the station called project with a purpose.  Instead of making a craft to take home, each child put together the ingredients to make soup for a family.  After Bible school was over, some of the leaders from our church took our soup to Christian Services here in Hattiesburg to distribute.  I love it!  

We wrote our Bible verse theme on a cute little bag, which would hold the soup along with instructions for how to prepare it.  The children even got a chance to taste the soup, and some of them really loved it! 

Here's our rotation schedule for the day.  Instead of doing a week long VBS, our church opted to do a weekend schedule.  Friday night, the children and their families came to register, get their Tshirts, meet their crew leaders, and have ice cream.  Saturday was the main day of Bible school where we utilized the above schedule.  It was such a smooth day!  Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves, and I just loved the sweet attitudes that seemed to be all around.  

Recreation is always a big hit.  I loved to watch the older children interact with the younger ones.  They were really sweet and caring.  

Here are my sea turtles!  Loved being with them.  Three of my turtles are upcoming third graders, and I was reminded this weekend of just how much I love working with that age group.  They love to learn, are eager to learn.  And yet, it's still okay for them to like their teacher, too!  

The children were blind-folded for our first Bible story of the day.  We learned how Jesus healed a blind man by rubbing mud on his eyes and telling him to wash in the pool.  The children were able to experience darkness firsthand, and we even rubbed oatmeal (mud) on their foreheads, so they could experience that as well.  

Our big three!  

Carter, Summer, and Tilly had so much fun participating in Bible school activities throughout the day.  Story had a great time, too.  She and a few of her friends spent the day with some very special ladies in our church.  

Sunday morning, the children who participated in Bible school had the opportunity to lead our congregation in worship.  It was wonderful to see so many children singing and giving praise to God.  

I spot Carter and Tilly.  

I didn't realize that the crew leaders were going to be on stage, too, ha!  David took some pictures from his seat in the congregation.  He couldn't get everyone in the picture from his vantage point.  Summer and I are on the far left beside the lighthouse.  

The two songs we sang were "This little light of mine" and "Jesus Messiah."  

There's Summer shining her little light!

And one more picture of my big three, mostly because they are just so stinking cute!