So much of what is said carries the echo of a complaint.  People usually do not hear the words that flow out of their mouth.  The same is true of typing.  You can easily begin to make explanations that become negative or weary.  Last week is one of those examples.  Busy is one word that describes it.  We began VBS last Sunday night.  Our schedule said it would run through Thursday evening.  It did.  This makes for a hectic week.  There were also still the usual interruptions that follow along.  Several trips were made to town for ministry times.  The good news is there was only a wedding to contend with on Friday and Saturday.  One advantage is the time passes very quickly.  The problem is trying to keep up with the demands without wearing down.  Maybe we survived all the madness of the week.  I just know that I am glad it is over.  


Different people may hold various points of views on the success of our VBS.  Let me say from a professional perspective that it sure seems more difficult to attract the numbers we once did. I spent most of winter and spring trying to locate a decent week to hold our event.  Ours is a world of sports camps, summer school plus other family time.  This looked like the safest time to attempt our venture.  We still did not pull the amount of students you would desire.  A few will point at that as a mark of failure.  I will disagree.  Our students worked as leaders for our school.  They did an amazing job in learning what truly goes on with a project of this size.  Noe one could be prouder than me for their efforts.  We did have some awesome kids come through to learn, play and just have fun.  That smaller number seemed to take it all in each evening.  We collected about 250 cans of food to go to our local food ministry.  That seems pretty unreal to me.


We also had some of our kids make various decisions about their faith.  One of my favorite children came today to go public with her desire to become a follower.  There are more who will come along in the future.  We had three children from out of state in attendance.  My guess is there church background is not much.  Those kids received the truth of scripture into their world.  We gave them the chance to discover who Jesus is and what He can do.  Those things matter.  I know other churches struggled this summer with VBS attendance.  Our plight is not our own.  What we did accomplish is to do our best with God's help for whoever crossed our path.  I count that as success not failure.


Now we head back to the usual routine of living.  School begins in about four weeks.  Rhythm will return to our small town.  God's activity will keep moving along.  We joined Him in that journey in a special way last week.  One can only hope we continue to share that adventure.


Bro. Trey