One
of the things I love about the God we serve is that is not limited by our own
expectations. No matter what expectations we may have, he meets them, exceeds
them, and completely blows us away with what he’s doing and how he’s always
working to build up and encourage his Church, even in ways that we don’t
expect. This has been evident in so many ways this week, but for me it has been
particularly so in VBS.
For
those of you who may be unfamiliar with the term, “VBS” stands for “Vacation
Bible School.” In the United States, many churches organize some kind of summer
day camp program for kids which usually includes lots of songs, games, crafts,
and, of course, learning about the Bible. One of the fun things about a trip
like this is that we have the opportunity to bring an experience similar to the
ones that American kids are used to having to the kids here in Swaziland. All
week we’ve been conducting a VBS program at the Care Point. We’ve been acting
out stories about David to show how God loves us no matter what, even when
we’re weak, scared, successful, and make mistakes.
Erica W.
All
of us who helped put the VBS program together are Sunday school and VBS veterans.
However, in any church program or mission trip, you encounter circumstances
that you can’t anticipate. Something I’ve discovered this week that I didn’t
expect is how big of a blessing VBS has been, not only to the kids, but also to
me.
What
I often forget is how much I depend on language to connect with people,
including kids. While the common language in Swaziland is SiSwati, the kids
learn English in school, and by the time they’re teenagers, many of them speak
very good English. The younger kids, on the other hand, don’t know how to say
(or understand) very much beyond their own names and ages. Though you can
communicate your love for the kids simply by playing with them and serving
them, in the presence of a language barrier I can’t help but feel a little
disconnected, and it’s easy to get discouraged.
It’s
just in that moment when God shows up through VBS. When we perform skits, one
of the members of the Swazi staff at the care point, Mbuso, translates for us,
making it possible for us to encourage them with God’s love in a context that
they understand. When we sing, the songs are in English, but by singing the
same ones every day eventually the kids are able to learn them. Sometimes I see
the kids walking around the care point humming the songs and doing the hand
motions as they go. One girl even approached me individually and asked me to
teach her the songs, as she genuinely wanted to learn them. VBS, then, becomes
a vehicle by which we can connect with the kids and feel like we have something
in common with them, despite language differences.
Something
else that I didn’t expect is that the adolescent kids have also come and
participated in VBS. When we prepared it, we expected the older kids to be
occupied doing other projects around the Care Point while we were doing VBS.
For this reason, many of the songs that we brought are ones that, in the
States, are intended for small children. Do the adolescents still appreciate
these songs? Again, it’s often hard to tell. But God shows up yet again, this
time through the words of one of the adolescents at the Care Point who wrote
these words referring to one of the songs in a letter to her sponsor: “I know
that my God is so big, so strong and so mighty, there’s nothing my God cannot
do.”
Surely
God is a God who knows exactly what we need and blesses us with even more than
we can even imagine. In all of those moments when I have not known what to say
or do, God has used his truth to bridge the gap and show me how much I can
learn from these kids’ enthusiasm to seek God and hold on to every part of who
he is. Every day God continues to show in so many ways how he truly does love
us—love me—no matter what.
