This summer was one of the best summers I have had in Kids Ministry! At FBC White Hall it was super busy but God did amazing things in the lives of our kiddos and their families. Here are some things you need to know happened:
1) Blast (Our Thursday VBS program in June) was back in full force this year after Covid restrictions. We had an awesome morning learning about how we have an awesome God in looking at the story of Joseph. We then had a fun activity each week including a trip to Urban Air, a movie day to watch Bad Guys, Water Slide Day at the church, and went roller skating. It was such a great time and we saw so many kiddos and families be introduced to our church.
2) Sports Camp was July 11-15th and we had over 40 kiddos experience their chosen sports of Cheerleading or Basketball. We had great leaders and youth helpers lead these camps. One of my favorite things was watching the girls at cheer decorate their cheer bows. They did so great! We are so thankful to the White Hall Community Center for allowing us to use their gym and they were great hosts to basketball camp. We are so grateful we were able to point Kiddos to Jesus during their small groups and can't wait to see how God uses that event.
3) Hang Time with Senior Adults is where we introduced our kiddos to more of the senior adults in our church. Due to covid, many children didn't really know the wonderful group of senior adults in our church. We has one Wednesday night that was a Game Night where there was a competitive game of Mexican train dominos and another Wednesday of fishing at the pond at the community center. This was such a great time and I really hope we can do this again to build those intergenerational relationships within our church.
4) Camp Siloam for our 3-5th graders was a wonderful experience! Our group had an absolute blast and 8 kiddos made decisions to follow Jesus! Our kiddos did so great and had the best time growing closer to Christ. The experience this year was fantastic and I cannot wait to take my kiddos back in years to come.
5) Fun nights in August included Paint and Praise Night and Camp Night where we painted a cross along to praise music in the background and talked about how we are God's workmanship in Ephesians 2:10. It was a really fun night! Then we had a Camp Night where we watched the movie Family Camp and ate s'mores. The kiddos loved it!
6) We added more resources to our Parent Resource Wall to help families going through hard things. We now have books to talk about issues with their kids about cancer, anxiety, depression, autism, racism, and disabilities. We added biblical info in the front to start conversations about what God's word says about these issues kids and their families can be experiencing or have questions about. As always, these books are totally free to borrow, we just ask you to return them after reading them to our resource wall.
All of these things were possible because of the Lord leading us to do them in our kid's ministry but I had wonderful help. We had so many volunteers this summer who gave up their weeks to help us. I am so thankful for all the work they did! I am also thankful for my summer intern, Isabella. The Lord has truly gifted Isabella and I cannot wait to see how He continues to use her in the future to make an impact in the lives of the children and families He calls her to serve.
Now, fall planning is up ahead and God has led us to do some amazing things in our kid's ministry. I cannot wait to share with you what He has done in the future! -Jennifer