Message Received: Hearing God's Call
St Thomas Vacation Bible Camp, Tuesday, July 28, 2015
Greetings from Vacation Bible Camp!
It’s been another great day at St Thomas VBC! Today the campers learned a Bible verse about
listening for God’s call. If you have a camper, ask them to
say it, and to do the motions for you!
It’s Luke 11:28 - Blessed are those who hear God’s Word and
obey it. The best part is the
jumping up at the end… they can show you!
If your camper came home with a red, blue or any other colored mouth,
that was from playing their “kazoos” before the paint was dry – it was too much
fun to wait! There were bubbles and blob
tag, the campers worked on blankets for the orphans, there were new songs and lots
of connections with children happy to be back in their groups with old and new
friends.
Today we talked about a how
people sometimes don’t like others who are different from themselves, and about
the truth that we are all special and different. Through the story of the Queen Esther,
(Esther 4:13-17), we learned that even when something is hard to do, girls and
boys can be brave and do what is right.
When Queen Esther learns that the king’s helper Haman wants to do away
with the friends of God, Esther takes a great risk in going to the king,
uninvited, and asking him to stop Haman.
Her uncle Mordecai, who was one of the grown-ups in her life who helped
her to learn to do what was right prayed for Esther, as did all of God’s
friends. The king was sympathetic to
Esther’s plea and became very angry with Haman (the “bad guy”), and replaced
Haman with Mordecai. Because Mordecai
was faithful, the king was compassionate and Esther was brave, the people were
saved. Ask your child which part s/he
played in the story in chapel! This
story was a good and important reminder that we can all share God’s Great Love
by listening for God’s voice and showing compassion. When we do what we know is good and right, we
realize that God can use all of us – no matter how big or little we are – to
help make the world a better place. We
also learned more about making the world a better place by bringing coins,
bills and prayers for the children at the Nuevo Creacion orphanage. Thank you for your helping your campers to
make such generous contributions.
Tomorrow at 10 AM, all of the campers
and volunteers will join our regular Wednesday parishioners in a service of
Holy Eucharist. We invite a anyone and everyone to join us
as well! Please know that at St Thomas
we practice open table fellowship, understanding that this is Jesus’ table and all may find a welcome invitation to share in
the bread and wine of Holy Communion.
A Note for Parents of VBC Campers: If you
would prefer that your child not receive communion, please talk with her/him
about that and tell them that they may stay in their seat, or come forward for
a blessing. If a blessing is preferred,
your child will be invited to come forward and place arms across the chest as a
sign that a blessing is preferred to the bread and wine of Holy Communion. Should you or your child
wish not to participate at all, please know that the children are welcome to
remain in their pew and that one of their group leaders will remain with
them. We have a couple of gluten-free
campers and they will be offered gluten free wafers.
We invite you to talk with your
children about your own family traditions and expectations and to help your
child feel comfortable with whatever your family traditions are. If you would like to talk with St Thomas
Clergy about Holy Communion, please feel free to contact me by telephone -
454-9541 or email – karen@stthomasmedina.org, or catch me before or after camp any
day this week.
We
are delighted to be sharing this time with all of these children… they are surely a
blessing to us!
Many thanks and
blessings to you and yours, Karen
†
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