Adventures in International VBS!
The following is a guest post from Ann Cretin, Lifeway International.
As our boys and girls have experienced the various continents and cultures this year during “Amazing Wonders Aviation” VBS, VBS volunteers have literally travelled around the globe training leaders in other countries in regards to Vacation Bible School these last few years.
II Timothy 2:2 “. . . commit to faithful men who will be able to teach others also” has come alive with VBS volunteers from TX, OK, AZ, TN, CO, AL, and others. About 10 years ago teams began to travel to Malaysia to help churches there conduct a Lifeway VBS. Churches got excited about the concept of VBS being an outreach for their church and their community. At one particular church, boys and girls can only come to the VBS if they bring with them a friend that doesn’t attend church anywhere. This church follows up through the entire year with these friends and families with special events to continue the relationship with them.
So we’ve seen Americans travel to Malaysia.
Then the Malaysians “got the concept”, and they then travelled to East Malaysia to help churches there train and conduct their first VBS. Volunteers have travelled to the Caribbean countries with this same mission at heart. Another team heads back to northern Malaysia in November. The request came in this week asking for a team to come to Taiwan!
Testimonies:
“It was an amazing wonder for training!” writes Sabrina from OK who went to the Cayman Islands.
“From a small VBS group of 50 children in 3 classes – Kindy, Middle Children and Preteens (2011) – they are going to have 6 classes and about 120 children. (2012) PTL!!” writes Poh Gek who took the first team to Miri, East Malaysia
“We had 356 kids at Saddle Ridge Ranch and 118 of them said the Sinners Prayer for the first time at our VBS. For the first time, we have seen growth in both our Sunday Schools due to the follow-up from VBS,” writes a friend from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Teaching boys and girls about global missions is wonderful. But have you ever thought about experiencing it yourself?
Ann Cretin
Lifeway International
Love this! I would love to travel around the world and share VBS! Our church is getting ready to take Amazing Wonders to NYC next week. Can’t wait to see what God has in store for us there!
The first week of July our church, First Baptist Broxton, did VBS at Missionary Baptist Church in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti. Our team of six were blessed to average 250 children per day. We also had the opportunity to travel to Maissade, up in the mountains, and had 160 children to come. What a wonderful week.