I originally saw this post on BaptistCourier.com, and I just loved the story. You can see the original article here. Thanks to BaptistCourier.com for letting us share the store here on the VBS Blog!

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On Wednesday, June 22, during Vacation Bible School at Hepsibah Church, Seneca, 22 children accepted Jesus as Savior. For those who saw it happen, it was the light of faith penetrating the darkness of a power outage.

Jennifer Adams has been at Hepsibah all of her life. For the past decade, she has been director of the church’s Vacation Bible School and has served as VBS director for the Piedmont Association the past two years. Until this year, however, she had never had a VBS night like June 22.

LifeWay Christian Resources’ VBS curriculum designates Wednesday for the gospel presentation. At Hepsibah, where VBS takes place in the evenings from 6-9 p.m., that was part of the week’s planning. Pastor John McKnight, who has served the church since 1988, would present the gospel to all 1st-6th graders.

At about 6:20 on that Wednesday evening, a storm knocked out a substation, leaving the church without power. When the lights went out, McKnight had just explained sin and was getting ready to tell the children “about Jesus as the answer to that problem,” Adams said.

“You would expect a bunch of children to go crazy when the lights go out — chaos, with a lot of jumping around, screaming, and shouting — but that did not happen,” she said. “They just sat quietly, focused on Preacher John.”

McKnight continued “without missing a beat. The children acted like nothing had happened.” At the conclusion of the presentation, 22 came forward.

The electrical power remained off. A spaghetti supper was served by flashlight. Children were escorted to bathroom breaks by the light of cellphones. Those in charge of music downloaded it to their phones and kept teaching. T-shirt painting during craft time was completed by flashlight. At 8:40, the power came back on.

“We didn’t have electric power, but we had God’s power moving, and that’s all we needed,” said Adams. “This is one [VBS] we’ll never forget.” — SCBC

At the end of June I had the huge privileged of hanging out with a group of 6th graders in youth VBS. It was actually my first time to teach youth VBS, and honestly I had NO IDEA what I was getting into.

The group of girls I got to hang out with was quite simply amazing. Their desire to study and know God’s Word was so inspiring. Do you ever have those moments when you are teaching, and you look around just wishing there were other adults around to hear what you were witnessing? I had several of those! They were all moments that reminded me … THIS is why we do this. Because let’s be honest, we don’t have those moments every Sunday! Sometimes teaching is frustrating, but just when I needed it God used this group at youth VBS to encourage me.

And we had some serious fun. One night we made wallets out of Duck Tape®. One night we made spray paint t-shirts, and one night we even made bracelets out of soda pop tops (can you tell I really like crafts).

What I really was not prepared for was messy games on the last night. You would think after being married to a youth pastor for five years I would be more prepared. I was not.

Here’s the before picture (Courtesy of Wootton Photography):

After picture? There isn’t one. It’s that bad. Messy games consisted of crawling in maple syrup and flour, being slimed, wading in Kool-Aid. I promise I had to take two showers!

I’m already counting down the days until next year!

This guest blog is written by Jeremy Echols who normally spends time preparing for CentriKid Camps and writing for www.centrikidblog.com.

My favorite week of VBS is actually in the winter because it is at the VBS Preview.   I get to film lots of classroom decorations, behind-the-scenes interviews, and worship rallies for the next summer’s VBS program.  I work with Jerry Wooley and the super team of VBS Trainers to put together a flash drive full of great content.  

Just a quick reminder! Tonight’s the BIG night for CentriKid Live!

Come join us!

WHEN?

Tonight at 6:30PM EST | Tomorrow at 7:30PM EST

WHERE?
CLICK HERE!

And you can read my other blog post about it here. And don’t miss Debbie Ruth’s post from earlier today on Connecting Faith and Life.

This week we are going to be giving you a little behind the scenes look at what’s going on live here at LifeWay. And to fill you in on things, this week is a crazy, CRAZY week for us. We are currently working on shooting all the photos and videos for Amazing Wonders Aviation, which start on Wednesday. But, before we can do that, all of those beautiful sets you see in the catalog, Decorating Made Easy, and at VBS Preview Events, have to be built and assembled.

So, today, here’s a little visual representation of what’s going on particularly with The Great Barrier Reef set:

When we started assembling the set, we just had these amazing sheets of foam (painted by Pam Goodwin on the right):

Next we had to haul up these buckets of concrete. Talk about a work out, and please excuse the blur, we were in motion.

Next we started putting it all together:

So that’s where we are right now. I really can’t wait until you can see the set with all of this fun stuff added:

Make sure you check back tomorrow! Carol will be adding more “LIVE” information from the week!