As summer winds down we have 1 more special event.  On Sunday, August 29 join us during the Sunday School hour for “A Taste of Redeemer.”  Each ministry at Redeemer will have a booth set up in the new facility to give you a taste of what that ministry does.  Come see all of the ministries Redeemer has to offer!  In order for families to experience the Taste of Redeemer together, there will be no Sunday School that morning.

Children’s Ministry will have several booths for you to visit.  Stop by the Oasis booth for a special photo opportunity.  Take a walk on the wild side at the VBS table.  Come hear all about the new opportunities for children to be involved in music ministry at the Joyful Noise table.  Put your hands to work for the Children’s Ministry service project.  Take the Backpack Challenge at the Children’s Ministry table.

There will also be a special drama presentation from the VBS Drama team and musical performances by Joyful Noise.  It will be a great morning!  Join us!

I just ordered our materials for the Oasis 2010-2011 year.  Do you have the start date on your calendar?  Starts September 8.  Get excited! 

Each month Sunday School designates its offering to go towards a different ministry.  This spring one month was dedicated to the Men’s Appalachian Mission Trip.  They used the money from Sunday School to buy the community center there a video projector.  Here is a note that was sent to Sunday School.

We were waiting until we had the video projector mounted on the ceiling so we could send some pictures together with our thanks for your group’s generous contribution to the Binns-Counts Center.

The projector will be a great help in our computer classes and also in a new project we are planning: to show educational and informational videos at the Center during the clothing sales.  At these sales, there are a sizable crowd of people and therefore, a good opportunity to reach a large audience with interesting and helpful information.

We hope to see you and all your friends at Redeemer Lutheran Church in the future and again, our thanks for your work and generosity.

Sincerely,

Program Director for Fourth World/Appalachia

God is using your offerings in big way!  Thanks for your support to all of the ministries that Sunday School supports!

Did your child have fun at VBS?  Are there some changes you would like to see made to this ministry?  Tell us all about your child’s experience in our 3 minute survey.  Your feedback helps us shape next year’s VBS.  We want to make next year better than this year and we need to hear from you!  The survey can be found at-

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/RedeemerVBS2010

Did you volunteer at VBS?  We have  a special survey for all of our volunteers to fill out too.  It can be found here-

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/VBShelpers2010

Thanks for helping us as we plan for next year!

Children’s Ministry received a few thank you notes in the last couple of days-

Dear Redeemer Lutheran Church VBS,

Thank you for your kind donation, which we received today.  Your generosity will make an immediate difference in the lives of the patients at the Children’s Hospital of Illinois.

Each year, Children’s Hospital of Illinois treats over 5,000 children as inpatients and another 30,000 through our specialty clinics.  Your gift helps ensure that we can continue to care for the sickest children of our region.  Further, you help us provide the comfort of having a children’s hospital close to home.

Thank you for your support of the Children’s Hospital of Illinois.  Because of your support, we will continue to be there for the children who need us.

Sincerely,

The Child Life Department

The children made over 312 care packages for the Children’s Hospital on Wednesday of VBS.  You can read about it here.

To Staff and Volunteers of Vacation Bible School-

Thank you!  Our children have had a very special week learning of God’s work.  Everyone has been so gracious, enthusiastic and caring.  From the door keepers, teachers, aides, kitchen helpers, and young people, everyone made us feel so welcome.  It truly was a special week!

It is hard to bee-lieve that VBS is over.  We really zipped, zapped, and zoomed through the entire week!  Friday was a bee-autiful day and once again the children were outside for recreation.  I can’t begin to tell you what a blessing that is!

Friday is always a very special day at VBS because it is ice cream day.  Our Bible story came from Acts 12:1-17 (18-19) where “God rescued Peter from jail.”  Peter was jailed in chains until an angel of the Lord come and rescued him from those chains.  In keeping with our Bible story, each child received a cup of ice cream that was chained by Magic Shell ice cream topping.  The children had to break through the chains to get to their ice cream just like the angel of the Lord broke through the chains to rescue Peter.  It was a fun snack!

In crafts, every child made an airplane.  Now that every child has spent the week learning about Jesus, we charged them to fly out in to the world and tell others!  Check out Mark’s plane-

Friday morning our Honey for Haiti jar was bursting out of the top because we collected so much money!  From Friday’s offering, we collected an astounding $915.30!  That gave us a total of $1516.82 collected with our daily offerings.

We also took an offering during our closing program and added that money to our Honey for Haiti jar giving us a grand total for all of VBS of $2100!!!  God really did an ama-zzzing work through His people this week at VBS and I can’t wait to send our check to the Children of Israel Orphanage in Haiti.  On Monday every child received a prayer card for a child in the orphanage.  VBS may be over, but please keep praying for your child!

Look how many children God brought to us on Friday to hear His Word!

We ended our week praising God in the Sanctuary as the children led us in the closing program.  This always brings tears to my eyes as we listen to the children sing of God’s goodness.  This year’s closing program was especially emotional as we said good-bye to one of our VBS directors who has been leading VBS for a very long time.  God certainly has used her ministry here in a powerful way.  As she leaves us for Ohio we know that God will continue to use her for His glory.

It was an awesome week.  God certainly blessed us in ways we never imagined possible.  We pray that all of our little friends had fun and grew closer to the Lord as a result.  We also pray that we will see you all very soon!

Hard to bee-lieve VBS is almost over.  We had another great day full of sunshine.  Hands down the best part was Recreation.  The children were so thrilled to be outside finally!  One of the 4 year olds told me afterwards that they all are very good at hopping like bunnies.  Lots of fun to be had with our amazing Recreation Team.  They have worked so hard this week to make sure that rain or shine, the children had a great time.  Thanks Rec Team!

The older children were invited to wear something with a cross on it today as the Bible story was “Jesus rose from the dead.”  We saw lots of different cross necklaces and many of the younger children wore the necklaces they made Tuesday in crafts.

Today’s craft was a lovely sun-catcher.  Who knew this-

Could make this-

Our snack ladies wanted every child to play with their food today.  Each child was given a sugar cooking and teddy bear crackers and got to play out the Bible story.  The cookie was the stone rolled in front of the tomb and the crackers were Jesus and the guards who were to guard the tomb.  But even the guards couldn’t contain Jesus!

Our Honey for Haiti Jar is filling up fast with another $196.60 added today.

And the hive was buzzing as we celebrated 332 busy bees with us today!

Climb into our hive and check out how full it is for the Food Pantry!  The food goes alllll the way to the back!

And today the theme for next year’s VBS was unveiled.  I’m already excited!  June 13-17, 2011.

Today was another great day at VBS!  One of the best parts of VBS is the music.  When the children walk into the Sanctuary and hear the music playing, they can’t help but to sing along.  One of my favorite parts of the day was during the closing program.  You should have seen how the 4 year olds danced and sang to the music.  They kept jumping up and down with the joy of Jesus!   We’ve got the beat here at Redeemer!

Today was a very special day at VBS.  During crafts each child made a bag for a child who is in the Children’s Hospital here in Peoria.  The children watched a short video during the opening and actually got to see some of the children who will be receiving the bags.  Our goal was to make 300 of these bags for the hospital and we ended up with over 312!

The children decorated the outside of the bags- both sides.

The children filled the bags with a toothbrush, a travel-sized toothpaste, a mechanical pencil, chapstick, a sticker sheet, a notepad, a small box of crayons, and a bracelet.  Every child at VBS was given 2 bracelets- one for them to put in their bag and one for them to wear.

These yellow and black bracelets say “BEE-lievers in Christ.”

Our 5th and 6th graders got a special treat during snack time.  Their teacher created a dome for them to eat their snack in and to just hang out.   It was very cool (literally cool- she used fans to keep it inflated).

Check out the inside of our hive and see all of the food we’ve collected for the Food Pantry.

Our Honey for Haiti is getting pretty full as today alone we collected $158.10

And we celebrated 333 children hearing about how Jesus raised Jairus’ daughter from the dead (Mark 5:21-24, 35:43)!

What a bee-autiful day!

Today was another great day at VBS!  When I woke up I was convinced that recreation would be outside.  When I got to church I realized rec had to be inside.  A little while later it seemed as if rec would be outside.  Well then the sky opened up and rec was officially moved inside.  We had lots of people praying for us through that storm.  The blessing of the storm was that those children who would have missed out on today’s fun due to swimming lessons where indeed able to join us!  God answered our prayers and kept us safe through the very dark storm.

God also answered our prayers in a BIG way when it came to our materials.  With so many children joining us we called CPH who produces the materials and ordered more to be overnighted to us.  They told us the materials would arrive by 10:30 this morning.  We really needed those materials by 9:55.  Sure enough, 9:35 the materials arrived.  Thank you God!

Here are just a few pictures of what happened in our “hive” as the children learned that Jesus does big things.  Our Bible story was John 6:1-15 where Jesus fed over 5,000 people.

The younger children painted these large fish beads and made these necklaces.  For some little fingers it can be hard to string those beads but they did a great job!

The older children painted these wiggly fish. 

Each day the Bible is told at a Storytelling Station.  The older children see a drama put on by our ama-zzzing drama team each day.  Yesterday the drama team used a dress-form that was dressed up as a person as one of their props.  The “audience” only saw the person from behind and it really looked real (it scared me so many times on Sunday).  Today the person surprised all of the children by coming to life.  They didn’t expect that!  Who would have thought a person was in there.

The drama ended with the children learning a new chant (this is just part of it).

We continue to collect money for the Children of Israel Orphanage.  Yesterday we collected $59.60 and today we collected $187.23.  Look how full our honey pot is getting!

And today’s attendance was-

Praise the Lord!  Please continue to pray for us.  Pray for great weather, safety, and that Christ is glorified in all that we do.

I woke up this morning around 5 am and the sun was just starting to peak out in the sky.  The sunshine didn’t last for long as an enormous storm blew through.  I can’t tell you how I prayed that God would let this large storm pass, keeping our children safe and allowing them to join us for Day 1 of VBS.  And it did!  Thank you God!

Today was awesome at VBS.  We had a record breaking attendance of 320 children!!!  To put this in perspective, last year we had 312 children registered for the entire week.  Hats off to our teachers and leaders who welcomed every single child with Christ’s love and worked with us as we ran around getting together all of the supplies needed for this swarm.

We are so thrilled to have these children with us this week.  Here is just a short picture re-cap of the morning-

This is the back-drop for the Preschool and Kindergarten Storytelling Station:

 This is the bee hive we hope to fill with food for the Food Pantry:

This is the honey jar.  As we collect money from our offering, the jar will fill up.  We hope to fill it to the top so that we have a great donation to send to the Children of Israel Orphanage in Haiti.  They trying to rebuild after the earthquake.  The children there are currently sleeping in tents on a socceer field until they have a new building.

Our snack today was “Ama-zzing Brownies.”  Each brownie had a maze drawn on it with a little bumble bee.  Our snack ladies are the best!

For our craft we made “Buzz Sticks.”  The older children got to help assemble them on the inside and everyone decorated the outside.  The music they make is ama-zzzing!

Each teacher adds their own special flair to their classroom.  One teacher has a very special way of directing her class.  It lights up and changes colors:

We had a great day!  Please continue to keep us in your prayers as we move on through the week.