It’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything on this blog. I guess I just got so caught up with life that I kind of lost track of my writing and this became yet another one of my abandoned, unfinished projects. Well today I’m ready to make a comeback and post a brand new story. Since I’m volunteering with Vacation Bible School at my church this week (ironic with the title here) , I thought I would share a story about when I attended VBS as a kid and how it conjured up a fear in me that still affects me to this day…
The year was 1999. I had just finished Kindergarten and was attending VBS at the big Lutheran Church that my family and I were members of (not the same church I attend today). We had so many kids signed up every year that each grade level had a completely separate group, so there was a Kindergarten class, a 1st grade class, a 2nd grade class and so on and you were placed in a group based on what grade level you were entering in the fall. Our theme that year was “The Great Bibleland Dig”, which centered around archaeology and digging into God’s word. Each class represented a different gemstone and wore special VBS shirts everyday that matched the color of that stone. This made it easy to identify which group we were in, or so we thought! My 1st grade group was the Red Rubies, so we wore crimson colored T-shirts everyday that week as we walked around the church and switched between the different stations (music, crafts and games/snack) and then back to our assigned classroom for the Bible story. Other than the incident that traumatized me, the thing I remember the most about that year at VBS was the crafts. We made these big stones out of cement with our handprints in the middle and decorated them with different materials such as seashells, coins and glass beads. We also made round cardboard treasure boxes that we glued gems and beads to and then they took our pictures individually and we attached them to a frame space on the top of our boxes. The crafts were all really fun to do and fit the archaeology theme perfectly!
VBS that year was a lot of fun but there was one incident on the last day that scared and upset me to no end and conjured up a brand new fear in me that I still have to this day. It was our last day of VBS and we were all in the big sanctuary area so each class could perform the song they learned that week at the music station for their parents and fellow VBS attendees. After each class got done singing, we all got up to head back to our classrooms in our groups for pick up time. I still don’t know how this happened to this day but I somehow managed to get separated from my group! One minute I was trying to follow two girls from my class and the next I was stuck in the middle of the sanctuary and couldn’t see anyone from my group. There was also this chapel or Church service type thing that was about to start, so as I was standing there I could see lots of adults and people I didn’t recognize walking in. As a young child this was a very scary experience. There I was alone in a big church sanctuary full of strangers who were quite a bit bigger than me and completely separated from my VBS group. At that age I had no idea what to do so I just stood there by myself and began crying. Lucky for me the 4th grade group walked by and my older sister who was in that group discovered me alone and crying. She then was like “Come on Colleen, I’ll walk you to your room.” So I let Celia guide me out the doors of the sanctuary and down the stairs where all the classrooms were. When we finally reached my room, my teacher felt so bad that she didn’t notice I was gone when our class left the sanctuary and was quite apologetic about it. I forgave her but I’m pretty sure I was still crying when my mom came to pick me up. When she heard what happened she was sorry that I had gotten lost but grateful to Celia for rescuing me!
Ever since then I have always been afraid of getting lost. I remember in group situations as a kid I was always very adamant about staying with my group and making sure I was always around people I recognized. I was also always nervous about moving up to a new school because I would constantly worry that I wouldn’t be able to find my classes and would just get lost. Even to this day I still get apprehensive when entering an unfamiliar building alone and fear getting lost. But I have learned to always look for any signs that might show me which direction to go and to not be afraid to ask someone for help if I’m unsure of where to go.
Overall, even though I had this experience as a kid I still have lots of good memories of attending VBS and enjoy volunteering for it every year at my current, much smaller Lutheran church!
Colleen💕
No comments:
Post a Comment