Vacation Bible School

Our Little Church for Vacation Bible School

The first time I met Kate she explained how things worked in Stabler. "We mostly keep to ourselves around here"   I expect my invitation over to dinner was the cultural equivalent of showing up in someone's medicine closet and asking to follow them around all day.  I've gotten better at respecting that.  But the isolationist culture makes it rather hard to find kids to play with.  The event of the season is always Vacation Bible School (VBS by the 11 year olds).  Having been raised in Utah at first I didn't get how big a deal VBS was for a small town.  But here, it is the one time all of the kids in the neighborhood get together. Most of the kids are home schooled and there aren't any playgrounds where they congregate. So VBS is the watering hole of little kids

  Kate arranges the food and gets donations from local businesses.  A nearby youth group actually puts it on bringing games and bible verses.  This year the missionary that is supported by the congregation (bear in mind...that is roughly 6 regular attendees) came to help.  She usually lives in Taiwan where she preaches but she came back to fund raise for a car.

My kids and I are LDS (Mormon) which means we don't really have a lot of experience with Evangelical type religions.  Compared to most other Christians, we are pretty restrained.  Our hymns are kind of boring and during our service we mostly just hold still and listen.  But we totally believe in the bible.  So even though we are pretty different from the evangelical Christians, we are definitely close kin.  Doctrinally, evangelicals have some pretty big beefs with LDS.  But the evangelicals of Stabner are Christians and kind and welcoming.  Even though I put LDS on the registration line labeled "church" my kids never felt anything but love at VBS.