Vacation Bible School... VBS... the road to Egypt Files was a frustrating one; on more than one occasion it seemed that VBS this year would once again be little more than silliness with a poorly done Gospel message tacked on the end. However, the Lord was VERY KIND to me this year and we made use of Answers In Genesis' Egypt Files. I was keen on using it after reading the book "Already Gone" and watching Ken Ham's State of the Nation 2009 - when it was examined just how many are leaving the Church, why they are doing such, and the horrifically young ages that they set their minds to do so (elementary school). Egypt Files was written with this data in mind.
I was responsible for crafts this year. I have never led any group in VBS before yet the Egypt Files made it as simple as possible for me. Granted, I being the nut that I am always made sure to have a back up craft (most of which were provided by the craft book) on hand in the event of finishing early as well as a lesson to help drive home the teaching of the day.
Day 1: Slithering Snake Game and Backpacks: the snakes were clay the children molded with instructions how to play the old Egyptian game along with popsicle sticks to decorate. The snakes took longer than I thought (honestly all the crafts took longer than I imagined them too - I had practiced and thought I took into account their young ages). Many decided to try to mimic my,last minute, hair-brained thought to make the snake in a striking pose... resulting in an extra five or so minutes to make the snakes "just-right". The director and I thought that it would be neat to give the kids backpacks to decorate and store goodies from VBS. Only the blindingly white bags ordered didn't fit in my mind, so I dyed them with old coffee I had brought home from my shop ages ago and never got around to actually brewing. The dried result were bags varying from sandy-white to chocolate, depending on the way I wrung them - not quite what I intended but they looked like they survived a sandstorm and the kids loved them. The kids used markers to write hieroglyphics (an alphabet chart was given in the craft book) and whatever else they wanted to personalize their bags.
Day 2: Phantastic Photo Frames and Door hangers: craft foam frames, a foam piece with the day's Bible verse along with self adhesive foam pieces made up the lovely little frames. After the first group (which was made up primarily of kids that were five and six years old) we gave them scissors to cut apart the pieces to their liking.
Day 3: 4-Given Crosses: these sweet cross key-chains were a thorn in my side to teach. It's a good thing I was unaware of how big a problem they would be because I would have had all do the pre-school craft otherwise. The pre-schoolers did "Magic Scratch Crosses" and loved them along with my first group (the handful of older kids in the group enjoyed them as well). The beaded key chains were done almost entirely by myself and the helpers even with the ten year olds and older... This day left me no time for the mini-lesson I had planned as I had done the days before. On prior days and Day 4 the children were able to work and listen at the same time.
Day 4: Braided Basket with Love Cards: the heart cards were for the children to write the names of those precious to them and decorate then place in the woven baskets they made. The boys did exceedingly well with this craft and had almost all the girls crushed when it came to completion time - which simply meant that the boys actually finished on time and were able to choose from the special beads to finish their baskets.
Day 5: Snappy Sandals and Concentration Game: I thought the kids would finish in a "snap"... lame as the joke was the kids were slower. I had planned on having the kids cut the sandals out themselves and then I would punch the holes and we would move on to the sandal designing... after the first group whose sandals I had precut and punched due to their young age took so long I realized I needed to change plans and fast. The paper-cuter is my friend. Seriously, that heavy duty straight blade was the only reason I was able to get so many foam sandals cut in the moment of change-over time that I had. I had copied the Concentration Game as a last minute thing because I thought the sandals would be completed in only a moment... it wound up being a take home craft.
The Egypt File crafts were wonderful and diverse. My helpers were ecstatic with the selection - the only ones not from the book being the crosses and backpacks - and the kids seemed to enjoy them as well.
The skit was also wonderful, with lesson reminders and humor for all. I had adults and children alike saying how they enjoyed the skit - and as the character Claire I loved participating.
As for the lessons, I'm not sure, I never looked over the lesson book. I've used AiG curriculum in my Sunday School class, while I supplemented it at times with extra bits from their own books and things I learned, I was content. However Egypt File lessons did not please the lesson leader. She claimed that it mocked evolution more than give evidence for creation, I cannot argue the contrary. So she decided to change it to be more Intelligent Design oriented and brought in experts from their various fields to give various lessons.
I heard that ordering and general help from AiG was slow - due to the speed with which things have occurred between me and them in the past - my guess would be that they were overwhelmed by the number of orders of their curriculum. Then again, it could also be that the VBS companies (whose focus is VBS) were simply faster due to VBS being the primary nature of their work.
In closing: the Lord was very gracious to me this year in many ways. My church actually did the Egypt Files for one thing and focused on evidences of a creator (instead of story time). Also, last year we maxed out at 70 kids (preschool and elementary combined), this year we had 106 kids total with 28 being in the preschool!!! I pray that the Lord Jesus would continue to show such kindness to my church and would do the same for others.
