Well, it’s hard to believe that we’ve come to our last
day of Vacation Bible Camp! It’s been a
wonderful week, filled with God’s love and generosity! We have appreciated having your children with
us and invite you to join us on Sunday as the Vacation Bible Campers and Choir
Campers sing at our 10:15 service. Have
your children wear their camp t-shirts (they did the artwork on them,
themselves!) and meet Jessica at the organ in the front of the church at 9:30
on Sunday morning for a quick music review.
The youth storytellers will be our preachers on Sunday and it promises
to be a wonderful and wonder-filled time.
Today we talked about sharing God’s love with all the
people we meet. We know there are people
who don’t get along with each other – sometimes we don’t even get along with
our own family members! That was true of
the Jews and the Samaritans in Jesus’ time too.
They didn’t get along, and their disagreements were about right and
wrong ways to behave, especially in terms of religion. So imagine the surprise of a Samarian woman
who had been marginalized because of her religion, her gender and her lack of a
husband (a big problem in the 1st century Mediterranean world), when
a Jewish man spoke to her! In her world,
it would have been unheard of for a man to speak to an unaccompanied woman, in
fact it would have been unheard of for any Jew to speak to any Samaritan! Yet speak, this man did. He was thirsty, and he asked the woman for a
drink of water, for she had a bucket and he did not. She gave him the gift of water, and in
return, he offered her the gift of living water. This was water that gives not just physical,
but eternal, spiritual life too. And
while it may not all have made sense to her, she knew something very wonderful
and powerful had happened in that encounter.
She knew that she had been changed, and her response was to run through
the town telling everyone to come meet the man who offered life-giving water to
all. That’s what happens when our hearts
are filled to overflowing…when we are filled with love, our response is to go
and share that love with others. We hope
that your children have experienced the richness of God’s love at St Thomas
this week. They have surely filled our
hearts with love, and we’ve surely been blessed by our time together. We hope to see your children and their
friends at Vacation Bible Camp next year, and welcome them at Godly Play each week,
where the incredible and ancient stories of God and God’s people come to life
each Sunday.
All God’s blessings on you and yours…Faithfully, Karen †
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