VB-Old-School

No excuse this time; I just completely forgot to make a blog post last night.  After dinner, I reminded myself it was something I needed to get around to before bed, but by the time I had done the dishes and put the kids to bed, I never thought about it again until this morning.  I'll blog on Saturday to make up for it.

On to my topic du jour.  One of the summer staples of my childhood and teenage years was Vacation Bible School: 9 AM start; pledge-allegiances to the US flag, Christian flag, and Bible; stand-up and sit-down chords; Bible stories, music time, and crafts; kickball and duck-duck-goose in the hot gym; a different snack every day -- popcorn, ice cream, cookies -- always served with fruit punch; pick-up at 12 noon and an afternoon free for swimming or whatever else a summer day held.  Even after I was out of the target age group, VBS remained a big part of my summer, only now I was a teacher/helper/volunteer.  From three or four years of age to twenty, I was involved with VBS.  Some summers I even went twice: once at my own church and once again at my Aunt Jimmie's church.

Of course, "old school" VBS didn't last out my involvement with it.  By the '90's, there were already too many working moms to keep holding VBS during business hours.  It slipped to the already-hectic evenings, and volunteers had to get home from work, eat some kind of quick dinner, and have their classrooms ready to go for a 6 PM start.  Instead of being fresh in the morning, the kids were already tired from a long day by the time we started.  The first few years, our church tried to keep the three-hour run time, but nine o'clock was just too late for the smaller kids, not to mention for the workers who had to wait for parents to pick up their kids, get their classrooms ready for the next day, and get home and in bed themselves before the alarm went off the next morning.  Fifteen hours of VBS was cut to 10, and then to eight as churches decided to turn Friday evening into "Family Night" to get the parents to show up for a hard-sell on the church.  The VBS I knew has basically been halved.

Oddly enough, this doesn't actually halve the amount of work involved.  It actually increases the stress on the volunteers, as there is more time pressure on them to move the kids in and out of activities on time; there's no leeway to finish up a craft project that runs long or have a question-and-answer session about the Bible story.  I'd rather be part of a reasonably laid-back three-hour session than a two-hour one with the clock pressing down on me all night.  Faith went to an evening VBS at our church two summers ago and always came home with a half-done craft in a baggie with instructions on how to finish it.

Last year, our church held an all-day day camp instead of VBS.  Faith slept hard every night, and we were all exhausted by the end of the week, but she had a blast.  This year, though, it's back to two-hour, four-night VBS.  The Presbyterian church in our neighborhood is actually holding an old-school, nine-to-noon, five-day VBS ... and of course, it's the same week the kids are already signed up for Museum School.  Sigh.  I'd totally sign them up.