The basement of the United Church of Penacook is looking decidedly different these days. The space has been transformed with pine trees, a camp fire and even a forest canopy to create the backdrop for “Wildwood Forest,” this year’s theme for the church’s Vacation Bible School program.
For the uninitiated, Vacation Bible School, or VBS, is a week-long summer program offered by area churches nationwide. Kids are invited to spend their mornings at the church hearing stories, performing in skits, making crafts, singing and playing games.
As you might imagine, putting together a program like that takes a lot of work. This past May, Mark and Kelly Thompson, who attend United Church of Penacook, were asked to take over the VBS program. The two are no strangers to working with kids – they have three of their own, including 3-year-old Emily and 5½-month-old twins Madison and Connor. Mark recently left his full-time job as an LNA to be a stay-at-home dad (though he still picks up hours once in a while) and Kelly works full-time as an LPN. Between working, taking care of the kids and generally trying to stay sane, they managed to pull off a pretty amazing program.
The last few months were spent planning and gathering volunteers to be teachers and aides, and Mark and Kelly devoted four whole days to transforming the church basement with the help of some volunteers, just in time for the kids to arrive Monday morning. Mark got a painter’s cloth and draped the ceiling to create the forest canopy, and a church member donated a painted backdrop of trees from another church’s VBS program. Mark even created a campfire using real rocks for the pit, a fan, strips of yellow and red paper and a light to make everything glow. A rocking chair was placed next to the fire for “Old Man Story” to share the day’s lesson, portrayed by the church’s pastor, John Westhaver.
Here’s what a typical VBS morning looks like: Mark and Kelly and the teachers and aides arrive at 8:30 a.m. to set up. By 9 a.m., kids start arriving to “Harvest Grove,” an area with long tables where they can color until the program starts. Pastor John – who by this point had donned his mountain man costume, complete with beard – opens the day with a review of the previous session’s lesson and some prayer time. Then everyone moves into the theater area, which has a stage, the campfire and chairs for the kids. Pastor John/Old Man Story shares the Bible lesson for that day, and from there the kids split into groups to go to various activities. There’s a classroom for crafts and one for science experiments, and there’s also time to go outside and play games. After all that fun, the kids gather for snack, prepared by the cutest old ladies ever.
Mark, who acted as child wrangler/referee while VBS was in session, said the most rewarding part of being involved was getting to work with the kids one-on-one. Earlier in the week, he sat down and talked to a kid who had some issues behaving. The next day, the same kid came in with a letter of apology and has exhibited good behavior since. That’s the kind of thing makes it worthwhile, he says.
Next year, Mark is planning to come up with his own curriculum, rather than using the lesson plans that were provided. He also has plans in the works for a Jurassic theme, which after the success of the Wildwood Forest setup, should be pretty spectacular.
While visiting VBS one day last week, we chatted with some of the kids and helpers and asked a few questions about what they liked about VBS and how their summers were going. See “related links” to read what they had to say! In the meantime, enjoy our VBS slideshow. Thanks to Mark Thompson for providing photos.
