Tue., Jul. 29 - Wed., Jul. 30

Here are pictures of the VBS set. I took these early one evening when there were just a few of us there.





The final picture in this blog shows the "oven" of the bakery. I'll explain the oven with that picture.



Now, panning to the right, here is the 'stage' where Pilate (played by Jeremy - in a Roman official costume) [Which, yes, I'm frustrated that I didn't get a picture of that. But I might be able to get some of the pictures others took.] stood to hand down judgment on Jesus during the "Crucify Him!" crowd scene. That door to get onto the stage goes almost directly into one of the doors of Jeremy's office. (Another door opens into the south foyer.)


It seems to work effectively with the children to have a puppet be the M.C. So, they built a puppet show location into the design for the Jerusalem Marketplace, in addition to the puppet show in the front corner of the auditorium. Originally the well was designed to be in the center of the marketplace. However, when the air conditioning sprung a leak (Thank goodness our building remodel project starts in 2 weeks!!), they pulled out the blue plastic from inside the well, and just dropped a garbage can down inside the cardboard; then they moved it over to catch the leak, and someone posted a hand-written sign reading, "Kidron Brook" ... feeding the well, evidently. LOL!!



The Registration Table, aka "Census".



My favorite part of the pottery shop is the window someone painted!



Okay. Well, see the door (to the kitchen) that's tucked under the Jewelry-Making Shop? Behind it is the entry to the baptistry. So the bakery's "oven" was designed with a pull-down front so the baker (Teresa) could set into it the un-baked little mounds of dough the children made for their craft. Then, during the marketplace skit for that night (always in the middle of that night's craft session), the assistant teacher for each class went back into the baptistry and opened the pull-down back of the oven and removed the balls of dough, replacing them with pre-baked rolls. heehee! Creative!! It seriously had Justus fooled. I had to completely explain to him that there wasn't a real oven in there!!!!!



The most exciting thing about Tuesday was that the weather was pleasant enough for Jeremy and the children to take the dogs on a walk! I was able to get a good amount of weeding done (We have green tomatoes about the size of plums.), and I made good progress on some computer work. The children spent much time this day on the computer and on the piano. An additional interesting thing about the past 2-3 weeks is that I have been getting to bed HOURS earlier than usual because there have been so many early mornings. Some little one at VBS must have been carrying a cold virus because I fought it the remainder of last week, and the children have been fighting it since Friday. :( We've needed all the sleep we could GET!

On Wednesday I weeded a bit more, made more computer progress, and actually did some house cleaning (gasp!)! One highlight of N and J's day was that FINALLY we were able to make it to a crafting hour at the library! Living in Pleasant Hill is so ... (a-hem) PLEASANT!! The library is about 4 minutes from our house, and the grocery store is BETWEEN HERE AND THERE!!!!! I stopped there for one item, and felt ssssso thankful for the extreme convenience of it! We packed up our supper that evening and took it to the building to eat with Jeremy!! :)

Sadly, on Wednesday there was another passing of a church member, Ms. Bertha. This was an 87-year-old woman who had been in a nursing home for a long time because of dimentia, and who took a very bad fall the Friday before. There was nothing left of her bones, it turns out, so it's not that she *broke* a bunch of ribs, but that they crumbled inside her and busted her up completely. :( I never got to meet her, but Jeremy especially enjoyed two of his three visits to see her. (One was a 'bad (dimentia) day'.) Ssssssso, a group of ladies got together to plan the meal we convinced Ms. Bertha's family to let us prepare to follow her funeral. I was so pleased when, on the way home, Natasha said, "I would like to be the one to make the dessert for the funeral of the lady who died."

Here are the funnies I wrote down that were injected into poor Lyndsay's (head teacher) efforts to teach this 3's & 4's VBS class. 3's & 4's are SO FUNNY!!!!!!

Jacob S. must not be used to seeing his last name's initial follow his first name. The first night while he was fiddling with his name tag, he got very concerned and said, "Hey, somebody put an 'S' on my name!"

At one point during the lesson one of the little girls, OUT OF THE TOTAL BLUE, plopped a foot up on the table and asked, sweetly, "Do you like my new shoes?"

Another unexpected interruption was: "I have a dog named Tiny!"

The VBS program kit came with head coverings (Children in Bible times had to wear a head covering in Synagogue School, I guess.), so it was, "These bandanas sure are purple!"

Madeline was inspecting Remi's nametag: "Wow. My name is way bigger than yours."

Lyndsay was talking about reading out of God's book, the Bible. And, you know, it's not like these comments are whispered or spoken quietly, they're *almost* shouted, most of them. "MY PRESCHOOL HAS BOOKS!!" In this same context about reading, Robert stated: "I can read 'Wah-bert'." Two seconds later Sadie piped up, "I have a little pink Bible from the Easter Bunny!"

Lyndsay, slowly and methodically: "Now, what did Jesus do to his disciples' feet on the night of the Last Supper?" Remi: "I don't have disciples; I just have friends."

In the dramatic productions Dan was playing the High Priest, his son Tim was playing the soldier, and Jason was playing Jesus; I already mentioned that Jeremy acted Pilot's part. After "Pilot" allowed the Jews to crucify Jesus, he (Jeremy) exited into his office and the other three exited into the south foyer and then gathered in Jeremy's office where they each grabbed up a chair to wait out the next activity. Well, as the assistant teacher for the 3's and 4's, before we could go to the next activity I had to take the little boys to the bathroom that's opposite Jeremy's office, off the south foyer. There's one toilet in there and I had five little boys, so as they were getting through I had them wait with me by the drinking fountain there ... RIGHT across from Jeremy's (open) office door. When Little Boy #5was through with his business, we lined up and walked back across the marketplace, through the kitchen, toward "Synagogue School", our next activity. Jacob's mom (Hi, Tammy!) was working in the kitchen, and he broke formation to race in there with this concern to share, eyes wide: "Mom! They took Jesus into JEREMY'S OFFICE!"

Later, after hearing that story, Alan (elder) said, "Well, there's a good side and a bad side. The bad side is that now we have our 3's & 4's believing that our preacher had Jesus crucified. The good side is that we might be able to use that to control any behavior problems. They'll *know* it's serious if they ever get sent to Jeremy's office!!"